OUR HALF-PRESIDENT
EMERY, NOEMIE
OUR HALF-PRESIDENT NOEMIE EMERY BILL CLINTON, the man who didn't inhale, and didn't consummate his relationship with the White House intern, may finally have gotten the punishment due him: He has...
...Noemie Emery is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard...
...That said, it may also be possible to make altogether too much of the particular stink of Bill Clinton...
...What the Clintons really have shown us is how hard it can be to convict an administration that presses up against the literal limits of the law...
...They were always thinking ahead and looking over their shoulders, considering how matters might look if they ever came to light...
...This sulfurous climate of multiform rancor, their own included, is the Clintons' special bequest to the nation...
...Let us recall, too, that elections are not endorsements but choices, often made reluctantly between unbeloved opponents...
...Five years ago, a prescient Jacob Weisberg forecast all of it in the pages of New York magazine: "The Clintons will never be indicted because they were too smart . . . to actually break the law...
...Let us recall, also, that the choices served up by the Republicans were widely perceived to be poor...
...As our half-president looks to his final half-term, having squandered the first half in scandal and diddling, even he may realize how much he has wasted, how hollowed-out his power and his prospects have become...
...And he will always—now and later—be a joke...
...He will stay on for two years, our half-guilty half-president, with his authority gone, not that he will ever miss it...
...Whatever he was in 1991, George Bush by 1992 appeared drained and exhausted, and Bob Dole four years later was even worse...
...As the investigation unfolds . . . Republicans will grow ever more frustrated as the First Couple eludes capture . . . and the Clintons grow ever more resentful as they struggle to break free of the web they helped to spin...
...Of course, he has only been half a president, as he is not respected as an authority and has never been able to lead...
...He is not a brilliant political mastermind—or maybe he is, but only at moments...
...OUR HALF-PRESIDENT NOEMIE EMERY BILL CLINTON, the man who didn't inhale, and didn't consummate his relationship with the White House intern, may finally have gotten the punishment due him: He has been half, but not quite, impeached...
...He may cherish the illusion of having escaped scot-free from the fracas, but a more fitting simile is that voiced by a Democratic consultant: a car crash, where all walked away from the scene, still alive, but bleeding and staggering...
...Democrats resent defending a man they can't stomach...
...Republicans thus are half-responsible for Clinton, having twice failed to produce a credible alternative leader or run a coherent and forceful campaign...
...Not really Camelot II...
...As for his opponents, they have to develop what they have so far been lacking: a leadership that marries vigor to conscience, and does not depend upon technical niceties to keep itself out of the slammer...
...and the Clintons resent being resented by practically everyone...
...Then, please God, they will in 2000 take back the White House, and, after that, hose the place down...
...It is also possible that he is not a generational symbol, bringing in a new age of moral corruption, but a very old type of sweet-talking sinner, who made his way into power by luck...
...Let us recall that he has never—in a primary, or in a general election—faced a truly strong rival, and that in his presidential races he never won 50 percent of the vote...
...His much-vaunted political skill is really a genius for damage-control, after he blunders his way into chronic disasters he should have avoided in the first place...
...That is, he has been impeached, but not convicted, as the case against him was strong, but not airtight...
...Republicans resent not bagging the rodent...
...This latest obstruction and perjury scandal is of a piece with all of the others—Travelgate, Filegate, fund-raising, and Hillary's futures—in which what common sense tells us must be a true story cannot quite be proven as fact...
Vol. 4 • February 1999 • No. 22
