In late January, 1993, my future wife and I attended a performance of Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Unknown to us beforehand, this was the "coming out" party for the new president and first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton, seated in the balcony's presidential box that night. Having recently visited Ford's Theatre—where another balcony "presidential box" is preserved in perpetuity—we were a bit on edge as we went through the Secret Service checkpoint and found our seats.
While I had had my doubts about Bill Clinton during that 1992 campaign—he reminded me, unpleasantly, of a former housemate of mine, also a skirt-chasing Southern boy—I enjoyed the glow that permeated the District of Columbia after 12 years of mean-spirited, me-first Republican rule. For a period of a few months at least, I suspended my capacity to think the worst of politicians, even in this, the company town for sleazy politicians (Newt Gingrich, don't forget, was in the ascendancy). During that performance at the Kennedy Center, I kept looking up at the balcony, just to make sure that the new president was safe and this wasn't all a pipe dream after all.
Those were the sunny days when Americans said hello to the Clintons. Glimmers of hope pierced the economic gloom Ross Perot exploited on the campaign trail (misted over by Clinton's mythmakers is the fact that Perot's 14 percent of the vote handed the election to Bill, who only got 45 percent). We all know how the eight years of Clintonian rule played out. Though relatively peaceful and prosperous, the Clinton years were tediously tumultuous, due to the personal failings of Bill. Still, after eight years of George W. Bush, many Americans understandably looked back to those years in 2008 with nostalgia, painting a more rosy picture than the scandal-filled reality warrants.
Indeed, less than a year into Clinton's first term—by which point my wife and I had happily relocated to Connecticut—the feces was hitting the fan, over health care, the travel office, Vince Foster, the whispers of past sexual indiscretions, and so on. Watching it unfold from a safe remove, I found myself hoping Bill Clinton would resign over the Lewinsky affair, to put Al Gore in the White House and give him a jumpstart on winning the 2000 election. That would have been the proper thing to do. But, of course, it was an impossible thing to expect from the Clintons, who do not know how to exit the stage.
Flash forward 15 years. Bill's impetuous, gaffe-filled presence on Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign was, like a dose of smelling salts, quite enough to wipe out the rosy memories of his presidency. It also brought us to our senses long enough to dash the presumptive idea that Hillary Clinton, by fait accompli, would return to the White House.
And, of course, Barack Obama had something to do with this. Perceived at the start of the campaign as a promising rookie still in need of political seasoning—at least compared to steroid-inflated free agents like Hillary and John McCain—Obama grew immeasurably during the months of fending off attacks from Republicans and Hillary's deceitful machine. Offering hope is hokey in politics, but in this case Obama's offer was enough to push the electorate in a new direction, to deflect it from the same old insider b.s. that has crippled this nation since Reagan. All the reasons why Sen. Obama will be a great president were on display two weeks ago in Middletown, when he offered a riveting commencement address to Wesleyan University graduates.
"We are a people whose destiny has never been written for us, but by us—by generations of men and women, young and old, who have always believed that their story and the American story are not separate, but shared," he said.
Together, let's make this final plea: Say goodbye, Hillary and Bill. For the good of the country, goodbye already."
