So Close To Greatness

On his second day in office, President Clinton reversed President
Reagan’s 1984 “Mexico City” policy, which banned international U.S.
funding of clinics that provide reproductive counseling for family-planning
that also includes abortion counseling.  One of the next things William Jefferson Clinton did was to rescind
an order former President Bush had signed banning RU486 from importation
to American soil.  President Bill Clinton also instructed the FDA
to begin testing this drug.  It took a long time, but it is
finally available in the United States, though not widely used at
this point in time, which is hardly the point.  Family leave, reproductive
rights and women’s rights were never more understood or championed
than when President Clinton was in charge. 

With the right wing dogging him, however, he handed them the ax.

That’s why so many of us refused to jump ship when his philandering
was exposed, yet one more time.  We were loyal to him because he
was loyal to our causes, which were bigger than us all, but also because we knew what it was all about.  We felt
empathy for Mrs. Clinton’s plight and personal humiliation, but
this was strictly business, the business of protecting a woman’s
right to self-determination and reproductive health care, here and
around the world.

Other stands were not so fortuitous for President Clinton.  His
decision to act aggressively on gays in the military was nothing
short of a humongous miscalculation, regardless of the fact that
he was half snookered by the press on this issue.  Though well meaning,
we will never know the full ramifications of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell,”
simply because the military uses this same philosophy in dishonestly
disseminating facts and figures on the backlash of this policy. 

But President Clinton’s pushing for hate crimes legislation showed a
deep understanding of the discrimination that occurs in state or
local areas, where crimes of this nature are often seen as mischief,
instead of the heinous act of cowards against minorities.  President
Clinton also addressed the national epidemic of HIV and AIDS, which
was allowed to explode under the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations,
due to the religious right’s political involvement, arrogant disregard
and human callousness, which can never be forgiven. For the
first time in history a presidential administration took gay rights
and issues seriously, though there remains much to be done.

When black leaders around the country like Toni Morrison began
to proclaim, We now have our first black president, it was meant
only half in jest.  No white political leader in the history
of this nation seemed to understand the African American community
of this country better than President Bill Clinton.
This is what makes the repercussions of the 2000 election so utterly
painful for so many minorities, especially African Americans.  No
white American is likely to ever speak to black Americans with the
authority of President Clinton.

President Clinton’s heart was always in the right place, which
is the reason his job approval rating is the highest of any American
president in history, at 68%+, according to a new Newsweek
poll @ MSNBC.com, something his enemies will never understand.  
It’s a complicated relationship the American people have with
our 42nd president.  Empowering humans to get what they want
for themselves and out of life was something President Bill Clinton
knew about, because few politicians are as successful as he is in
getting exactly what he wants.  That is also his Achilles’ heal.

The question of “what if” resounds throughout the punditry on
paper, television and the Web.  What if President Clinton hadn’t
been so randy in office, handing his enemies the ammunition they
so coveted to eviscerate him politically?  The president could have
done so much more, couldn’t he?  He squandered so many opportunities,
didn’t he?

There is nothing so ridiculous as reducing a man to what he
might have done in the wake of all he accomplished.  President Clinton’s
critics see the cup as half empty, missing the meaning of the life
of this man, the time of life he shared with us all. 

A man at the crossroads of mid-life often finds himself in the
throes of wildly contradictory desires.  Accomplishments, relevancy,
virility and manliness often collide in uncomfortable ways.  For
a man who has never had to resolve the revolving tests of life,
mid-life can be a very cruel, often embarrassing, and, ultimately,
a profoundly defining time.  Living his life on the public stage,
as Bill Clinton has done for his adult life, he never took the opportunity
to stop, reflect, and let the introspection of private moments lead
to revelations on how to live his private life.  Forever caught
in the drama of public life, he became the master of masking his
own human weaknesses without ever putting the energy into moving
through his momentary lustings to what the cause might be for his
dangerous personal habits.  His past, his childhood, became the
defining element of his life instead of only a part of who he is
from which to launch greater ambitions. 

Mid-life became his Rubicon.

