The Editor’s Desktop (December 2000)

So long, Bill. It’s been good to know you. Through it all, and it did get pretty mangy there, you have been my president.

The significant triumphs of the new world economy which fires the imagination of all those astute enough to realize the excitement of this true revolution of ideas that holds the promise of a new borderless world, where shared technology, resources and ideas are the order of business. Though it is a revolution based entirely on technology it is, by nature, surprisingly organic and you, our President, were able to see it for all of its intricacies. Back in ’92, when you and your crew first settled into Washington, Time and Newsweek told cautionary tales of the White House being overrun with impossibly young, laptop-toting (!), borderline Gen-Xer’s (gasp!), making it seem like the Executive Branch was being run by an entirely new breed. The suits were really on the run this time and not just from Casual Friday. Man, did they hate you for it.

When your predecessor first uttered the phrase “New World Order”, he had no idea (surprise) what his sound byte really meant. George Sr. saw the New World as the logical conclusion of the Old World Order that dominated and defined the last century if not the entire millennium. That order, based primarily around the size and ability of armed forces with economic embargoes sometimes thrown in for appearances was where your predecessor spent his life as steadfast supporter and ultra-reliable cog in the Anglo-Saxon engine of old money. It seemed simple, we bluffed the bad guys into bankruptcy but in reality it was far more complicated than that and in fact, we were a stones throw from Chapter 11 ourselves. Everyone knew it wasn’t bad sashimi that made Bush vomit. Instead it was nausea induced by looking into the face of a new age that he no longer understood.

You, however, saw it in all of its earth-shaking promise. When you discussed economics in your televised town meetings or in your State-Of-The-Union addresses, the gleam in your eyes reflected the anything-can-happen idealism you showed in that famous photo of you shaking the hand of your boyhood idol and the I-know-something-you-couldn’t-possibly-understand smile, slyly directed at the fermented elder statesmen who surrounded you, barely concealed your contempt of them. Well, to all the money-worshiping conservatives out there who announced the end of the Western world when you were first elected I can say this: Eight years of relative peace and the century’s greatest era of prosperity. Read ’em and weep.

If you are concerned about your legacy, remember this: You did what the Reaganites could never do. You metamorphosed the economy into a healthier one than you inherited. By abandoning the cartoonish principles of Reaganomics, you embraced the gray area of consensus. What was derided as lack of conviction was actually the management technique most needed for the times. That is what you’ll be remembered for. Oh yeah… that and the tremendous shit-storm you’ve had to endure from Day 1 of your presidency and probably well into your retirement.

Now, about the shit-storm…

Let me plainly say I believe every word about the “Vast, right-wing conspiracy.” I’ll never forget the expression on your face throughout your first inauguration ceremony. It was the first time you were in public view since the heady post-election parties and you seemed to be in a state of shock. Something happened since that November. It was as if all these figures stepped out from behind a curtain and said (picture Tony Soprano), “Hey you won…That’s great. If you were on your way back to Arkansas, we would never of had to have met but since you’re here… This is how things really run.” It was the great Boomer nightmare. The one everyone of your ilk, in the blackest moments, knew to be the truth since 1963. You fell through the looking glass, right into the X-Files and no amount of Maya Angelou verses was going to make it right.

After that, you hit the ground wobbly. Your old penchant for procrastination was impeding the new government’s formulation. You even still had some White House employees remaining from the old Bush administration! Could you have been that naive? It was painful to watch.

And then the opening salvo: Gays in the military. What the hell was that? Of course there are gays in the military. Always has, always will be. I can’t believe that you meant that to be the very first matter of business to be addressed. It was obvious. The Republican-Conservative-Military machine was swinging into full Tricky Dickey dirty trick mode, leaking the ludicrous into the newly burgeoning insatiable instant media, keeping you off balance and distracting the public from the real first order of business, health care. Oh yeah, you were making enemies left and right. Imagine…You were the first guy that both the A.M.A. and the tobacco lobbies could hate with the same amount of personal interest. Creating and treating Cancer is very profitable and, suddenly Big Tobacco and Big Medicine were bedfellows against a common foe. You knew the health care system was a fraud; much like having General Motors handle your prescriptions.

You shut down costly, extraneous military bases because you know that the next world war will have more to do with Imacs than ICBMs. More enemies. Where was your N.R.A. card? More enemies. Destroy the boys club cabinet by appointing strong, brilliant women as Attorney Generals, Surgeon Generals and Secretaries of State. More enemies. All Boomer Men of any consequence will acknowledge that much of their success is due to the woman who stood, not behind them, but beside them. When you openly encouraged the unapologetically intelligent First Lady to devote herself to health care instead of serving cupcakes at photo ops, the old guard really lost their minds. I’ve never seen such venom. Whether it was some suspender-snapping attack dog of the supposedly “leftist media” or the average stuck in the 80’s dude at the water cooler who despised Hillary for not wearing cherry red skirt suits with big buttons, it reeked of school yard meanness. This led them to a plan of attack that history will prove to be their undoing, much more than it was yours. A Vietnam without all the dead bodies. A long, costly, unsavory battle that hopelessly blurred the lines of right and wrong, resulting in a stalemate that left the American people weary of being so transparently manipulated by self-interested public officials. Lyndon Johnson has been credited with naming this strategy, “Pig Fucker Politics”. The idea is to continuously accuse your opponent of being a pig fucker. Force him to go before the American People and say, “I am not a pig fucker” and from that moment on, in everyone’s eyes, he will be a pig fucker.

The moment you said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” we all knew it was the rock-bottom moment. Everything that followed was anti-climactic. And after that… when it really got graphic it was almost comic relief. The detailed accounts made everything human, a quality thought long gone from modern politics. We always knew you were a horn-dog, c’mon. You, my friend, have been accused of everything from murdering your close friend to selling military secrets to China… while still in office! Still you did your job charismatically even while covered with the monkey dung of accusatory politics.

In the end, the last spit ball that was hurled at you claimed that you tarnished the morality of the Presidency. Please. I remember hearing my grandparents talking about FDR and Eisenhower’s mistresses and it’s pointless to even mention JFK. I’m sure people knew about Grover Cleveland getting it on the side but it was never news. It just was.

In this age, all public figures are poked, prodded, twisted and inspected in one endless media strip search. The most private of matters is discussed with clinical abandon and the jury is still out on how healthy or unhealthy this really is for everyone. You and I and everyone else will see. Either way, I feel we are safely in the third, reconciliatory act of “Bill Clinton. Behind The Music.”