The liberal legacy of dogs and bimbos

In the book Primary Colours Jack Stanton the governor of a small southern state who is aiming to join the presidential race is a man with...

In the book Primary Colours Jack Stanton the governor of a small southern state who is aiming to join the presidential race is a man with an inspiring personality. He has a brilliant mind that can assimilate reams of complex information and reel off appropriate facts and figures on demand. He has the ability to draw people to him, to lock their attention, tirelessly canvass his point of view and to listen, really listen.

At the same time he is a man with serious personal weaknesses including a prodigious appetite for junk food and women. In contrast is his wife, Susan. A sharp shrewish woman, intelligent, organised, control freak and a whip to her errant husband. She pushes, prods, flays and eggs him on. Her opinion is as essential to him as his own and her drive seems necessary to power him. But the most attractive thing about the charismatic Stantons is that they care. About the old folks, about the young folks, about the poor folks, the education policy and taxes. They care.

But, as events progress in a book that was widely acknowledged to be a thinly disguised portrait of the Clintons, the scabs show up. His infidelity, her revenge, his dithering, her abuse. Jack gets the daughter of a simple-minded barbeque owner pregnant then tries to fob him off with money and a fake blood test. The Stantons get their hands on information that would emotionally devastate their main rival and unhesitatingly plan on how to plant it in the press. As these contradictions surface disillusionment sets in. Libby, their old idealistic friend and comrade in arms kills herself. Henry their main man in the campaign drops out. In the end it is Jack and Susan. Susan and Jack.

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The real life story of Bill and Hillary does not seem as dramatic. Agonising, yes. Mysterious yes, sad even, but not dramatic. Not surprising for a saga that has run through as many reverses as Dynasty : Gennifer Flowers, Whitewater, the suicide of Vance Foster, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky…. After a certain point, deja vu sets in. Last year with the Lewinsky scandal occupying centrestage, the marriage, probably the world’s most analysed, came under intense scrutiny. How would Hillary react? What would her next move be? were issues of debate.

As it happened, she didn’t react. Apart from appearing on television to defend her husband (as she had done when the Gennifer Flowers revelation hit the fan) by trotting out the tired right wing conspiracy theory, she maintained a stiff upper lip. And despite the horror expressed over her decision to stand by her husband there was still a certain amount of sympathy for her plight.

With her latest interview to the new magazine Talk, where she connected Bill’s sexual misdemeanours to childhood abuse, however, Hillary Clinton seems to have finally gone too far. Or perhaps, a public fed on excess has decided that it has had just about enough of the Clintons’ denials, evasions and excuses. Some have taken exception to Mrs. Clinton’s `psychobabble’.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette for instance was horrified that she should shift the blame for Bill’s actions on his late mother and grandmother. "Good gracious Miss Hillary", it said, "With all due respect, please shut up."Others have been offended by her apparent arrogance. While the pundits came out forcefully against her with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times claiming: "Everyone is fed up with the creepy dynamics of this warped marriage", common people too expressed their disgust. "Mrs Clinton please go home and spend some time with your daughter", went one e mail to a Hillary Clinton forum on the net. "Do not put her through this again …we do not believe that you did not know for years what went on…You were and are so power hungry that nothing else matters….Just go away ..please."

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Forceful words these. But will the sentiment last? The same public that is now so reluctant to relive the Monica Lewinsky affair was lapping up every detail with avid curiousity last summer. The same public that deplores Hillary’s comments today kept Bill Clinton in office last year and will probably elect his wife to the Senate should she decide to stand. In other words, the Clintons have a good chance of surviving. As they have done before. But, is that enough?

In Primary Colours Libby, before she drives off and shoots a gun through her heart, reminds Jack Stanton of something he had once said : "Our job is to END all that. Our job is to make it clean. Because if it’s clean, we win — because our ideas are better." And Jack says : "It was a long time ago." And Susan says : "We were young. We didn’t know how the world worked."

Presumably the Clintons have figured out that the world works on compromise. More to the point, at least one trade off has been clear. Consider the words used by Hillary Clinton in her Talk interview. Her husband, she claims, is “a hard dog to keep off the porch”. And “bimbo eruptions” she also maintains had long been a part of their marriage. Dogs and bimbos! A more dehumanising description of sexuality and women would be hard to find. From anyone else it would be merely chauvinistic. But coming from the most liberal couple to occupy the White House it is indicative of a rather serious compromise. And whatever good the Clintons may have done or may do in the future this will be a part of their legacy. As Libby mi-ght have asked: “Was it worth it?”

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