In a recent column eulogizing Sen. Paul Wellstone, Washington
Post columnist David Broder
told a story that revealed a side of Bill Clinton known to thousands
of Arkansans, but mostly
ignored by the press.
While critical of Clinton's behavior, Wellstone explained to Broder
during the 2000 campaign
why he couldn't condemn him personally: "Two years earlier...Clinton
came to Minnesota at
the end of a long day of stumping for Democratic candidates in
three states. Wellstone had
sent word to the White House that he would have with him, in
the airport receiving line,
a constituent who was a great political buff and was now facing
terminal cancer.
If the president could spend a minute with him, it would be wonderful.
"It was near midnight when Clinton came off the plane. Wellstone introduced
the constituent
and the president said he would be right back. 'And then,' Wellstone
said, 'he took us into the
holding room in the hangar, and for 45 minutes, at the end of
a day that had started before
dawn for him in Washington, they talked. Clinton never said a
word about his illness, but
he talked about every issue in the news and listened to everything
my constituent had to say.
It was the greatest gift he could have given him.'"
Broder says Wellstone's "appreciation for the human quality in
others," explains why the Minnesota
Senator was beloved by Republicans and Democrats alike. It's
a pity it took his death for Broder to
acknowledge Clinton's compassion. How many times has he returned
to Arkansas from halfway
around the world to attend funerals nobody would have criticized
him for missing?
A dear friend who'd taken ill years ago was flabbergasted to get
a call from the president, interrupting
Middle East peace talks to console and encourage her. Colleagues
teased her with fake messages
from the Pope and other dignitaries for days. Me, I'd been "too
busy" with my own terribly important
duties, leaving things to my wife. Another friend was moved at
getting a surprise condolence call after
Clinton saw his mother's obituary in the newspaper. Neither friend
is a public figure, nor active in politics,
merely ordinary Arkansans whose lives Bill Clinton had touched.
Attacking Al Gore for questioning President Junior's plans to
attack Iraq, syndicated columnist Charles
Krauthammer mocked him for allegedly consulting Hollywood's Rob
Reiner, or "Meathead," as he put it.
A local columnist thought this a brilliant putdown.
Pardon me, but wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor?
Second, "Meathead" was a fictional character on a TV program my
young sons called "The Man Like
Grandpa Show." He got the nickname from Archie Bunker, a comical
bigot.
Third, the real Rob Reiner has directed "A Few Good Men," "When
Harry Met Sally," "Stand by Me,"
"Spinal Tap" and several other terrific films. Believe me, directing
movies requires an order of magnitude
more skill and brainpower than writing newspaper columns. Patronizing
Reiner makes this duo look like,
well, meatheads.
Although raised Catholic, I doubted the doctrine of Papal Infallibility
the first time I heard it. Even so,
when Irish singer Sinead O'Connor shredded a photograph of Pope
John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live"
in 1992, I thought she'd gone bonkers. The controversy wrecked
her career. A recent Salon profile,
however, reminded me why she did it: to protest the then-obscure
issue of the church's cover-up of
child sex abuse. Who's crazy now? Sometimes, see, it takes girl
with a shaved head and combat boots
to speak the truth to power. I'm buying Sinead's new CD; I figure
we all owe her that much.
Back when I started this gig in 1994, friends asked me what kind
of rinky-dink outfit sought a columnist
to represent a "liberal" views, then wrote editorials sneering
at him for doing so. I answered that personal
invective had a long history at the Democrat-Gazette; I'd have
been naïve to expect anything else. Besides,
I'd rarely lost a name-calling contest. I figured I could hold
my own without too much strain. Take last
week's boldly anonymous Democrat-Gazette editorial calling me
"scuzzy" for questioning Randi Hutchinson's
virtue. Excuse me, make that "Miss Randi." A gentlemen should
always patronize a lady when engaging her
in public controversy.
So Miss Randi gives a speech to a bunch of church ladies saying
nobody should hold her husband's "personal life"
against him, and I'm supposed to pretend she's talking about
stamp collecting or model airplanes? Only Mr.
Anonymous could fail to see how ridiculous he looks invoking
tastefulness and decorum after spending a decade
focused on Bill Clinton's zipper like a laser beam. Sen. Hutchinson
and his editorial page chums went out
crusading for a showdown on the "character" issue. Now they're
shocked and horrified that they got one.