A fascinating literary drama has provided a typical dramatic —
and bathetic — backdrop for the end of the Missus Clinton
campaign, one that concerns a depiction of the excess-to-grind of
Mister Clinton.
Todd Purdum…er, excuse me, Todd S. Purdum, of New York
Times note, husband of former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee
Myers, wrote a profile in Vanity Fair of the
post-Presidency of Bill Clinton. The ex-prez expressed sharp
disapproval. Jack Shafer in Slate quickly jumped on Clinton
for his solipsistic slipshod slapdash slippery slap at the article.
R. Emmett Tyrrell followed up with a column
in these pages showing that a) Purdum was right, b) Purdum was
essentially plagiarizing from Tyrrell’s book, which had made the
same points and substantiated them, c) Clinton was predictable in
both the bad character that was the subject and the bad character
of his objection.
It occurs to me that one more log should be added to this fire.
Namely, that Clinton in his response noted that since his term in office he has saved
the lives of 1,300,000 people and the reporter has some nerve
reviewing his work in this period without interviewing a single one
of those people.
Now here is a statement that should elicit our profound marvel.
This man, one person, a single human being, despite illness,
despite lack of official status, despite unforgiving critics on all
sides, despite a sordid history of philandering, despite a
humiliating albatross of impeachment, despite a pathetic record of
disbarment, was able to single-handedly save — count ‘em! — one
million and three hundred thousand people, all while not dating
Gina Gershon, because that is a total lie and he is a paragon of
fidelity.
How did this startling career of lifesaving escape our
notice?
YOU KNOW WHAT? I don’t care if he is a Democrat or a Republican, a
leftist or a rightist, if you bring me a person who saved one
million and three hundred thousand people, I will fight for him or
his wife or any relative he chooses to become President for life.
Our obligation to recognize and encourage true kindness far exceeds
political concerns. If I had the opportunity to save one hundred
and thirty people from death, 1/10,000th of the score imputed to
Clinton, I would have to put down my work indefinitely to secure
this remarkable outcome.
Indeed Todd Purdum could well be criticized for ignoring 130,000
lives saved, or even 13,000, or even 1,300. In fact, all of us
should be ashamed if we are not according proper honor to a person
who has shown such dedication to human life.
Where are these survivors? It should not be necessary for
Clinton to do his own dirty work and call Purdum “tawdry.” He
should leave it to this natural army of spokespeople, all the
grateful beneficiaries of his largesse, people who owe their very
existence to this man of bountiful heart and boundless soul. There
was a famous Jewish teacher in Warsaw who had taught thousands of
kids between 1870 and 1920 or so. When he died, every living
student carried a torch in a spectacular, dazzling display of
fealty at his funeral. Something like this should be arranged for
Bill Clinton, a march through the streets of our nation’s capital
as the multitudes proclaim the nobility of their savior. How red
would Todd Purdum’s face be then?
All this adds up to one salient point. These huge philanthropic
foundations that claim to be solving all the world’s problems
mostly dump boatloads of money in all the wrong places. P. J.
O’Rourke did an excellent job summing this up two decades ago in
his Enemies List that was published in this magazine. These
pseudo-lifesavers are much more likely to give donations to Planned
Parenthood to promote death than to help a woman feed her living
child.
Ironically enough, the late Herbert Hoover, who is remembered as an unsuccessful
President, actually did preserve many people’s lives managing food
aid during World War One and its aftermath, saving entire
populations from famine. Some argue that he saved more lives than
any individual person in history. Compare that to the Clinton
Foundation and its fearless fight to keep potato chips out of the
public school vending machine. For Bill Clinton to attempt to
insinuate himself into such company is a new level of grossness
even for him.
