It was "reported" as beltway gossip that the Kerry team would have preferred Clinton NOT release the book in June 2004. The reason was not that the content of the book was negative about Kerry, just that it did make it harder for Kerry to get enough coverage of who he was. Had people learned more about him, it could have made him less vulnerable to the Republican lies in August.
One problem was that most of June was lost to the media canonizing Ronald Reagan as an American saint when he died. Obviously that was not timed for political reasons, but it did mean a period where there could be no politics. Losing July to a huge number of Clinton appearances was a loss he did not need. I seriously do not think that Bill Clinton would have put that book out right before the election had Hillary been the candidate. Why? He had to know it was not only distracting, but the first question in nearly all interviews dealt with Monica Lewinsky. Just what any Democratic nominee would have wanted as the prelude to their convention! (In fact, I saw MANY posts here bashing Lewinsky for putting out her book saying that putting it out more than two years before the Convention was designed to hurt Hillary Clinton.
At one time, I wondered if this was intentional - after all Kerry winning would both mean that Hillary could not run until 2012 (unless she challenged a sitting President) AND that the Democrats would be in the Presidency as the wars continued. Even if Kerry could have ended them earlier, as we see this week, he and the Democrats would be blamed by the Republicans if Iraq (or Afghanistan) ever erupted again or changed to be something we dislike. The latter could be looked at as pure politics, but it is clear that Kerry losing led to a 2008 where Republicans were highly disadvantaged - in both houses of Congress and the Presidency. A Kerry presidency would have been one where both houses were controlled by the Republicans. Add to that, that sitting in 2004, the logical 2008 candidate - if Kerry lost - was Hillary.
At this point, after seeing how badly Bill Clinton hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign, I think a more likely possibility is that as charismatic, brilliant and talented as Bill Clinton undeniably is he is somewhat undisciplined and self focused.
As to 2004, I think it might be that the country was still too traumatized by 911. That might explain why the media did not give Kerry the normal puff piece biography that every campaign was given by the three networks - even though his biography would have made that far easier than for most campaigns. They also severely limited the amount of any of his speeches and rallies that were heard - other than on CSPAN. Not to mention, all they covered was any attacks on Bush -- which they often implied were wrong. It was notable that when he and Teresa did their book tour on THIS MOMENT ON EARTH, many commentators and people here said this was never on issue he raised. Yet in nearly every stump speech, he argued very optimistically, that developing the new green technologies needed to deal with climate change would stimulate the economy, lead to cleaned air and water, better health, and would decrease reliance on an unstable Middle East. (Unfortunately in the domestic debate, moderated by Texan friend of the Bush family, Scheiber there was no question on either energy policy or the environment.)
While it was interesting to see the media in 2008 praise everyone from McCain to Obama for similar speeches that used almost the same words, an observation could be made that in 2004, the media itself did not consider this an issue to be raised. What was strange about the media in 2004 was that it equated any negative comment on Bush's conduct on the war as something unseemly. Yet, the war and national security were the ONLY topics they thought mattered. The only times Kerry got any unfiltered coverage were 1) when he won primaries, 2) his convention, and 3) the debates. This leads me to think that even if Clinton did not put his book out, it is not clear that Kerry would have had more coverage in July. The near blackout was clearly very intentional on the part of the media. People have said that the problem is that too many people were still to bonded to Bush because of 911, I think the truth is that this was true of large parts of the media -- who had some personal exposure to Bush.
So, I end up thinking Bill Clinton was likely conflicted on whether he wanted Kerry to win. He did campaign for Kerry - something that Clinton excelled at and enjoyed doing. However, he was editing his book long after it was clear that Kerry was the nominee. If you look in the index of his book, it is clear that - if anything - he minimized anything positive he could have said of Kerry, who was a very very minor character in the book. For instance, he is lavish in his praise of Governor Weld, but then says he supported Kerry, mentioning his work with Youthbuild - saying that is something that does not get a Senator votes. He does NOT mention that Kerry led the POW/MIA effort that led to one of Clinton's foreign policy victories - re establishing relations with Vietnam. In fact, in the section on that, he lavishes praise on McCain - including Kerry only in a catch all list of all the vets on the committee.
I agree that the book was on his 8 years as President. I certainly do not think Kerry, or any other Senator would have much detail written about them. But, geeze louise, can't he at least give Kerry credit with McCain on the incredibly difficult Vietnam effort - especially as any reading of McCain's accounts gives Kerry the lion share of credit? At this point, what I take out of this is that Clinton and Kerry are so different as people that Kerry is clearly not someone Clinton really values. It could be Kerry's fortunate childhood as a well loved son in a very functional close family and very privileged extended family.
(This looking at the index in 2004 was NOT anti Clinton. It was a continuation of something I started out of boredom. My middle daughter was looking at colleges and insisted in spending hours checking out the libraries in the schools visited. At one, I decided to look at the indices of all political books from the 1970s to the then present for John Kerry, who was already the likely nominee. The idea was that if I looked at stories where he was nothing more than a bit player as far as the book was concerned, it would be a way get a mosaic of observations. It was fascinating, so I continued doing so over the college tours -- and I can say that what I saw in the various usually short snippets ended up not far from what I have seen as someone who has been in the JK group for nearly a decade now. )
However, I assume that the vast majority of people who went to the index of Clinton's nearly 1000 page book looked under "L", not "K". Not to mention, had people looked under "K", there was no negative gossip there that could have been used against Kerry. (The same could not be said of Bob Kerrey.) At worst it was a case of faint praise, not anything negative. The only possible negative is one that would not carry much weight or credibility - that would be arguing that because Clinton, in speaking of HIS accomplishments, mentions Kerry infrequently, that Kerry did nothing in that time period. However, that ignores that the book is Clinton's autobiography and was never intended to speak of everything that happened in government in those years.
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