Don't blame Buddy for the Clinton saga

Philadelphia Inquirer: It turns out the nation owes Buddy the dog far more gratitude than it imagined.
In her new book, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals that the chocolate Labrador retriever was her husband's only willing companion right after the president admitted in 1998 that he did have an affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Until then, Bill Clinton had been telling his wife that nothing happened with the White House intern. Mrs. Clinton believed it, so much so that she ran around to talk shows promoting the now legendary "vast right-wing conspiracy" theory that has become part of the national vocabulary.
Stand by your master
When the president finally confessed to her, Mrs. Clinton writes, Buddy was the only warm-blooded creature in the household who stuck by him. Man, and man's best friend, went for long walks on vacation together on the beach.
No matter what your party affiliation, you have to feel a tiny bit glad in retrospect that the leader of the free world had someone to talk to in those dark days. Even if his loyal companion could only fetch sticks.
You just don't want the hand on the nuclear button to be attached to a man who feels like he has no friend in the world.
Buddy, we hardly knew ye. If only you hadn't met your untimely demise in 2002, we'd send you a Snausage right now as a token of thanks.
Mrs. Clinton will receive $8 million for airing this White House laundry. It's what the market will bear.
Speculation is rampant in Washington that this memoir, "Living History," will clear the decks for Mrs. Clinton to run for president in 2008. Whatever. Five years is a long way off, especially in a short shelf-life business like politics.
Star power
Even her most vitriolic enemies cannot deny that the junior senator from New York has star power. She is easily the Democratic Party's biggest fund-raising draw.
It's curious, then, how most Americans would be hard-pressed to name one thing that Sen. Clinton has done lately in her day job. Liberal constituencies have begun to complain aloud that she is hanging back on issues like the war and aid for the needy.
Perhaps Sen. Clinton thinks she has what it takes to emerge as the leader the woebegone Democratic Party so desperately needs. But the deeds that make such things happen don't occur on book tours; they happen in the halls of Congress.