Not every week do our laureates jump at the opportunity to
unveil themselves. But there’s no stopping some people.
And to think their latest round of publicity began last Friday
when, for the first time since their introductory late nighter at
the Yale Law School library, they were spotted sleeping together.
The dream sequence occurred at the state funeral for Ronald Reagan,
and since none of the eulogies were about them they blanked out
rather rapidly. If not for some rousing Beethoven late in the
services, they still might be snoring up the National Cathedral. It
appears neither wanted to be the first to awake and discover who it
was he/she had ended up sleeping next to. Can you imagine her
shrieks and his screams?
Alas, alack, reality intervened and by Monday morning the two
were off to another historic engagement. This one did concern them,
and they reacted with all the glee of a fox allowed back into the
henhouse. Last time they removed the covering off anything with
such energy it was when they ripped drapes from walls for transfer
to their new residence in Chappaqua. One might say that the act of
removal this time was a form of restitution — the huge official
portraits of President and First Lady Clinton going a long way to
cover the gaping holes that their earlier handiwork had left on the
White House interior.
Much was made of the portraitist’s being the son of a
sharecropper, though certainly this couldn’t have been the first
time anyone displayed noblesse oblige in dealing with the
former first couple. Their acceptance remarks gave them away. Bill
whined about how he used to be depicted only in cartoons, and at
that riding in a baby carriage or a pickup truck. Hillary, tried to
sound fancier, but it appears that she don’t know English so good:
“”One thing that has never been said about either my husband or I,”
she began, before adding a characteristic whine of her own —
“nearly everything else has.”
Our problems don’t end there. President Bush soared to universal
approval when he promised to defend America against all enemies,
foreign and domestic. So what was he doing allowing that crew into
the people’s house? He said so many gracious things about the
Whiners that one feared he was being held hostage. C-Span
surveillance cameras, meanwhile, spotted the likes of Sidney
Blumenthal, John Podesta, and Ari Emanuel skulking among the
distinguished guests. Baghdad museums were never under such duress.
And under whose watch?
A long hot Clinton summer is upon us. Bill’s book is already not
out, read cover to cover before anyone has even seen it. It gives
good cover to John Kerry too, who can proceed with his veep
searches without anyone fretting. This will be a good time for
Kerry to select John Edwards, so when Kerry loses the South he’ll
have someone to blame for it. Ditto for Gephardt regarding
Missouri, Warner regarding Virginia, Biden regarding Delaware,
though not Vilsack in Iowa. A state where corn grows
extra-subsidized tall is bound to come acropper for a stalk like
Kerry.
Clinton confesses that his mentoring of a former intern was a
“terrible moral error.” Yes, it’s terrible to be caught, though
rather delightful to commit moral error when no one is looking or
filing charges or causing him to be suspended from the bar and
docked $800,000 in fines. And what about all the uncharitable
slanders he’s directing at the Hon. Kenneth Starr? In “My Life,
Part Deux” his researches might be based on the original 10
Commandments, i.e. those that retain the word “not.”
Remember when we were told to cool it, to forget about them, to
get over the Clintoons, they’re gone, over with, everyone’s sick of
them, and all the rest of those ostrich phrases? Well? Well? Well?
We must say, though, it’s wonderful to think of CNN as the Clinton
News Network again and to see Dan Rather in fine form. He hasn’t
been this excited about an interview and empathetic toward its
subject since his historic last sitdown with Saddam Hussein. The
only mystery left is whether Bill Clinton also declares for Allah
in his presence.
For the record, religious affiliation had no bearing on why Bill
Clinton won this week’s EOW award. We do what we can to keep him
awake and his missus in a permanent state of sweetness.
