In yet another sign that the Hillary campaign is quietly panicking over her fall in the polls and the accumulating evidence of her lies about her emails, Bill Clinton was wheeled out for an interview with Fareed Zakaria taped Thursday for Sunday morning broadcast, with advance excerpts released Saturday to the New York Times, The Hill, and other media channels.

Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton detests having to turn to he philandering husband for a rescue. And she realizes that it would be far better to save him for much later in the campaign, when he could be more of a novelty and provide the momentum needed toward the end.

But matters are spinning out of control, with Bernie Sanders as many as 16 points ahead of her in New Hampshire, and Joe Biden’s people sending signals he is likely to enter the race and steal even more support. Even comforting words from Huma (who has her own problems) are not enough to soothe away the growing panic. So all to early, it became time to bring in Bubba, and have him deliver some balm, to denigrate critics and minimize the significance of the scandal.

Amy Chozick of the New York Times highlights a few of the tactical feints to be offered shortly on CNN:

“I have never seen so much expended on so little,” Mr. Clinton said in a taped interview with Fareed Zakaria that is scheduled to be shown Sunday on CNN. 

This is classic Clinton spin, going back to the earliest days of his run for the presidency. For some odd reason, people keep paying attention to actions of the Clintons that have no significance at all. Stay tuned for the blame to be placed.

Well, it may work on some of the diehard fans to say this, people who can’t imagine anything untoward and who pay not attention to critics.

“She said she was sorry that her personal email caused all this confusion,” Mr. Clinton said. “And she’d like to give the election back to the American people. I think it will be all right. But it’s obvious what happened.”

He almost has a point, Getting Hillary to say she’s sorry for anything is an historic accomplishment.  On Planet Clinton this means that it’s all over.  “Giving the election back to the American people” implies that questioning her evasion of public disclosure laws for her entire term as SecState is somehow stealing the election. It makes no sense, but it sounds good, and provides some self-righteousness for supporters to use in addressing those who think it is wrong to hide activities from the public.

“This is just something that has been a regular feature of all of our presidential campaigns, except in 2008 for unique reasons,” Mr. Clinton said, without elaborating on why he believed that President Obama had not faced similar Republican-led efforts to derail his candidacy.

“It always happens,” he added. “We’re seeing history repeat itself.

The words “vast right wing conspiracy” did not pass his lips, but yet they are present, lurking in the background, apparently explaining his earlier claim that “it’s obvious what happened.” Those Clinton-haters who just want to stand in the way of helping people are manipulating everything.

“The other party doesn’t want to run against her. And if they do, they’d like her as mangled up as possible,” Mr. Clinton said. “And they know that if they leak things and say things, that that is catnip to the people who get bored talking about what’s your position on student loan relief or dealing with the shortage of mental health care, or what to do with the epidemic of prescription drugs and heroin out in America.”

Right. Hillary is so darned wonderful that unfair criticisms are all that opponents have. There are so many ways to spend money still left and they want to talk about her lies? C’mon guys….

Mr. Clinton also faulted the political press corps, which he said was determined to see a competitive contest. At the beginning of the year, he said, Mrs. Clinton “was the most admired person in public life.”

“What happened?” he added. “The presidential campaign happened. And the nature of the coverage shifted from issue-based to political.”

“You can’t complain,” he said. “This is not — this is a contact sport. They’re not giving the job away. And people who want a race wanted her to drop some, and the people in the other party desperately wanted it because she’s already put out more positions on more issues and said how she would pay for it than, I think, than all the others combined, based on the two — the Republicans, based on the two debates I saw.”

Hmm, “you can’t complain,” but he is complaining. It shouldn’t even be a contest, but those media people want one, so they are hyping something for which she already apologized.

“Ever since Watergate, something like this happens,” Mr. Clinton said. “And so I’d rather it happen now than later.”

Back to the old victim stance. VRWC is baack...

But when Mr. Zakaria asked if the questions about Mrs. Clinton’s emails were a “Republican plot,” Mr. Clinton resisted the term.

 “No, I’m not going there, because that’s what the — it’s not a — a plot makes it sound like it’s a secret,” he said. “I think that — that there are lots of people who wanted there to be a race for different reasons. And they thought the only way they could make it a race was a full-scale frontal assault on her. And so this email thing became the biggest story in the world.”

If only the media would obediently support Hillary, this would all go away. It is not really that surprising he would sincerely feel this way, because in the past the media were obedient servants.  But face it: Hillary is not nearly as appealing as Bill in his prime was. And the media landscape is very different, what with the blogosphere and Fox News. Bill is really waxing nostalgic here.

OK, now that Bill has spoken, what’s left? Look for attacks on individual journalists. It has already started in fact, Lots of luck with that, angering the media.