Back when Bill Clinton was being hounded by Kenn Starr and the Republican Congress, I was one of those Clinton supporters who never once thought that President Clinton should resign. Even when it turned out that the affair was for real and that he'd lied under oath. In hindsight I was wrong.

For the good of the Democratic Party and for the future of the nation Bill Clinton should have stepped aside. (No question that what the Republicans were doing was despicable, but after all it was Clinton who gave them an opening to take him down.) Al Gore would have assumed the presidency and it's hard to imagine a scenario where President Gore wouldn't have wiped the floor with George W. Bush. Imagine eight years without Bush!

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Instead, we had months of toxic wrangling as President Clinton stonewalled, lied, clung to power, fought back, and stayed in office--and in turn damaged his administration, Al Gore, and the Democrats. In the end, what was good for Bill Clinton was terrible for us.

I find myself thinking of the Clinton imbroglio all over again because now Hillary Clinton seems not to know the difference between what's best for the Democratic Party and the America people and what's best for Hillary and Bill Clinton (I'm sorry, but no fool believes that you get one without the other).

Even the Clinton camp has acknowledged at this point that all of the stars have to align just right and that the Obama campaign has to step in quicksand for Hillary Clinton to get the nomination. Is this a good reason to drag out the nominating process, so that the Clinton campaign can possibly triumph on the ashes of the Obama campaign? Or, alternatively, that Barack Obama can triumph only after a drawn out and bruising battle with Hillary Clinton? How do any of us benefit from either sorry scenario?

Back in the early 1990's when Bill Clinton was campaigning against the Bush/Quayle incumbents, he introduced a slogan that became a rallying cry at campaign events: "It's time for them to go!" And now that time has come again again. Unfortunately, the Clintons have given every indication that they're following the same playbook all over again. And, just like the last time the Clintons failed to leave the national stage when they should have, it's the Democratic Party and the American people who are going to pay the price.

It's time for them to go.

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