Excerpt:
Yet, amazingly, September 11 seems only to have confirmed America's Ex-President-for-Life in his indestructible view of his own indispensability. As he said to Paul McCartney's girlfriend backstage at one all-star gala, he feels that he would do a better job than Bush as he's got more experience.
This was marginally more tastefully formulated than the confidences quoted in The New York Times, when the Narcissist-in-Chief regretted that the deaths of thousands of Americans hadn't happened on his watch. He told Georgetown University students that he supports the war, but he thinks America is "not blameless. Even today we still have the occasional hate crime rooted in race, religion, or sexual orientation. So terror has a long history."
No president has been so obsessed with his "legacy" as Bill Clinton. There was that poignant moment during his final Middle East peace talks when the old schmoozer raged at Yasser Arafat, "I'm a loser and you made me one!" Since September 11, that assessment has been harder to dispute, which is why he's been meeting regularly with old Administration officials to burnish his legacy.
In fact, he sees more of his cabinet nowadays than when he was President. In 1998, he held just two cabinet meetings: one to lie to them about Monica, and the other to apologise for lying to them about Monica. These days, they sit around trying to figure out what else they were busy with back then.
Clinton's problem is that since September 11 either his presidency is seen as a trivial interlude, a holiday from history between the Cold War and the present war, or - worse - he's set up as the designated Neville Chamberlain figure, the weak man who never appreciated the enormity of the threat.
Week by week, more and more intriguing tidbits leak out: according to some rumours, there is an Iraqi link to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, but Clinton chose to ignore it because it suited him politically to blame the bombing on the broader "climate of hate" created by Right-wing militias and conservative radio hosts. There'll be a lot more of this before it's all over.................
He rattles around in their pretend "home" in Chappaqua without even a pooch for company. Buddy the dog was killed in a mysterious car accident a few months back, merely the latest FOB (Friend Of Bill) to die prematurely. Bill is looking more and more like the Clintons' past, Hillary their future.
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