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A Fragile Unity

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By MAUREEN DOWD

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 1, 2008

UNITY, N.H. - UNITY, N.H. - Some people were mingling well on unity day.

Hillary's chic body woman Huma Abedin got along great with Obama's charming body man Reggie Love; the two, with their dates, shared a dinner the night before at a Georgetown hot spot.

The Bamary press corps meshed effortlessly. The Hillary Fox producer nodded to the good old days by passing around a video mashup of the former foes' greatest hits: Hillary mocking Obama, saying, "Enough with the speeches and the big rallies!" and Obama saying, "Shame on her!" after Hillary said, "Shame on you, Barack Obama!"

Reporters and photographers crept toward the front of the plane, where the victor and the vanquished sat side by side, trying to analyze every smidgen of body language for amity and jollity.

The new political allies engaged in what one Obama aide sanguinely described as "comfortable, jovial small talk." Obama told Hillary about using his Mac to keep in touch with his daughters, and she regaled him with tales of completely unidentifiable dishes you get served on overseas trips. They commiserated about the loss of privacy.

They did not, however, commiserate about Bill Clinton, who is in a self-pitying meltdown about not being Elvis anymore, trying to shake down Obama for more - more apologies for perceived snubs and more help paying off the $22 million Clinton debt.

It's hard to fathom why Obama should be mau-maued into paying off the debt that Hillary and Bill accrued attacking and undermining him, while mismanaging the campaign and their nearly quarter-billion-dollar war chest so horribly that one Hillaryland insider told The New Republic that it bordered on fraud.

But the former president can't stand being a loser, so he's taking it out on the winner. When it comes to Bill, there's a lot of vanity but very little humility in Unity.

Maureen Dowd is a columnist for The New York Times.

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