Here’s an adjunct note to Kristin’s post, below, regarding the Clinton Hydra.  Bill Clinton has been called America’s “first black president.”  This is meant both as a joke and in earnest, but however it’s meant, that idea may be dying with this campaign.  You’ve probably been reading about Bill’s antics of late, where he’s cast himself in the role of (to mix mythological metaphors) a Cerberus, the hound of hell, attacking Obama like nobody’s business.  Bill has gotten and is getting a lot of flack for these attacks, for acting “unpresidential,” for generally being a mudslinger, playing bad cop to his wife’s good cop.  This mudslinging took on a racist subtext in South Carolina:

[Bill] Clinton reminded reporters out of the blue that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ‘84 and ‘88. And he ran a good campaign. And Senator Obama’s run a good campaign here. He’s run a good campaign everywhere.”

What do Jesse Jackson’s victories two decades ago have to do with this year’s Obama-Clinton race? The Obama campaign is nothing like Jackson’s. Obama isn’t running on Jackson-like themes. Obama rarely refers to Jackson.

Clinton’s comment alludes to one thing, and to one thing only: Jackson and Obama are both black candidates. The silent premise of Clinton’s comment is that Obama’s victory in South Carolina doesn’t really count. Or, at least, Clinton is suggesting, it doesn’t mean any more than Jackson’s did.

On Fox News this weekend, William Kristol suggested that, if a Republican had said something like this, he’d be labeled a racist and sent packing from the campaign.  Regardless, Bill Clinton’s history and legacy with African Americans, which has already been shown to be based on misperceptions, may be dead.