A man navigating a mid-life crisis is not a comfortable experience
to behold, as America has learned.  The rest of the world always
understood what was happening through every step of the Jones-Lewinski-Clinton
imbroglio.  As Dale Bumpers said at the impeachment trial in the Senate,
“When someone says it isn’t about sex, it’s about sex.“ 
President Clinton’s personal humiliation on the public stage was
a lesson he should have learned years earlier, but that’s what happens
when an individual refuses to learn lessons when first presented. 
The tests keep coming until we get it, regardless of how hard we
go down learning what we must.

“What if” is beyond ridiculous to contemplate, because without
all the characteristics of Clinton the man you cannot be certain
that anything he did would have happened.  His weaknesses are
tied up in his strengths, and cannot and should not be separated. 
The American people received the best that this man had to give,
but that seems not to have been enough for those with lesser appetites
and perfect pasts and presents, thus the “what ifs.”  There is
talk of discipline or lack thereof, but it is the unbridled passions
of this man that allowed him to reach the American people, as well
as accomplish the things he did.  The Clinton Papers will prove
his intellectual might, complexity and understanding of the issues
and his time.  As we see others in office we will realize just what
a large impact this man made on the daily, individual lives of Americans,
as well as the world community.

You never know how good you have it until what you treasure
is taken away, as seen in the first acts of George
II’s administration, from reproductive rights for the world
community, to, well, it goes on and on.

But why is it that so many of the leaders the American people
love are alleged to be libidinous rogues, whether we’re talking
about President John F. Kennedy, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,
President William Jefferson Clinton, and now, Reverend Jesse Jackson? 
There is not one definitive answer to this question.  But it’s safe
to say that if Kennedy or King had lived during the late half of
the twentieth century, the American people would have known far
more about their private lives than they or we would have liked. 
Then the “what if” would have been asked in different ways than
focussing on their untimely passings.

The question remains, Why do Americans continue to persecute
leaders for their animal passions and human frailties without offering
the opportunity for true redemption?  Unless this insidious, destructive
and inhumane hypocrisy changes we will never mature past a nation
of pre-pubescent personalities.  Sexual misconduct does not equal
the punishment of banishment from leadership or the mantle of greatness. 
Let our confessions take us through shame on to the other side where
redeeming ourselves leads to even greater achievements for the greater
good, understanding that this can only occur through the willful
forgiveness of a compassionate country.  That is what a truly religious
and spiritual people would offer their fallen heroes.

But Americans cannot seem to face the truth or reality at its face. 

However, our continued over sentimentality of reducing individuals
to godly standards diminishes our potential hero’s stature, allowing
us to lie to ourselves about the reality of what it means to be
human, which is to say we will always be forever tangled up in our
flaws and potential greatness.  Our inability to take President
Clinton as he was, recognizing his extraordinary achievements are
part of his human failings is typical of all relationships. 

As I frequently say about relationships, we often fall in love with
a person’s potential, then go about trying to inspire the person
to live up to our expectations, without ever truthfully seeing the
struggling human behind the fog of our adoration.  Then when we
find out the truth, which was always there before our eyes–we knew
about Gennifer Flowers at the very beginning, did we really believe
she would be the only one–we cast our fallen hero to the wind,
due to our own cowardess and inability to grasp a truth that was
always present.  This was never truer than of the American people’s
love affair with President Clinton.

So, as President Clinton becomes a former president, it’s with pride
I say that because, not in spite of, his humanity he will always
be my president.  A man who helped me finally feel at home in the
Democratic Party, because we are no longer on the left edge of the
abyss.  It’s nice to be able to claim the political center. Proclaiming
myself a proud, Progressive Democrat, beyond the “Reagan Democrat” label, reclaiming the terroritory and spirit of John F. Kennedy’s party. President Clinton helped resurrect at least some of that spirit, though I still long for a Democrat with the military fortitude of
President Kennedy’s.

President Clinton, you did a lot of good, sir, and the best is
yet to come from you, I believe.  I never expected you to be perfect,
just to give our country your all.  

So it’s with a smile I fondly say, “Farewell, Mr. President.” 
It was a good eight years, as far as I’m concerned. Though I can’t
help but feel that you were so close to greatness, and dodged the
chance to finally learn the lesson. “Yes, I had an adulterous affair
with Ms. Lewinsky, and I’m deeply, deeply sorry.” The truth
could have set you free, enabling us all to climb back up to the
better days your presidency once promised.

© Copyright 2001-2002
Taylor Marsh
All Rights Reserved

The column has been edited from its original version.

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