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The Selling of the Ex-President - and Co-President
By Tim Siggia
June 20, 2003
Looking at the news these days, not to mention radio and television and general, one begins to wonder just who the president really is. We're tow and a half years into the Bush presidency, but it seems everywhere I turn I'm seeing Bill and Hillary Clinton. Are we in a time warp?
Roughly about the same time Hillary releases her new book, "Living History," former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal releases his: "The Clinton Wars", a chronology of the roughshod relationship between the Clintons up to and through impeachment. Turn on David Letterman and there's Hillary, sitting in the guest seat with Dave in his most fawning demeanor. Don't look for Dave the witty wise-guy in this setting! I boot up my computer, and there's the former First Couple again, with a link that says, "How rich are they?" Do I really care, other than knowing that so much of their wealth has come from our tax money? (I didn't click the link.) And again we're seeing Bill and Hillary, both separately and together, in just about every photo-op setting conceivable: with sports figures, celebrities, and even -- on the front page of the June 18 issue of the "Hartford Courant" -- with President Bush: the president, Senator "Sleepy Joe" Lieberman, who looks a trifle more wide-awake these days -- and, you guessed it: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who just couldn't resist one more photo-op, even if it was with Mr. Bush.
William Jefferson Clinton has to be the Guinness Book record holder as the most aggressively -- not to mention excessively -- marketed president in American history. He's been out of office two and a half years now, and the Democrats, the media, and the entertainment industry are still selling him. In a recent column, Molly Ivins, to whom George W. Bush is the living incarnation of Satan, gushes over the former president, calling him, "one of the most brilliant natural politicians I have observed," and comparing him to former president Lyndon Johnson, a "great" president whose failed Great Society debacle is still being paid for 35 years later. Columnist Ivins offers no example of Clinton's brilliance, however, the idea that he was a brilliant president supposedly being axiomatic. She does, however, manage to shift the blame for Clinton's damaged presidency from Clinton himself to a vast right-wing conspiracy. Come on now, Molly! Even Her Hillaryness isn't using that phrase anymore!
Last month, "USA Today" columnist Comrade DeWayne Wickham waxed estactic over a Gallup-USA Today poll that put Clinton in a tie with George W. Bush as third-greatest president in American history, below Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, in that order. Unlike Ivins, Wickham offered examples of Clinton's supposed brilliance, dragging out all the Clinton myths still firmly believed by Clinton's worshipers: the economy that soared and the national deficit that was erased, though carefully avoiding any explanation of how Clinton accomplished these feats. He went on to gush over Clinton's political maneuvering, gaining the center while holding the liberal base, and -- supposedly -- outsmarting his opponents at every turn. Once again, Wickham cleverly omits a key ingredient in all this: a ruthless, amoral, almost sociopathic brand of Macchiavellianism that clearly sets Clinton apart from every other holder of our nation's highest office. Wickham sums it up with the statement, "All of this makes me giddy."
Now, like it or not, Americans are faced with the prospect of Clinton Two: the presidency of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The scary part is, it could happen! The stage is being set before our eyes right now. And before we count Hillary out, we must remember three things: (1) Current polls have Hillary beating every other Democrat in popularity for a White House run. (2) Bush will be term-limited in 2008, which means that unless he has his chosen successor well groomed for the nomination, the Republicans could be vulnerable. (3) Because they don't care how they do it, the Clintons get what they want. Bill wanted the White House, and got it. Twice. Hillary wanted the New York Senate seat, even though she was obviously a carpetbagger -- and got it. Now, despite present denials, she wants the White House -- and, if she gets that, don't think for a minute Hubby Bubba won't have a hand in running things. This is not without precedent, don't forget: remember Lurleen Wallace?
We should watch the unfolding events with a measure of sober concern, even if the subject is distasteful to us. The Clintons have plans for our country that should alarm all decent Americans. Should, but probably won't. For eight years Bill Clinton spat full in the face of every decent thing America has ever stood for, and two-thirds of America cheered as he did it. Americans are for the most part decent and good-hearted people, but they have a flaw in that too many of them are susceptible to demagogues. The Clintons know this, and intend to use it to their advantage. We should be aware of it, and be prepared to combat it with the truth.
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