Posted on 02/11/2008 10:26:40 PM PST by smoothsailing
Bill Unbound
By J.R. Dunn
H.L. Mencken said, many times and in many different ways, that nothing beats a democracy for sheer entertainment. By those standards, 2008 is shaping up as the most entertaining election in quite some time.
There are two reasons for this: the first is that it's an actual campaign, and not the kind of overanalyzed, overarranged, overmanipulated affair we've been presented with for decades. (Many thanks to Obama and Huckabee for that.) The pollsters, pundits, consultants, and media figures are all poleaxed, without the vaguest idea of what's going on or where we're headed. For the first time in decades we're seeing a real contest. I, for one, like it that way.
The other reason is... Bill Clinton is back on the loose.
One thing not widely understood about the Clinton years, particularly with regard to the subtopic, "How did he get away with it?", is the fact that they were great entertainment. Not particularly high-class entertainment -- certainly not Shakespeare -- rather melodrama of a low order. But as any novelist will tell you, melodrama works. Hang your protagonist on the edge of a cliff and keep rolling rocks down on him, and the readers will beg for more. And that, with one slight variation, was the story of the Clinton presidency.
Bill Clinton regularly hung himself on the edge of the cliff and poured rocks down on his own head. Every other week, it was something else -- another babe, another crooked financier, another grotesquerie arising out of his past. There he would dangle, with his audience -- the people of the United States -- watching spellbound, until Betsy Wright, or Hillary, or the media, or Trent Lott came to his rescue. And not a month would pass before he'd do it again.
This explains quite a lot about the public response to Clinton. Bob Dole famously asked, "Where's the outrage?" The outrage, along with every other reaction of disgust, frustration, and anger, was buried underneath fascination -- a vast public fixation on "what's going to happen next?" Here was the president of the United States, supposed to be well beyond this kind of thing, acting like a character in a sleazy late-night soap opera. It was a novelty, and like all novelties, it riveted the attention. For the first time since Nixon's downfall (which was Shakespearean) the presidency had became a show.
Well, ladies and gents -- the show is back in town.
This time it doesn't involve interns or thefts of classified documents -- at least not yet. Instead we've got below-the-belt attacks on his wife's opponent, carried out as only a good ol' boy can do it: I reckon he's a right plausible young fella except for... Well, you know, nod-nod, wink-wink. He's just like that there Jesse Jackson, ain't he? I hear he's from up Illinois way, that right? Don't you wish they'd stay in their own dang neighborhoods? Playing the race card? More like dealing the whole deck.
Now, only Bill Clinton would try to pull a thing like this, and only Bill Clinton could get away with it. And he got away with it the way he always does: Hillary stepped in and called a time out, and the media obediently put the lid on. "I can control him," Hillary promised the world at large, and that, for the past two weeks has been the end of it.
But the show is not yet over. Not at all. Because she can't control him. She has never shown any sign of being able to do so, and nothing has changed to suggest that she's attained any such level of mastery. As it stands, the entire Obama scenario matches those of Bill's glory years down to the last detail: Bill has run wild and done bad things, has confessed, has been reprimanded, has spent his time in the corner and is now sitting back waiting for the next truckload of mischief to pull in, the way it always does. Bet on it: we are again going to see William Jefferson Clinton unbound, probably more than once, and it will be well worth the price of admission.
There are any number of reasons to believe this. Hitting only the top four:
* The Myth of Invincibility -- Clinton was defeated in an office run only once, his re-election for Arkansas governor, before he learned the ropes. Since then, he has constructed an elaborate facade as a man who is utterly unbeatable. And now he's going to sit back and let Obama whip him in a proxy contest? No way. The Comeback Kid is going to strap on his Colts and ride back into town for one last gunfight. Many first-rate individuals have been unable to resist this kind of temptation. Bill Clinton will not succeed where they have failed.
* The Spotlight -- Clinton is a narcissist of the first order, the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral. Now, he's supposed to remain in his place in the chorus while Hillary takes her star turn. He's been very good so far. He's only broken ranks once. But it's nine long months until the election. The clock is ticking...
* The 800-lb. Gorilla Syndrome -- There are reasons why ex-presidents are traditionally required to leave the political game. (The sole meaningful exception -- John Quincy Adams -- is just that, an exception.) It has been eight years since Bill Clinton was president. Since then he has settled into his role as beloved bad boy ex-pres who does pretty much what he wants and says what he pleases without criticism or contradiction. And he's supposed to put this aside for the balance of ‘08? (Not to mention Madame Hillary's terms.)
* Resentment -- There are dangers to diagnosing anyone else's marriage. (Crassness being the greatest of them.) But the Clintons, having exposed so much of their private lives in their quest for power, are a partial exception. Of this much we can be certain: there is a considerable amount of resentment on both sides. On Hillary's... well, we all know about that. On Bill's... the motivation behind the Don Juan syndrome, the compulsive pursuit and conquest of women, is deep contempt for the female sex. Don Juanism is a form of abuse, a continuing attempt to degrade women for unknown and perhaps unknowable slights. Like any other personality disorder, it requires serious effort to overcome. Effort of a type that has not been apparent in this case.
We're being asked to believe that the two members of this lifelong waltz of resentment, dysfunction, and dependency are going to endure the most stressful period of their lives without either of them blowing up. What it comes down to is the prosaic observation that marriages of four decades are not going to change their nature overnight, if at all. Not even with the presidency in the balance.
No -- Bill's not going to make it until November. He is not going to behave, and Hillary will not succeed in making him. He claims to have "learned his lesson". But we've heard that before too. So the question is not ‘if' but ‘when'. And, needless to say, how bad?
