Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton's blunders on the campaign trail have tarnished his reputation as a political virtuoso.

After he made yet another campaign-trail blunder, Hillary Clinton has told her husband to back off. Many in the Democratic party, even those in Bill's corner, would like him to back off, too. The debate about his political legacy is effectively over, and no one but a handful of prominent Democrats will argue that his presidency was salutary for the Democratic party. Present circumstances reinforce that judgment. Bill has been pilloried for his conduct in this campaign. We've seen his bad side -- temper tantrums, parochialism, arrogance, promiscuity with the facts -- and none of his good side. His post-presidency cocoon, gilded in no small part by the American taxpayer, seems to have left him ill-prepared for the modern news cycle. He's certainly no longer his party's best political strategist.

Campaigning for her mother on college campuses, Chelsea Clinton has faced repeated questions from students about the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Chelsea's answer has evolved since the question was first posed at Indiana's Butler University late in March. On that occasion, she replied with a terse: "I do not think that is any of your business." At N.C. State, her response was more elaborate. "I think that is something that is personal to my family; I'm sure there are things that are personal to your family that you don't think are anyone else's business, either," she told the questioner, but then added: "On a larger point, I don't think you should vote for or against my mother because of my father." At Purdue this week, she had a "let's talk about the issues" answer ready that was worthy of her Dad: "If that's what you want to vote on, that's what you should vote on. But I think there are other people (who are) going to vote on things like health care and economics."