In September 1998, Greg Craig, a lion of the Washington legal community, left a top job at the State Department to go to the White House to help Bill Clinton fight impeachment during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

One of his first stops was to an old Democratic friend, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who warned him what he was stepping into: “You’re about three days away from a delegation of senior Democrats coming up there to ask the president to resign.”

That anecdote, recounted in Peter Baker's history of the impeachment saga, came echoing back to mind in recent days.

Washington’s liberal establishment — members of Congress, fundraisers and commentators — has coalesced around the view that Bill Clinton is soiling his legacy and wounding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects as he rambles around the country in a peevish, piece-of-my-mind monologue ostensibly devoted to helping her win the Democratic nomination.

Conrad was one of the first Democratic senators to endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Craig, who once worked for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), is now a senior adviser to Obama. Over the past week, he played an important behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the Democratic race’s latest thunderclap: Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama for president.

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