Posted on 06/25/2002 1:04:25 PM PDT by Quilla
NEW YORK - There is no Air Force One, no Marine Honor Guard; his finger is no longer on the proverbial button.
When he left office, William Jefferson Clinton said good-bye to all that--and to his $200,000 presidential salary. (President George W. Bush earns $400,000, thanks to legislation Clinton signed.) He has to pay for his own house in Chappaqua, N.Y., which set him back $1.7 million, to say nothing of his senator wife's $2.85 million Washington home.
But for Bill Clinton, private life has its rewards, among them ranking 18th on our Celebrity 100 list, just one place behind Bruce Willis and one ahead of the Backstreet Boys.
The former commander-in-chief scored big in Web hits, ranking second only to fellow musician Britney Spears. He came in first in press clips, edging out Tiger Woods, who, like Clinton, is an avid golfer. Only another ex-pol, Rudy Giuliani, bests him when it comes to TV and radio appearances, and most of the former New York mayor's exposure came when he was still in office. All told, Clinton stands to become the most celebrated ex-president since Theodore Roosevelt.
Of the 42 former presidents, Clinton is one of only ten to serve two full terms and survive the office. He is also the second-youngest overall, finishing his second term at 54. The youngest was Teddy Roosevelt, who was 51 when he left office. It is TR's massive post-office celebrity with which Clinton's might be compared.
As a young ex-president, TR set a pace that even the hyperkinetic Clinton will be hard-pressed to equal. Just weeks after his second term, he led a safari in Africa, collecting specimens for the Smithsonian. In 1914, he led a 900-mile expedition in Brazil, mapping a tributary to the Amazon, then called the River of Doubt, since renamed Rio Roosevelt. All the while, he kept writing a book a year.
In between, Roosevelt ran for president again, losing his bid as a candidate of the Bull Moose Party. For Clinton, another run for the White House would be unconstitutional. "The possibility of a third term completely changes things. It's a huge difference [for ex-presidents]," who are now doomed to political irrelevance, notes John Gable, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.
Roosevelt, after leaving office, sometimes struggled with his finances. Nonetheless, he turned down speaking fees, as well as consulting jobs and board memberships, Gable says. He had to furnish his own office, which he did by serving as a contributing editor and columnist for a series of magazines and newspapers. He paid for his own bodyguards, who were unable to stop his being shot by a would-be assassin in 1912.
In the last 12 months, Clinton, by contrast, earned $25 million from book deals and speaking fees. And like all contemporary ex-presidents, he gets a fully staffed office and lifetime Secret Service protection. While such compensation may sound adequate--even extravagant--the fact remains that the former Leader of the Free World earns less than Lisa Kudrow, the most expendable of NBC's Friends. On a more positive note, Clinton's earnings top those of Sammy Sosa, and all Sosa did was average 61 home runs per year over the past four years.
It is possible to live in Chappaqua on $25 million a year, sources say. But if things get tight, Clinton might take Kudrow's lead and sign on with NBC. The network, a unit of General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ), offered the ex-president $50 million per year to host his own television show, which would put him in the financial realm of Stephen King and Tom Clancy, two authors who have sold more books than Clinton ever will. He would still fall well shy of chat-show tycoon Oprah Winfrey, who earns triple that amount, partly from her magazine and other ventures. Clinton turned NBC down--for now.
His own TV show might add to Bill Clinton's fame, but it still would not put the 42nd president in a league with the 26th. In the years after Teddy Roosevelt left office, his safari, his expedition and his prolific writing made him, Gable says, "the most famous man in the world, and probably the most beloved." All notions of celebrity were different then. But Teddy Roosevelt--for ex-presidents and celebrities of all stripes--set the standard.
"Ah don't cay-uh what yaw'll say, mah fanger's rat thar on the same button it allus wuz!"
I disagree. Clinton is MUCH more well-known for exposing himself while he was in office.
I think the celebration is due to the fact that he is no longer in office.
Apart from that, Clinton does not enjoy an image of a statesman of great stature and integrity. He is rather, a man celebrated as one of the greatest irreverent characters ever to occupy the White House by those who rely on People magazine for their moral, political, and historical perspective.
Yeah, just ask old Jimmah Cahtah down there in Plains a few miles south of me about how his glory done went and faded.
But Rosalyn seems to be the primary individual who considers old Jimmah a POS for not latching onto a Nobel Peace Priz.
Who says that is a good thing? I look up both Clintons to use their images for...ahem....less than flattering purposes.
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