Hightower Lowdown

He’s baaack. Like an old lounge act that doesn’t know when to quit, like an overbearing brother-in-law you can’t get out of your house, like a bad tamale that keeps repeating on you — Bill Clinton is foisting himself on the Democratic Party again, trying to return to the center stage of national policy-making.

Former Clinton cabinet officials, staffers, and political operatives have been scheming with Bill to press his Republican Lite agenda on the party this year.

It’s the “legacy” thing again. Clinton spent eight years in the White House so obsessed with what his legacy might be that he forgot to build one. Instead of standing tall for working families, poor people, small farmers, the environment, minorities, and others who need a champion, Clinton curried favor with the corporate elite.

He tried to outdo the Republicans on such issues as passing job-busting trades scams, bashing welfare moms, holding down wages, and dispensing corporate welfare. He went so far that Republicans even complained that he was stealing their agenda.

Now he’s miffed that some Congressional Dems are taking pro-worker, pro-environment, pro-poor-people stands. “It’s important that the Democratic Party not turn away from Clinton’s centrist legacy,” scolded one of his team players.

Spare us. The party needs to rally around We the People, not Bill Clinton. The hell with his so-called legacy — let’s build a future!