Smith is right. The programs, the "issues," are America's obligatory means of political courtship. But for a Sun King, these are means to his end. And his only real end is seduction. That is what Clinton stands for.
Sam Smith's language tells the reader that he is aware of this. Newsweek's Joe Klein, in "The Politics of Promiscuity," (May 9, 1994) seems for an instant to have suspected it. Christopher Hitchens of The Nation has been in a cold rage about it. These men have strikingly different political views. The realization that Clinton is most fundamentally a political seduction machine is not dependent on ideology but on sensibility, and on the intelligence to look past his liberal-altruistic language and to question Clinton's personal values.
Finally, also raising questions about Clinton's psychology are the pillars of establishment journalism and the academic students of the presidency. These are extremely intelligent and judicious people who acknowledge no signs of a Sun King's presence and who judge Clinton by the standards set by the great American presidents. They are concerned with psychological issues pertaining to Clinton's mind, above all to his cognitive competence.
A few examples will do: At the end of Clinton's first year in office, David Broder of The Washington Post was worrying about Clinton's habit of launching too many policy initiatives at once, many more than he could handle, and his tendency to go rushing around in all directions. Hedrick Smith of PBS was disturbed by a related issue--Clinton's inability to set priorities. And Fred I. Greenstein, professor of politics at Princeton University and author of two classic books on the American presidency, was praising Clinton's "verbal intelligence" but wanted to know whether Clinton had an "analytical intelligence." This was an unusual question. The Princeton scholar was actually saying, Clinton can talk, but can he think?
However different all the questions above may seem to be--from "Does he have a self?" to "Can he think?"--their similarities are greater than their differences. All the questions are psychological in nature and all the questioners are staring fixedly at Clinton's consciousness. Most of the people quoted above have expressed admiration for Clinton, and most probably voted for him. But all have clearly worried about one or another aspect of Clinton's mind.
There is a good deal to worry about.
Thinking
On June 7, 1994, Bob Woodward was interviewed on C-SPAN about The Agenda. The discussion moved to Hillary Clinton, and Woodward said in emphatic tones, "I'd go so far as to say she's a part of Bill Clinton's brain."
That is both the most extreme and the most accurate description of Hillary Clinton that anyone has yet offered. It is the only reason for which Hillary Clinton is a significant American figure. She has been flattered by the feminist movement, which, like New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen, imagines her to have a "great mind." She has been abused by certain conservatives who, like Richard Nixon, believe that such an intelligent, self-assertive woman turns her husband into a "wimp." Both those characterizations miss the mark. Hillary is a bright woman lawyer of the kind one sees by the dozens on CNN and C-SPAN, only they have earned their positions while she has married hers. Her actual importance lies in one realm alone. She is known to be a prop to her husband's mind, and her husband is president of the United States.
To an inordinate degree Hillary Clinton thinks for Bill Clinton.
Specifically, she is Bill Clinton's access to the laws of logic, without which no thinking is possible. Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic has discussed Clinton's blindness to logic on a number of occasions. On February 1, 1993, he wrote, "The most disturbing quality about Clinton is his indifference to contradiction. Not excluding the political middle by not excluding the logical middle, that appears to be Clinton's strategy. And so he can hold in his mind simultaneously, and sincerely, notions that cannot really be held together." And, again in the July 19-26, 1993 issue: "He lives without the law of contradiction."
Hillary Clinton provides Clinton with certain narrow logical skills of which he is singularly bereft. This does not imply that she is Aristotle, any more than a seeing-eye dog is a cartographer. It implies only that as compared to Clinton, the blazing Bubba, Mrs. Clinton is on speaking terms with logic, and he cannot function without her.
Some White House reporters have gradually discovered this dependence. Initially they saw Hillary as a helpful adjunct to presidential decision making. Just after the election, Eleanor Clift and Mark Miller said in Newsweek, "Hillary is Bill's Daytimer, the gentle lash who keeps him focused, who doesn't mind making decisions and refereeing disputes when Clinton would rather stall." This description is a bit too soft. Take out the "gentle" and the "doesn't mind," and you have a clearer picture of a Hillary who keeps Bill's mind focused, who makes his decisions, and who resolves his conflicts.
Six months later, in late June 1993, at the peak of the Clintons' bizarre succession of political catastrophes, Eleanor Clift returned to Hillary to answer the question, "Has health care kept her from helping Bill?" Clift's answer was an unequivocal yes: "[Many staffers] blame Clinton's inability to make up his mind on any number of issues--from Bosnia to the BTU tax--on Hillary's distance from the Oval Office. Clinton's decision to delegate health care to his wife disrupted the delicate balance between the couple. Because Hillary has a real job, she cannot devote the time she once did to her husband's problems. And he has suffered as a result."
And nine months later, in March 1994 as the sex and money scandals were exploding over the Clintons' heads, Time published an article called "The Trials of Hillary." It was written by Nancy Gibbs, and all impulse to soften Hillary had vanished. Rather, with the first lady under fire, it was necessary to make her importance clear. Gibbs cited people close to the Clintons as the source for a crisp description of the essence of Bill Clinton's dependency on Hillary: "Their friends observed that he needs her brains, her logic, her focus."
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