John Harris of Politico has a nice column on Bill Clinton’s shrill, tempery performance saying this was the Bill Clinton who reporters saw every day back in the 90s, who Washington establishment types came to dislike. The only problem is that Harris is saying it now when it’s safe to say it; even Hillary has Bill to kick around this week. Where was this portrait of Bill when we needed it? There were many references to his temper in the press, but reporters didn’t let go about it. Only Clinton-haters like myself did.
The Clinton everyone is now seeing is the one we dislike, mean and ruthless and self-obsessed. As Mike McCurry, his press spokesman said, when it was too late, he was probably unfit to be president. Smart guy, I agree. Great politician, absolutely; and now we’re seeing that calculating mind in all its glory. Good president, I go along with that too. But character, bravery, selflessness–none of the above.
The other night a friend repeated the old saw to me that Clinton got impeached for a blowjob. I bit my tongue. This is false. Clinton got impeached because the Supreme Court voted 9-0 to maintain a valiant democratic principle, that even a president has to deal with an accuser in the courts. Clinton’s way of dealing with Paula Jones was to lie repeatedly under oath. (You’ll notice that Detroit’s mayor is now in trouble for the same sort of thing, saying under oath he wasn’t having an affair with an aide; and no one has started moveon.org.) Clinton flouted the rule of law out of a monstrous sense of his importance–and bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, on bogus George-Bush-like intelligence, when the House was voting to impeach. Had the press been more upfront about the Bill Clinton they were coming to know and hate, maybe the threats his people made to women he had gone out with would have come out, and he would have been forced from office. Al Gore would have gotten the job (and I wouldn’t have voted for Nader). As it is, the country has had to wait till now to see the real Bill.
"Lots of elite Democrats never liked the guy that much," Harris said. The insiders’ rage at him today is approaching the levels they felt when he pardoned all those money guys, including Marc Rich, at the last minute. Sadly, the Washington elite protected Clinton right through to the end. He was their boy…
