Posted on 11/24/2004 6:51:18 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
(KRT) - Our quiz today is a multiple-choice question: What does Bill Clinton want?
(A) To guide Democrats out of the deep woods.
(B) To help heal the nation's bitter divisions.
(C) To pave the way for President Hillary.
The correct answer is all of the above - and none of the above. What Bubba really wants is vindication. Everything else, including Hillary in the Oval Office, is just a means to his end game of getting back on top again. It's all about one more comeback.
It ain't gonna happen.
Clinton's presiding over the opening of his $165 million library looked like a happy trip down memory lane. Surrounded by family, friends and foes, he was the center of attention, the pudgy young pol turned elder statesman.
But behind the facade of generous tributes was the sad spectacle of the once-most powerful man on Earth trying desperately to find his footing on history's rain-slicked ladder. It's a tricky climb, and time is no longer his friend - and not just because of his fragile health.
The world before 9/11 seems like a million years ago. Most of the political lessons he taught us then about the "third way" mean little now. In all the important ways, the future became unhinged from the past. And so the Man from Hope is now the Man from Yesterday.
That's not to say Bill Clinton isn't relevant. He is to the 30,000 devotees who trekked to Arkansas and to the millions who look back with fondness on the first baby boomer president.
And each time his party loses a presidential election, he looks more like a giant. It is shocking to remember that no Democrat since FDR has been elected twice - except Clinton.
Although he never won a majority of the popular vote, his two terms earned him a permanent spot in what one observer calls the inner circle of the world's most exclusive club.
Still, he wants more. He wants us to think of him as great and to still need him. But he wasn't great. And we don't need him.
It's not just Monica - though she comes to mind first, and the impeachment saga she launched will surely be in the top paragraph of his obit. His dismissing it in the library exhibit under the category of the "politics of persecution" was both tasteless and revealing. Jesus did not fool around with interns.
But even Clinton's achievements of prosperity and peace now look hollow. In hindsight, we know that much of the prosperity was a bubble fueled by venal corporate criminals. And there was peace only because the Clinton White House chose not to see that Osama Bin Laden had already declared war on us.
The yearning for those days is foolish, but probably harmless - except for the Democratic Party. If its leaders look to Clinton for anything other than a pep talk, they are courting disaster.
American politics, like everything else, changed on 9/11. As the last election proved, the game is no longer about traditional standards of interest groups and issue positions. Biography, charisma and the polish of education matter far less than they did just four years ago.
The new gold standard is at once more elusive and more precise. For every would-be leader, the test is this: Are you rock-solid? Those who cannot say yes, and convince voters, need not apply. Weakness, waffling, nuance, process - they're luxuries from a bygone era.
And for God's sake, no more parsing and blurring. It's a gut-check world now, and half-truths are no longer half true. They're damnable lies.
Bubba had his run. His time, and times, have passed. He isn't ready to accept that, but we must. The future demands it.
This is Bill Clinton's very own Private Hell.
And I am thrilled to be alive to see it.
:o)
...
It ain't gonna happen.
From your lips to God's ear...
What does Bill want? Why, to be the head of the U.N., of course. He'd also like Hillary to be president, and to have a close co-operation between the White House and the U.N.
It's a no-brainer.
Oh, and some nice global nookie.
Good read. Not many out there saying that.
Says it all. Amen.
Perfectly sums up BJ's failed legacy...............it makes his impeachment pale in comparison.
He wants us to think of him as great and to still need him. But he wasn't great. And we don't need him.
The first sentence (in italics, above) is wrong. The second, third, and fourth sentences (in italics, above) are correct.
He wasn't a giant, and he wasn't great. He was just lucky. Nothing else. Lucky for eight years. He stumbled into office because of a man named Ross Perot. He was lucky enough to preside over an eight year boom, the last half of which was an economic bubble. He skated past scandals that would have sunk anyone else. He was lucky.
This piece crystallizes Clinton's role and his legacy.
The author makes a great case for his irrelevance, which I have considered since Mr. Bush was elected the first time. Every time this guy made the news I wondered aloud and sometimes in writing 'why is this news, why does he matter?' I'm gratified to read that I was not alone with those thoughts.
How much could his advice to Gore and Kerry have been worth since neither won the prize by following it. Ok, in Kerry's case we have read in hindsight that he chose to ignore some of it, but the majority of the portion he followed obviously didn't serve him well. For his part Gore followed the leader and it led to nowhere (God be praised).
Extrapolating this perspective into Hillary's inevitable run for the WH in 2008, Clinton's advice or behavior won't work for her either in the post 9/11 world. Do LIBs and DEMs really believe that we don't know who she is or what she represents? The charade of her senatorial behavior isn't fooling anyone. This woman has been on the national stage since before the 1992 election. We KNOW who she is. We KNOW where she came from. I believe she is damaged goods and considering what she TRULY is and TRULY represents is equally as irrelevant to the future as her husband.
Peace -
Wrong on all three.
(A) ... Bubba could care less about the Dimocrat Party. In fact the worse they do the better he feels he will be looked upon.
(B) ... Bubba was most helpful in dividing America and he wants nothing more than to continue that devisiveness as it makes him look good.
(C) ... Hillary? Why Bill would love the fact that she couldn't best him. He wouldn't, however, mind using the Whitehouse for sex and money.
The only thing that ever mattered to Bill Clintoon was Bill Clintoon.
Relevant? Right in line after Howard Dean and John Kerry.
I'm still hoping the rain did something to him.
Umm, in the thought baloon, who's that intern behind his left shoulder? Bubba been trying out some of Hillary's tendencies?
Maybe so. He probably wouldn't need a new set of kneepads.
It makes me angry that Monica is what comes to mind when Clinton's name pops up.......and not the ChiCom money, the FBI files, the Marc Rich pardon, HillaryCare, and all the other dirty dirty things those two people did.
Who cares!!!
The chump from Chapaqua must be fuming.
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