Posted on 10/04/2002 10:08:46 AM PDT by HAL9000
Today is the 11th anniversary of the best article ever written about Bill Clinton, by Meredith Oakley of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was published on the date of Clinton's announcement of his candidacy for president of the United States on October 4, 1991 -
Taking Bill Clinton at his word: Basking in a false and empty light
His word is dirt.
Not a statesman is he, but a common, run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen politician.
A mere opportunist.
A man whose word is fallow ground not because it is unwanted but because it is barren, bereft of the clean-smelling goodness that nurtures wholesome things.
Those of us who cling to the precepts of another age, a time in which a man's word was his bond, and, morally, bailing out was not an option, cannot join the madding crowd in celebrating what is for some Bill Clinton's finest hour.
We cannot rejoice in treachery.
The bleaters who care more for celebrity than veracity are basking in a false and empty light. They trumpet the basest form of political expediency, for they revel amid the debris of a broken promise.
Clinton will never accept that assessment of his actions or his following. He subscribes to the credo that the anointed must rule the empire, and he has anointed himself. In his ambition-blinded eyes, one released from a promise has not broken any promise.
He ignores the fact that he granted his own pardon.
Clinton announced in late summer that he would take a three-week tour of the state to see whether Arkansans wanted to release him from the promise, made in October 1990, not to seek the presidency if re-elected governor.
Actually, he was on the road only about three days, and he later confessed that he hadn't even bothered to ask those with whom he spoke whether they would release him from the promise.
That is of little consequence, perhaps, for he was meeting with sycophants who would have told him, had he asked, that his bulbous nose was tiny and, in fact, would grace the face of Helen of Troy.
His delusion, therefore, is not entirely self-induced. The strains of Camelot's anthem have followed him for 15 years because he has been able to inspire the young and the beautiful to visions of political grandeur while reassuring their elders that chivalry is not dead.
They who will never be great would settle for a seat, however briefly held, at the foot of greatness. They would pardon any sin--indeed, deny its very existence--for a moment spent basking in the false and empty light of the anointed.
In their adoring minds, Bill Clinton wants to be president; therefore, Bill Clinton should be president.
Clinton has never been known for keeping his word. There is a Scottish proverb that fits his particular code of honor: He never lies but when the holly is green.
If there remained any doubt about that--rather, if there remained any hope that even Clinton would not betray a pledge made before a statewide television audience--it gulped its last breath at the moment those fateful words of wishdom rang through the trees of the Old State House.
"Will you guarantee all of us," asked newsman Craig Cannon on Oct. 15, 1990, "that if re-elected, there is absolutely, positively no way that you'll run for any other political office and that you'll serve out your term in full?"
"You bet," Clinton declared. "I told you when I announced for governor I intended to run, and that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna serve four years. I made that decision when I decided to run. I'm being considered for as a candidate for governor. That's the job I want. That's the job I'll do for the next four years."
Contrary to his very public declaration, Clinton does not want to be governor of Arkansas. Neither does he intend to perform that job--although he is perfectly willing to draw a governor's salary, to accumulate a governor's pension credits and to keep a change of clothing at the Governor's Mansion while he traverses the country making other statements he does not mean and other promises he will not keep.
Copyright © 1991, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
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