By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources
August 14, 1998
"Tears moistened the face of the president as he and his wife Hillary watched the procession, both dressed in black. They emerged earlier from a private meeting with grieving relatives and friends of the victims looking drawn and pale."
The president was meeting the families of the people killed in a bomb blast that destroyed the U.S.Embassy last Friday in Nairobi, Kenya. Almost anyone would be touched surrounded by the grief of hundreds of people who were there to escort a friend or member of their family to the cemetery.
Then the President spoke to nearly 1,000 people, colleagues from the State Department, members of the President's cabinet, members of Congress, friends or family members of the victims.
As part of the ceremony Bill Clinton, admired by many for his ability of "compartmentalize" his life, read a speech to those gathered. He read that those responsible for the "evil acts" would be found and that he would see "that justice is done."
He said, "There may be more hard road ahead because terrorists target America, because we act and stand for peace and democracy, because the spirit of our country is the very spirit of freedom."
While I realize President Clinton has a lot on his mind these days, his canned speech which he was very obviously reading made me think of the spontaneous comments of Ambassador Prudence Bushnell speaking to the people on Kenya Television. In spite of her own injuries, during her first brief statement, which she made in person at the Kenya TV studio, she expressed an obviously heartfelt apology to those Kenyans whose loved ones were either killed or injured in an effort to kill Americans.
As the bodies of the twelve Americans were being flown home, she again addressed the Kenyan people, who were burying 247 family members and friends. "Today in Kenya thousands of hearts are breaking. One of those breaking hearts is mine."
Her sadness was not the result of being able to "compartmentalize," a talent so many media commentators admire in Bill Clinton. Prudence Bushnell was speaking from her heart, not from notes put in front of her written by a speechwriter.
I was reminded of his "performance" at the funeral of his own cabinet member, Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, as he walked with the funeral entourage, smiling and chatting with Tony Campolo, until he spotted the camera and immediately put on a sad look, and bowed his head. This sort of thing is being called an amazing ability to "compartmentalize." That is Washington pro-Clinton jargon for what the rest of the world calls "acting."
Last night Geraldo Rivera called Clinton's performance over eleven caskets flown from Kenya as "magnificent" and "believable" and one of his "finest hours." Of course, Geraldo is a showman himself and it would be natural for him to admire a good performance of another actor.
And, that, in a nutshell, is what the final hours before Clinton's testimony before the Federal Grand Jury have come down to. The "big scoop" on Geraldo's show last night was "The President does not intend to perjure himself!"
Think about that for a minute. The BIG NEWS is ...Bill Clinton is NOT going to lie! Even his strongest supporters are unwittingly supporting the notion that he is a liar, a notion that Hillary Clinton has labeled as (1) a right-wing conspiracy and/or (2) discrimination against them because they come from Arkansas.
Will he, or will he not, speak to the American people - as he said seven months ago he would do? And if he does, what can we expect him to say? Let's go back into his own history to find his modus operandi.
It was 1980 and after two years in his first term as Governor of Arkansas he had lost his second election - by a fairly large margin. Can we expect him finally to take responsibility for some of the problems he has created for himself? Probably not.
"Both publicly and privately he blamed a large cast of villains and enemies, including several within his own ranks," wrote Roger Morris in Partners in Power. Several biographers have talked about Bill Clinton having been plunged into a state of depression which was accompanied by an almost frenzied womanizing that shocked even his most indulgent and cynical supporters. "What am I supposed to do," he asked one of them, "when all these women are there and want me?"
Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton plotted their return to the Governor's Mansion. Hillary did something she was determined to never do - she finally agreed to use the Clinton name. That helped in Arkansas. Then, "On a chill Monday night in February 1982 Clinton performed for the entire state what he had been doing before smaller audiences almost constantly (since losing the election.) In a thirty-second television ad repeated throughout the week, viewers saw a sad-eyed Clinton biting his lip and staring intently into the camera. The focus was at such close range that the top of his newly styled hair and even the tip of his drawn-up chin were off the screen, his face looming with intimacy in living rooms all over Arkansas.
"Deeply apologetic for what he had been and done as governor, he asked their forgiveness, especially for those license fees. He had learned from defeat and from all the people he had talked to since leaving office and he wanted and deserved a second chance. 'You can't lead without listening,' he summed up the bitter lesson.'"
Who was the author of that ad? It was the very same Dick Morris who upstaged his boss during the Democratic Convention by hitting the front page of the tabloids with his prostitute mistress.
Was the apology sincere? Of course not. It was calculated to pull the heart strings of the country bumpkins of Arkansas - that same group of folks that Hillary Rodham Clinton recently blamed as the cause of the "anti-Clinton" bias which has created all the attacks since he became president.
However, it worked. Ten years later when Clinton's womanizing threatened to derail his drive for the presidency, he, with Hillary and with Dick Morris' plan, appeared on 60 minutes, watched by 50 million Americans, to respond to a Star Tabloid story about his 12 year affair with Gennifer Flowers. Using the same, "I've been a bad boy, but I'll be good from now on" format that worked so well in regaining the Governor's mansion, Clinton admitted "causing pain" in his marriage.
In the famous 1992 interview with CBS reporter Steve Kroft it was Hillary who saved the day after Kroft pressed the question: "You've said your marriage has had problems. What does that mean?"
Hillary broke in, after Bill had floundered on the question, "There isn't a person watching this who would feel comfortable sitting on this couch detailing everything that ever went on in their life or their marriage. I think it's real dangerous in this country if we don't have a zone of privacy for everybody." Translation: "You listeners out there - we are just like you. Would you really want us to tell your secret?" At which point nearly every viewer began to think about his or her own shortcomings - which was, of course, why Hillary said it. The best defense is a good offence.
In 1992, however, the TV audience wasn't thinking of scores of women or oral sex in the White House. Will the American people fall for a third mea culpa speech in an Oscar quality performance of a pre-written script following the president's appearance before the Grand Jury on Monday?
They may. Rep. Bob Kerrey, a Democrat Senator from Nebraska who was Chairman of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said in an article in 1996, "Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?" He is not only an unusually good liar, he is also an unusually good actor.
Unfortunately, in our system of government, if the people are determined to settle for leaders who lie, who will use the power of their office to procure women, lie to the people and to a court of law and obstruct justice, they will do so.
However, it is quite likely that, this time, the facts have been marshaled in a methodical way, with direct testimony and evidence. They will be presented in legal documents to the Congress of the United States and at some point the Congress will have to decide if it's OK for the President of the United States to commit perjury, obstruct justice, and when confronted with irrefutable evidence, to say, "Gee! I'm sorry you caught me! I promise not to do it again."
This time the public will not have the excuse that they "didn't know" - which is the defense people all over the world always use when they have chosen a corrupt leader. They will know, thanks to Kenneth Starr and his investigators. What we are seeing on TV and in the news comments and on radio is what, as a people, we will decide on the question: How much evil is too much to tolerate in the leader of the free world?
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com