By the time of the convention, the Clintons are going to drawn so tight that anything at all is possible, particularly if Obama maintains his delegate strength all the way until August. (And what about the convention, anyway? If I were an Obama delegate, I'd move around only in groups and even then very, very fast. I would not be caught walking down Colfax Avenue after dark. We could see things that haven't been done since the Borgias were trying to take over Italy.) Okay, perhaps I exaggerate.
The public really is waiting for that "anything at all". Let the media talk about issues, debates, and delegate and vote counts all they wish. The main attraction is, when does Bill go off the rails, and what does Hillary do about it? During Bill's last term, this country learned to regard the Clintons as political pulp fiction. Media coverage since has clearly demonstrated that neither of them has in any way put that behind them. As to whether the voters will opt for a rerun -- that's something else altogether.
J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/bill_unbound.html at February 12, 2008 - 01:19:41 AM EST
Stock up on popcorn, the circus is going to make an extended run!
I've never been able to figure out the attraction there. Clinton is a talker, but man, what a bore! And Hillary is so protected by the press, so calculated in her speech, that it's pretty funny seeing those two and W talking--the Clintons can yap all day without saying anything, while W has a lot to say but can't articulate it.
LOL! Good advice and I believe he's right about Willy not being able to keep a sock in it. Time to stock up on Coors and Orville Redenbacher's.
It might be because I don't have cable TV, but I haven't witnessed much campaigning at all. Perhaps it's because I long ago tired of constantly seeing You Decide 2008! graphics and hearing Hillary/Obama hyped 24/7. Looks and sounds to me like there's a sickening amount of alleged "analysis" and orchestrating going on. Maybe I'm already old-fashioned, but I don't consider phony scripted debates to be "campaigning."
I think the only thing of substance I've heard from any of the candidates on either side were clips of Romney's farewell speech at CPAC. Then again, I don't expect much more than endlessly repetitive platitudes about "change" and "hope" from the democrats.
The pollsters, pundits, consultants, and media figures are all poleaxed, without the vaguest idea of what's going on or where we're headed.
That's very true, but I think it tends to be par for the course on any given day, election year or not.
For the first time in decades we're seeing a real contest. I, for one, like it that way.
I dunno. Since McCain appears to have sewn up the nomination after only a handful of state primaries/caucuses, I have to disagree.
It does look like fuses are burning on some fireworks on the democrats' side, though. Hillary will not go down without leaving a swath of destruction in her wake.
I agree that the Clintoons can definitely make this an interesting show. I think it would be great fun to witness a meltdown of historical proportions. Oh, yeah, Obama's delegates had better watch out!
“Clinton was defeated in an office run only once, his re-election for Arkansas governor, before he learned the ropes.”
No. He lost a run for congress, then ran for Arkansas Attorney General.If I can know this why doesn’t a political journalist? sheesh.
I agree with the author except on one point:
America did not vote for them initially as a the First Soap Opera.
We weren’t at war when they got in in 92. There are more serious things at stake — like civilization itself.
By the way, I recall being entirely let down on election night 1992 when Rush Limbaugh had assured me that President Bush would be re-elected.
There was this "carny barker" as my Dad called him who was in a "flashy but seedy suit" who walked up and was trying to hustle some tickets to my Dad for entrance to the "freak show". We bought two and went in. The first thing we saw was a two headed cow.
The barker and the cow had to be the Clintons, I just didn't know it then.
Excellent article, and I think the “Don Juan” explanation about Bill’s need to fuel the degradation of women was spot on! Great find!
...”One thing not widely understood about the Clinton years, particularly with regard to the subtopic, “How did he get away with it?”, is the fact that they were great entertainment.”...
Wrong. They were not “great entertainment”. The Clintons were the worst thing to happen to the USA in my lifetime (> 50 years) from the social, political, and world perspectives.
Bill Clinton’s moral conduct brought America to a new low, with parents being forced to explain oral sex to 9 and 10 year olds. Together the Clintons made lying - for a “better cause” - acceptable at all levels of life. ]
They brought the politics of personal destruction into the arena, perfecting it for their own ends, and have changed irretrievably the political process in the USA. They sold out America to the Chinese for political contributions, further subverting the election process to their benefit.
Bill Clinton’s fecklessness and cowardice in the face of repeated islamic acts of war against the US at home and abroad, including the dereliction of duty with regard to bin laden, makes it reasonable to lay 9/11 at his feet. If he had done the right thing and killed bin laden given the chance, how different history would be today.
I resent, and hold in utter contempt, any individual who writes that the Clinton’s were “entertainment”. This is utterly wrong. They were and remain a blight upon America. Thand God we now have a chance to rid the body politic of the Clinton cancer.
What a fun read..
Let me just speculate a little. Are these the days that Bill’s name shows up on Hillary’s “little list”? How much of a sympathy vote would the widow Clinton draw?
There's some things you just don't do:
1) Spit in the wind.
2) Tug on Superman's cape.
3) Get between John McCain and a camera.
4) Situate yourself between a Clinton and access to power.
Ping for later read.
Man, when’s the last time you watched any of the regular shows on network TV?? Just because you and I consider their offerings to be crap doesn’t mean alot of other people aren’t entertained by it.
BTTT!
“...nothing beats a democracy for sheer entertainment. By those standards, 2008 is shaping up as the most entertaining election in quite some time.”
New version of the old Chinese curse: May you live in entertaining times.
True, my friend, we don’t watch much “regular” TV in our house; haven’t, in fact, since “Hill Street Blues”, “Cheers”, and “LA Law” were on Thursday night. Sort of dates me, I guess...I have no interets in what is offered, beyond a perhaps unhealthy addiction to “24”.
If his quest for the spotlight costs Hillary the presidency where do you think that leaves Bill? What was the name of that Uma Thurman series?
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