Name: Blood Feud
Rating: 3.4 (28 reviews)
Author: Edward Klein

What’s in it for me? Discover the animosity that rankles between past, present and (perhaps) future presidents.

Modern politics are all about spin and slick PR, but we all suspect that behind the scenes it’s a whole other story. From time immemorial, politics have been a cut-throat business – literally! Plenty of feuds between powerful families throughout history were acted out with armies and assassins.

However, in the modern world, these quarrels aren’t settled on the battlefield, but in the media or on campaign trails. Rivals (at least in the United States) no longer try to kill each other, but that doesn’t mean they don’t fight dirty.

These blinks take you on a journey through the most bitter feud in current US politics, between an earlier two-term president, the current one and perhaps the next one too. If you want to understand American politics, they are essential reading.

In these blinks you’ll discover

how responsibility for the Benghazi incident was used to score points;
why Bill Clinton hinted that Obama would be more suited to serving coffee; and
why Obama said that Reagan was a better president than Clinton.

The animosity between the Clintons and the Obamas runs deep.

At a Wellesley College class reunion in 2013, Hillary Clinton, according to one attendee, aimed heavy criticism at Obama, calling him “incompetent and feckless,” and going so far as to say “you can’t trust the motherfucker.”

What inspired this vitriol? Was it simply a lack of confidence in Obama’s skill as a statesman? Far from it. It was revenge.

Let’s take a trip back to the 2008 presidential election. During the course of the campaign, Bill thought Obama had essentially put a “hit job” on him by implicitly calling him a racist. Furthermore, Obama snubbed Clinton by implying that Ronald Reagan had had a great impact in a way that “Slick Willie” had not.

Bill, who wanted to be remembered alongside FDR and Reagan as a great president, was deeply wounded by these remarks.

Moreover, Bill begrudged Obama for never seeking his advice during his campaign. Even George W. Bush had reached out to him!

Bill’s disdain for Obama has developed into a visceral hatred. In fact, he has even said that he hates Obama more than any man he’s ever met.

Hillary’s resentment of Obama is similarly intense. It all started in the 2008 primaries after the Obama campaign said that she couldn’t be trusted, implying that political calculation – and not conviction – was her sole motivation.

The Obamas share this disdain, feeling that the Clintons are racially insensitive and morally bankrupt. According to Senator Ted Kennedy, Bill has said of Obama, “A few years ago, this guy would be getting us coffee!”

Michelle has held a grudge against Hillary ever since she became aware of Hillary’s aggressive, over-the-top attack on Edward Brooke, the first African American ever to become a US senator, during her time at Wellesley College.

The Obamas also feel that Bill spends too much time flying around on his private jet, dubbed “Air Fuck One,” and feel his shady deals with shady businessmen, such as Nebraska multimillionaire Vinod Gupta, are done in return for campaign contributions, compromising his integrity.

Obama realized his 2012 re-election bid hinged on the Clintons’ support.

If we don’t like someone, it’s easy enough to simply screen their calls and hope we don’t run into her on the street. It’s different in politics. In fact, sometimes you have to jump into bed with your enemy, no matter how much the thought may sicken you.

In August 2011, things weren’t looking good for Obama. According to a Gallup poll, only 41 percent of voting-age Americans thought Obama was doing a “good job.” Similarly, a Pew poll showed that of the 52 percent of independent voters who voted Obama in 2008, only 37 percent wanted him re-elected.

Bill Clinton’s support helped Obama get re-elected, but it came at a cost.

Over a game of golf, Obama convinced the former president to help him seek re-election. Clinton was delighted with this opportunity – not only would it secure Obama’s support for Hillary in 2016, it would also give him an opportunity to ultimately plan his treachery against Obama.

Clinton’s main contribution was convincing people that the faltering economy wasn’t Obama’s fault. This was critical, as 56 percent of eligible voters at the time deemed Obama’s economic policies, the so-called Obamanomics, a failure.

The Benghazi controversy deepened the feud between the Clintons and Obamas.

On 11 September 2012, a group of Islamists attacked a US diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, killing four American citizens, including ambassador Christopher Stevens. While it isn’t entirely clear what transpired on that day, it is clear that Obama was poised to put Hillary Clinton in the firing line to avoid taking responsibility for those deaths.

In essence, Obama forced Hillary to play along with a cover-up story she knew might harm her in the future.

The Clintons exacted their revenge once it became clear that Obama would not support Hillary in 2016.

Obama faced a number of difficulties during his second term. Not only was Congress rejecting all his proposals, but the Clintons, who felt Obama wouldn’t keep his implicit promise to support Hillary in 2016, had also begun to exact their revenge.

Obama made revenge easy with a series of blunders, such as the roll-out of Obamacare, whose webpage had promised that purchasing health insurance would be as easy as “buying a TV on Amazon.” Yet nothing worked. The page crashed continually, the policy explanations were all wrong and the sign-up process didn’t function properly.

Key ideas in Blood Feud