The
Clintons: Weapons of Mass Distraction
"One
of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you
end up being governed by your inferiors."
– Plato
By
Doug Patton
While
most Americans were focused last week on the Laci Peterson
murder case and the Martha Stewart stock scandal, the sycophants
in the national media decided to treat us all to the tidbits
of calculated self-promotion to be found in Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton’s new book, “Living History.”
Hillary’s
first book, “It Takes a Village,” was a digest of “I-care-about-the-children”
socialist political philosophy published during her husband’s
presidency. It was designed to polish her tarnished image
following the 1993 health care fiasco, a power grab of such
epic proportions that it was soundly repudiated by the American
people in the historic 1994 Republican congressional landslide.
This
book is being touted as “a memoir,” and is designed to gently
get us all past the scandals of Bill Clinton’s presidency
and clear the way for the couple to return to the White
House in 2009.
By
any measure, the book should be called “Living Fantasy.”
In
fact, most pundits outside the national broadcast networks
and the now-discredited spin factory at The New York Times,
scoff at the notion that this is a “tell-all” book of personal
pain written by the former First Lady. It is not, of course.
Rather, it is a cynical attempt to reinvent the smartest
woman in the world into the warmest, most forgiving woman
in the world.
Speculation
ran wild concerning what the book might reveal about the
Clintons’ marriage and the strange political partnership
that has dominated our national psyche for far too long
now. What would Barbara Walters ask Hillary in her prime
time interview on Sunday night? America was told to be on
pins and needles. We were all agog.
Of
course, the nauseatingly sweet interview consisted of nerf
balls tossed at Sen. Clinton in what became a shameless
attempt to soften her image to a skeptical public.
Gerald
Ford once described Watergate as “our long national nightmare.”
The Clintons have become a self-imposed nightmare that simply
won’t go away.
Bill
Clinton himself has been mentioned for so many possible
post-presidential careers – television talk show host, Secretary
General of the U.N., Supreme Court Justice appointed by
the next Democrat president – that it must make his overgrown,
narcissistic head spin with delight. His latest trial balloon
involves a possible run at the New York governor’s mansion
in 2006.
The
Clintons have so totally dominated the news this past week
that even their old friend Susan Estrich called it “sucking
all the oxygen” out of Democrat politics. As Hillary was
on ABC deriding the vast right wing cabal she still sees
as having been out to get her husband during his presidency,
Bill was doing his point-counterpoint gig against old Bob
Dole over on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Dick
Morris, the amoral but brilliant strategist largely responsible
for keeping the reckless former president alive politically
for so many years, probably knows the Clintons better than
anyone alive today. His assessment is that the power couple’s
game plan has never changed: eight years for Bill, eight
years for Hillary.
That’s
all the Constitution allows, unless, of course, they can
get that pesky 22nd Amendment repealed – a trial balloon
floated in the media last month by none other than Bubba
himself, and promoted again on tonight’s “60 Minutes” debate.
You really have to hand it to these people: they are not
lacking in gall.
In
his immediate analysis of the ABC interview, Morris, now
a Fox News commentator, said he thought that Hillary had
destroyed her credibility. After all, his logic goes, would
anyone elect a woman who, in spite of everything the entire
country knew about Bill’s libido problems, says she still
believed him?
The
answer, I am afraid, is “Yes!” Barbara Walters made Hillary
Clinton look humane to millions of American women. She came
across not as the shrill, domineering woman who tried to
hijack health care, but rather as the forgiving wife who
can be trusted to care for an America in crisis the way
she cares for her family in crisis.
That
was exactly what the Clintons were looking for from this
whole sham. That and eight million dollars.
Doug
Patton is a freelance columnist who has served
as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor at
the federal, state and local levels. His weekly columns
can be read in newspapers across the country, and on www.GOPUSA.com,
where he serves as the Nebraska Editor.
He also
writes for Talon News Service (www.TalonNews.com).
Readers can
e-mail him at dpatton@neonamp.com.
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