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Washington Prowler

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In the latter, Harvey asked Clinton how a Clinton Administration would have responded to the Katrina crisis. Clinton slapped the Bush Administration by saying that his Administration had always believed that faster was better.

Clinton's more aggressive and negative treatment of the Bush Administration was at odds with his behavior during the tsunami crisis, when he avoided almost all political potshots pointed at the man who succeeded him in the White House. But given the political shellacking Democrats have been taking over the past several years, it's not surprising, particularly given that Clinton was lambasted by his own people for appearing to cozy up to Bush.

"He took it from everyone in Washington, New York, from Jesse Jackson and Howard Dean" says a current Clinton aide. "He wasn't asking for advice or necessarily listening to these people, but people were really pissed that he helped the Bush Administration."

The aide said that Clinton wasn't looking for opportunities to distance himself from the Bush family, but he wasn't going to avoid helping Democrats if the opportunity arose.

"He's a political creature, and he see his wife playing this thing very well, and he's going to do what he can to help, particularly with the black community, where he thinks the Republicans have done a better job of reaching out than Democrats -- of course that was before Katrina," says a former Clinton aide now working on Capitol Hill. "When did a Clinton not see a political opportunity and not take advantage of it, regardless of how crass it might be?"

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Transportation, Trade, Bill Clinton, Television, Supreme Court, Iraq, Iran, Energy, Oil