Bill Clinton's Subconscious Sabotage



It is conventional wisdom along the Beltway and among reporters covering the Presidential race that Bill Clinton's involvement in the Hillary-for-President campaign, once thought to be positively invaluable, has been, thus far, a net negative. It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course. Clinton & Clinton were supposed to have had by now a double-barrelled stranglehold upon the Democratic Party nomination. Bill was supposed to be doing fundraisers while Hillary was to be buttressing the Arkansas and Kentucky vote for the general election. And yet, at present, barring a gaffe of cosmic proportions on the part of Illinois junior Senator Barack Obama, the last Clinton campaign for the Presidency is just about exhausted of all energy.

And what of Bill Clinton's role in this ticket-that-exploded? Is it possible that the greatest American politician of his generation, a man who almost never hits a false note on the campaign trail, could be subconsciously sabotaging his wife's candidacy? Doesn't he want to be "The First Laddie"? Looking backwards, from the South Carolina ghetto-ization of the Obama candidacy by the former President, to the re-ignition of the Hillary-Bosnia exaggerations, Bill Clinton's involvement has served only to siphon off the winds from the sails of her campaign at critical moments in the Presidential regatta.

Clearly, William Jefferson Clinton is an American genius. Falstaffian. Whitmanish. Effervescent in his Southern Charm, but always acutely attuned to the working man and the poor African-American laborer. His ability to surmount almost any learning curve -- from wonkish domestic policy proposals to the upper reaches of international relations -- speaks well of the almost overwhelming largeness of his personality. And the Clintonian talent at embroidering disparate underclass coalitions is impressive. Just as clearly obvious, however, is the fact that Bill Clinton would have been a much better campaigner had he had some form of therapy to address his various psychological issues.

We don't make that statement lightly (The Corsair sips a 1974 Mouton-Cadet Baron Rothschild). Nor do we bring it up only for the Lewinsky incident, which is not all that unusual an event in the life of a President (for further reference, see: Kennedy), but peculiarly embarrassing in that it occur ed in the Oval office, during an idle period in Congressional relations, at the height of the rise of New Media. It seems inconceivable to us that a man of Clinton's self-preserving intellect, using right reason, would toss all that aside lightly for a willing piece of ass. And, worse, the nearly psychotic reaction of levelling the rickety Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum with supreme American firepower during a particularly iffy moment. Venting to a therapist might have eased some of the stress that led to that overwrought and ill-advised reaction.

Bill Clinton's persona is almost entirely "Materialist." Not a "Kimora Materialist," but a materialist philosophically nonetheless. Clearly Clinton lacks a certain interiority, a dimension of self-reflection. An enthusiastic generalist, Clinton, pre-heart operation, attacked food -- sweet potato cheesecake particularly -- with the same verve and gusto in which he pursued extramarital affairs. One of the great criticisms of the Clinton presidency, beyond the ridiculous Starr Report, is the fact that Clinton -- possibly because he, like a child celebrity, had spent his entire life in politics -- did not appear to have a central moral/parental guiding voice that governed his maneuverings through life. The combination of materialism and sheer amorality was not a good look in, as Pat Buchanan constantly reminds us, a so-called Judeo-Christian nation. After his Presidency, Clinton's international work on NGO's in Africa -- and beyond -- offset the charges of, frankly, opportunism thrown at him from the far-right and the DLC-hating left.

The perceived reptilian amorality of Bill Clinton is based almost entirely on his education as a politician. Bill Clinton's magnificent "My Life" is the second best American political memoir by a President after Ulysses S. Grant's (who wrote his because he was broke and dying from drink and wanted to cover his wife and kids). In Clinton's memoir we learned that: a) His father was absent during his childhood, b) Politics and political achievement took the place of his father's approval as a moral signpost in his life, and c) The elation of winning elections was his Holy Nirvana. Bill Clinton's American political genius is also his religion; Clinton is, and always has been, one of the most-effective and long-worshipping practitioners of the church of High Politics (TM).

So when Bill Clinton cooly embraces Triangulation and Welfare Reform and school Uniforms to the abject horror of die hard left-of-center Democrats, it is not because he lacks entirely any interior moral compass, rather, Clinton's Moral Compass is based of being at one point in time a Democrat in Arkansas in the 1970s and 80s, trying to achieve a popular consensus. Clinton, as Governor, was governed by what was politically achievable. Building a consensus was the only avenue available for one seeking to advance in the limited maneuvering room of an Arkansas politics as a Democrat. And particularly when Clinton lost the 104th congress and he -- referring back to Arkansan political type -- he entered into that fateful behind-the-scenes alliance with Dick Morris and Trent Lott. It was the logical, if unreflective move, for him.

Clinton's lack of reflection, his recklessness, is his Tragedy, and in many ways the tragedy of his generation. Trying to be more than one's parents. It is a recurrent theme in The West, from the Fall of the Titans to Shakespearean succession of Kings. Even as the Boomers came to Power by attacking the traditions of their predecessors, they have fallen under their own anxieties of influence. When one thinks of Boomers nowadays one thinks of The Clintons, Steve Jobs, Joan Baez, Howard Stern, Civil Rights, Feminism, and ... Therapy. The noble if somewhat dated practice of Psychotherapy was largely dismissed by the American Establishment until the 1960s, that socio-political explosion of subconscious forces embodied by the rights of women and minorities. Since then, the 1960s and Psychotherapy have been synonymous. Clinton, we cannot fail to note, who is Southern Christian in name only, could have benefited vastly in his personal life and in his Presidency, by some therapy. Just saying ...