Remember that crazy hitchhiker character from There’s Something About Mary? The murderer/entrepreneur (played by a twitchy Harland Williams) who tried to get Ben Stiller to buy into his big idea for the next big workout craze? Well, apparently, debating Bernie Sanders is a lot like arguing with that guy, according to Hillary Clinton. In an excerpt from her new book, What Happened, Clinton writes, “President Obama urged me to grit my teeth and lay off Bernie as much as I could. I felt like I was in a straitjacket.†It was her aide Jake Sullivan who apparently drew the comparison between Sanders and the “deranged hitchhiker†from the 1998 comedy who was certain that he could unseat 8-Minute Abs as the workout empire du jour by coming out with 7-Minute Abs instead. “That’s what it was like in policy debates with Bernie,†Clinton wrote. “We would promise a bold infrastructure investment plan or an ambitious new apprenticeship program for young people, and then Bernie would announce basically the same thing, but bigger. On issue after issue, it was like he kept promising four-minute abs, or even no-minutes abs. Magic abs!â€
At least in public, the senator from Vermont never went so far as to recount that old children’s tale from the sea, “Seven chipmunks twirling on a branch, eating lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch.†But based on Clinton’s assessment of the man, it seems that Sanders truly is always dreaming of Gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly Brie time, baby.