Commentary

Bill Clinton is a man, is a man

By Mervyn de Silva

In his book All Things to all men, the false promise of the modern American presidency from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, Godfrey Hodgson, who spent 18 years as a foreign correspondent in Washington representing the Sunday Times and Observer (London) and the weekly New Statesman, wrote: 

“His position in international affairs is almost enviable compared to his situation at home: so much so that a President in deadlock at home, almost reflectively turns to what seem the easier problems of finding peace in the Middle East or redefining the West’s relations with China. At home, the President cannot seriously hope to persuade the Congress to pass a wretched fragment of his legislative program, itself carefully tailored down from what he would have liked to see voted into law in a perfect world”. And so to the trial. 

No witnesses? Mr. Clinton’s lawyers evidently presented such a convincing defence, that the White House - and - Democratic party tacticians felt that it was best to bring the proceedings as quickly as possible to a close without calling witnesses. Aggression was the best form of defence - that was clearly the Clinton camp’s consensus. 

But the press kept the pressure on. Often the American media could behave like a wolf pack..... certainly the mass circulation dailies, the evening rag picked up on the way back from work. 

Foreign Policy

On Monday Monica Lewinsky the woman involved in this drama - a personal tragedy-cum-political crisis - told the US House of Representatives that she should not be compelled to testify at President Clinton’s impeachment trial. But three Senators disagreed. After their first encounter with the lady they argued that she would be a most useful witness in the Senate “determining the truth”. They went a step further. In their first encounter they had found the session with Lewinsky “productive and very constructive”. Good try, Monica, but not smart enough for those wily, hard-boiled politicos. Of course, all students of American politics, foreign policy, recognise the decisive role the Senate plays. In his second term President Clinton has assumed quite an active role in international affairs - the Middle-east in particular. And PLO leadership found his diplomacy quite even-handed, when traditionally American policy is quite blatantly pro-Israel. “Ah, the Jewish vote in the U.S., Jewish contributions to the party fund, and anti-PLO is the standard explanation. No it wasn’t all that simple. There was after all a Cold War on, and the Soviet Union was then an aggressive global actor. No more. President Clinton was in fact the guest for a day of Chairman Yasser Arafat, now a “President” too, President of the P.A., the Palestinian Authority. 

Women’s Houses

To adapt Gertrude Stein, “A politician is a politician, is a politician” and even twice elected President is a man, is a man. And the opinion polls showed that the vast American electorate is inclined to forgive President Clinton for his crimes and misdemeanours. 

And what of his wife Hillary? Already the press and TV have raised the question - Will Hillary run for Senate? South Asian observers of this American tragedy would not be surprised surely. The Houses of Parliament in the Indian subcontinent has quite a large number of widows and daughters of famous men. What’s more Sri Lanka the trendsetter has already produced an elected President, a woman, and her mother, the world’s first woman Prime Minister holding that same office, which caught the eye of the world media many decades ago.

President Bill Clinton is no novice. One does not remain in the White House if you are just a good-looking nice guy. 

And so satirist William Safire who writes a widely read column to the New York Times (all the news that’s fit to print) did an opinion survey posing questions that nobody else would have dared to pose. 

Finding 1. 

Clinton loyalists see the media as elitist hounds and the man being impeached as a populist fox. 

Finding 2. 

Loyalists find his failings to be their failings. 

Finding 3. 

He is grudgingly admired for his Houdini-class escapes. And what is the final conclusion? 

“We have had to admit that sexual activity is not the crime we thought it was.” 

And seriously, what of American foreign policy? Traditionally the Democrats are pro-Israeli. So he went to Israel, visited Yasser Arafat in P.A. territory and enjoyed himself, not bothering to pay much attention to Prime Minister Netanyahu. 

What else? Will President Clinton say ‘forgive me’ by giving a Senate seat to his wife, a signal that she is the First Lady. 

Ah, these crazy Yanks.

Hulftsdorp Hill

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