“Bill Clinton: Master of the Universe?” appeared in a topic box
on MSNBC below a babbling Chris Matthews on Wednesday. This is
what passes for a substantive issue in a nothing political
culture.
Clinton’s “rescue” was about as real and moving as a Steven Bing
movie — or a Kim Jong-il movie for that matter. Did you know
that the dictator is an aspiring filmmaker? Indeed, he played an
important role in the production of the movie Diary of a Girl
Student, according to
Wikipedia and the Korean Central News Agency. The latter
outlet declared that he “improved its script and guided its
production.”
Kim Jong-il’s other contributions to the film industry include:
authoring the book On the Art of Cinema and kidnapping
director Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife in order to “build a
North Korean film industry,” according to Wikipedia.
Movie mogul Steven Bing, heretofore known more for mistreating
women like actress Elizabeth Hurley than protecting them, helped
choreograph Bill Clinton’s rote retrieval of Al Gore’s Internet
journalists and paid for a chunk of his traveling expenses, say
press accounts. The Hollywood phoniness of it all evidently
appealed to Jong-il’s moviemaker sensibilities. Perhaps the
self-described film buff is a fan of Bing’s Shangri-La
Productions and sees in it a potential home for his future
projects.
Clinton’s trip was financed appropriately enough not just by
Hollywood but by the plastics industry. According to the
Washington Post, Dow Chemical “provided the plane
that ferried the former president from his home in Westchester
County, N.Y., to Burbank, Calif.” Then Bing took care of the
rest.
And not to be forgotten is that behind this successful man is a
good wife who happens to be Secretary of State. Kim Jong-il had
insulted Hillary the other day, having one of his flaks dismiss
her as someone who looks like a “primary schoolgirl,” apparently
a topic still on his mind, and someone who at other times looks
like a “pensioner going shopping.”
The now-gallant Bill Clinton could have threatened, as he did
with columnist Bill Safire after he called Hillary a “congenital
liar” in the 1990s, to slug the dictator for that insult. But he
didn’t. He duly conformed to the script, though his friends in
the media applauded him for his great restraint in not smiling
during his meeting and photo-ops with Kim Jong-il and for glumly
greeting a hack nuclear industry official who shook his hand
repeatedly at the airport.
Al Gore was not sufficiently glamorous for the role, Kim Jong-Il
felt, according to the Washington Post: “The
administration had wanted to send former vice president Al Gore
to North Korea instead of Clinton; Gore is a co-founder of
Current TV, which employs the journalists who were detained. But
North Korea officials hinted that they wanted an envoy of
Clinton’s stature, sources said.”
It tells you a lot about the vapidity and irrationality of
American politics that the highest honor bestowed on a politician
by journalists is to call him a “rock star,” a phrase they used
incessantly over the last few days about Clinton.
The episode is one more reminder of the oppressive emptiness of
world politics; it revolves around a democracy of, by, and for
the elite. If you are planning to fool around abroad in some
troubled hot spot, be sure to know someone famous. Meanwhile,
back at home, the less glamorous and well-connected, whether in
the womb or in some teetering hospice, receive no such rescue.
They die alone.
