WASHINGTON – Bill Clinton trotted out a crude anatomical joke about President Obama, saying “he’s luckier than a dog with two d—-” to describe his comeback in last year’s presidential election, according to a new book.
Clinton made the dirty canine quip “again and again” to friends, according to “Double Down,” the latest campaign book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.
The book, which like its predecessor “Game Change” about the 2008 election, appears to have heavy sourcing from within the Clinton camp, describes lingering tensions between Obama and Clinton.
After a 2011 golf game with Bill Clinton, according to the book, Obama told an aide: “I like him … in doses.”
In another scene, Obama nearly boiled over after his agenda leaked to the press. At a large gathering of staff in the White House, Obama fumed to subordinates: “I told you that I trusted everyone in this room. But now somebody has betrayed that trust.”
After his disastrous first debate performance in Denver, aides held an “intervention” with Obama. They gave him a one-page cheat sheet with such pointers as: “Strong Sentences to Start and End.”
When the often verbose Obama would drone through answers in practice, his debate coaches would yell out catch phrases: “’Fast and hammy! Fast and hammy!” and “Punch him in the face!” in a reference to GOP rival Mitt Romney.
Under the heading of “BEST HITS,” Obama was advised to stress “47 percent” – a reference of Romney’s gaffe about the poor — “Romney + China Outsourcing,” and to employ the phrase “sketchy deal” to refer to Romney’s economic plan — which ended up as one of the key lines of the second presidential debate.