Humor & Life Quote by Chevy Chase

Calling the Clintons "too smart for Washington" is Chevy Chase doing what his comedy always did best: taking the familiar target (D.C. pretension) and flipping the insult into a compliment that still lands like a jab. He doesn’t praise them as moral heroes or political saviors. He praises them as IQ events. That distinction matters. Coming from a comedian whose brand was institutional mockery - SNL’s Gerald Ford pratfalls, the evergreen idea that power is mostly slapstick in a suit - the line reads less like endorsement than like a diagnosis of a system built to punish competence.

The subtext is twofold. First, Chase is elevating the Clintons as a rare species in American politics: intensely, visibly brainy. Bill Clinton’s reputation for ravenous policy fluency and Hillary Clinton’s for meticulous preparation become the punchline’s engine. Second, he’s implying Washington rewards something other than intelligence: tribal loyalty, television instincts, the ability to metabolize scandal, the talent for being strategically mediocre. "Too smart" functions as a backhanded explanation for why they were constantly entangled in backlash. In a town where populism is currency, smart can read as slippery, arrogant, or untrustworthy.

Contextually, it’s a celebrity voice lending cultural cover to a polarizing couple at a time when "elitist" was becoming a go-to smear. Chase isn’t arguing their record; he’s arguing that America’s capital is allergic to brilliance, then laughing grimly at what that says about the rest of us.