There's Method to Bill Clinton's "Madness"
"We're going to have a few arguments
It's a contact sport,"
a cheerful Bill Clinton said
Hillary called him "a tremendous asset"
That he is
His anger may be nothing
more an affectation
to gain a tactical edge
in the battle
But it's working
Don't Mess with Bill
Barack Obama finally gave vent to his exasperation on Monday. "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes," Obama snapped in the midst of the ill-tempered presidential candidates' debate in South Carolina.
The comment came in an exchange with Hillary Clinton but it referred to attacks launched by her husband.
The offensive against Obama has hummed with such intensity that even Dan Balz of the Washington Post - one of the least hyperbolic of campaign trail reporters - was moved to remark on the "methodically aggressive campaign" run by Team Clinton since the former First Lady came third in the January 3 Iowa caucus.
Hillary Clinton pointed out during the CNN debate that her rivals' spouses have also made their presence felt this election season:
"Michelle [Obama] and Elizabeth [Edwards] are strong and staunch advocates for their husbands, and I respect that," she said.
But one element, not exhibited by the other spouses, has punctuated Bill Clinton's campaign trail appearances: what looks like genuine eruptions of anger.
The most celebrated instance came the day before the New Hampshire primary. With the polls indicating that his wife was facing a defeat that would have imperilled her entire candidacy, the former president seemed to go off the rails during a town hall meeting.
He lambasted the media coverage of the campaign, sought to undercut Obama's claim to have been consistently against the Iraq war and concluded, "Give me a break! This whole thing is the biggest fairytale I've ever seen."
Last week, three days before the Nevada caucus, Clinton's temper seemed to bubble over once more. A TV reporter in Oakland asked him about a lawsuit filed by supporters of his wife in relation to caucus procedure.
An apparently incensed Clinton, eyes narrowed and index finger jabbing, railed against the "accusatory way" in which he said the question had been asked.
He also contended that certain voting precincts had been given disproportionate influence under the caucus rules, and suggested that everyone in those places would have "a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct."
Almost all caucuses weight precinct results to some extent, and Clinton's complaint was exaggerated at best.
But he got riled up again two nights later, alleging that he and his daughter Chelsea had witnessed an attempt at voter suppression by a union that had endorsed Obama.
"I haven't seen anything like that in America in 35 years," Clinton told the crowd. "They think they're better than you."
Bill Clinton's public displays of irritation predate Obama's Iowa victory. During an interview with PBS's Charlie Rose in December, he became so aggitated that his aides apparently wanted to stop the filming.
On that occasion, he suggested that supporting Obama required a willingness to "roll the dice."
Clinton's outbursts have caused serious unease in Democratic circles. It is not just Obama supporters like former senate majority leaderr Tom Daschle - who accused Clinton of behaving in a way that was "not presidential" - who are complaining.
Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Rahm Emanuel, both of whom are unaligned in this year's race, have reportedly placed calls to the former president, urging him to tone down his rhetoric.
That's no small thing coming from two men who are, to put it mildly, not inclined to flinch during bouts of political hardball.
The media and political observers have reacted with consternation to Clinton's behaviour.
The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson penned a column in Tuesday's op-ed section, headlined: "What's Gotten Into Bill?" Robinson wrote: "This doesn't look and sound like mere politics. It seems awfully personal."
Time magazine's Joe Klein last week speculated at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations that "an element of unwitting sabotage" could be behind Clinton's hot-tempered comments.
And when the New York Times carried a report on Friday headlined "Bill Clinton, Stumping and Simmering", it quoted James Thurber of American University.
"The bottom line is his outbursts don't help the campaign. They become an issue, and it can grow into a real problem," the professor argued.
But are those outbursts for real? Do they really bespeak a visceral and incoherent fury, a tendency to let emotion trump judgment? Do they harm his wife's interests?
The answer to all three questions: not necessarily. The man whom one Hillary campaign aide recently described as "the best political strategist in the world" is likely to be well aware of anger's tactical usefulness.
In a political culture that seems ever more spin-dried and desiccated, the media lust for unguarded moments - or, at least, moments that look that way.
And when those moments centre upon a former president whose psychodramas have long fascinated millions of his compatriots, they are prized all the more highly.
An outbreak of Clintonian ire can cut through the usual hubbub of campaign noise like a klaxon.
The image of an out-of-control Clinton is so compelling that it also serves as an amplifier for whatever point he is making. Many pundits have suggested, wrongly, that Clinton's most heated remarks are aberrational.
In fact, every tantrum so far has occurred whilst sounding a vital campaign talking point - the notion that supporting Obama is a huge gamble, that the young senator's appeal is fundamentally fake.
That a Clinton loss in the Nevada caucuses - widely, though incorrectly, predicted at the time the former president reared up in Oakland - should be seen as insignificant.
The sheer spectacle of Clinton's explosions is so over-powering that the media reports that inevitably follow are dominated by what he said and how he said it. Questions about whether his statements are true can get pushed to the sidelines.
The complaint about the Nevada caucuses was a classic example. The basic story was simple and compelling: an enraged former president condemns an attempt to fix the game against his wife.
Was the game actually fixed? Hardly. But finding that out for sure required a complex and patience-testing journey into the labyrinthine world of caucus procedure and precinct-weighting.
(The Obama campaign has since filed a complaint with the Nevada Democratic party documenting 1,600 irregularities reported by its supporters.)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Clinton's relentless attacks paint Obama into an exceptionally tricky corner. If the Illinois senator does nothing in return, he seems timid and permits accusations to go answered.
If he strikes back, he surrenders the moral high ground and cankers the freshness that is a central part of his appeal - witness, for instance, the unfavourable reviews he received for his combative performance at Monday's debate.
The third option is to put up a proxy to counter-punch at the former president. But who has the heft for the job?
Obama's most frequent stand-ins are his wife and his chief strategist, David Axelrod. Both are razor-smart, and neither is reluctant to throw a rhetorical sharp elbow.
But they cannot match the wattage of the most charismatic president of the past quarter-century.
"We're going to have a few arguments. It's a contact sport," a cheerful Bill Clinton said yesterday. His wife, speaking at the previous night's debate, had called him "a tremendous asset."
Indeed he is an asset. His anger may be nothing more an affectation to gain a tactical edge in the battle. But it's working.