Kiev
There is an Asian proverb that says "sit by the river long enough and you will see the body of your enemy float by." Something like that must be going through the head of George W. Bush these days, and he probably chuckles at the charge made this week by former President Bill Clinton that Sen. Barack Obama is using the press to funnel smears against his wife, New York's junior Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

How soon the Clintons forget the despicable lows to which they themselves sank in casting aspersions on the honor of George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) in the 1992 presidential campaign.

During that campaign Clinton's artful dodging of the Vietnam draft was contrasted with the fact that Bush 41 had served his nation as a naval aviator in the WWII Pacific Theater, having been the pilot of TBM Avenger as part of VT-51 squadron aboard the San Jacinto aircraft carrier. The elder Bush flew 58 combat missions by the time he was 20, making him one of the youngest pilots in naval aviation. At about the same age Bill Clinton was writing letters about how he needed to preserve his future political viability, Lieutenant JG George H.W. Bush was dodging anti-aircraft fire in order to reach his assigned targets and drop a load of 500-pound bombs.

In a 1985 article written for Naval Aviation News one of Bush's squadron mates, Jack Guy, was interviewed and told the author "I can't say anything but good things about him. In WW

This article was written three years before Bush became president and seven years before the 1992 campaign. In other words, at a time when there was little attention focused on Bush 41's war record and quite some time before the controversy about Bill Clinton's having avoided conscription gave cause for the Clinton campaign to try and denigrate Bush's own war record to divert attention from the issue of how the Arkansas Governor had stayed out of the draft.

Maybe you remember what happened next. A poison-pen trashing of Bush 41's wartime exploits appeared a month before the election in the New Republic. Did the Clinton apparatus have a hand in that? You make the call. The author was Sidney Blumenthal, then still nominally a journalist, but before long a valued Clinton retainer specializing in trashing the Clintons' critics.

Now Bill Clinton himself has assumed the hatchet man role, which is usually the purview of vice presidential candidates. But, with the family business as stake, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

The Washington Post reported today on an exchange Clinton had with CNN correspondent Jessica Yelin regarding the current war of words between his wife and Obama. "They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover. This is what you live for. They just spin you up on this and you happily go along." As aides steered him away, he scolded: "Shame on you."