Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [380]
It was during this period that Bill Clinton finally hit rock bottom. There was not much sympathy for him, even among his staffers. One member of the Clinton team who regularly traveled with the president expressed the view shared by many of his peers: Their boss had squandered his chance to become one of the greatest leaders in world history. At the start of 1998, Clinton had everything going for him that a president could want: He enjoyed unprecedented economic prosperity at home, with the Dow Jones index soaring near nine thousand going into the summer. He had made significant advances on the domestic policy front. He had won extraordinary popularity on the worldwide scene and had earned foreign affairs successes in hot spots like the Middle East and Northern Ireland, while continuing to work at defusing new crises such as the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Now all of these triumphs, it seemed, had been flushed down the drain—all for a reckless fling with a chubby-cheeked female who was the age of Clinton’s own daughter. Said one dispirited staffer, “We had a mandate that could have affected the whole world. It was gone. The whole focus was now on Lewinsky and impeachment matters.”
Overseas, Bill Clinton had always attracted throngs of adoring fans as if he were a world savior. In Northern Ireland, where he was largely credited for hammering out a peace accord with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Clinton had nearly reached the status of sainthood. Yet all of that incredible goodwill had been squandered. Said one staffer, “The feeling among many of us was—he had thrown it all away. He was not entirely blameless.” Bill Clinton had known that he was under a microscope when it came to extramarital dalliances, ever since the 1992 primaries, when the Gennifer Flowers affair nearby knocked him off his horse and out of the race. He was on notice that every time he strayed into the back alleys of carnal temptation, he was putting his whole administration at risk. Even the most lowly staff member in the White House knew that one “did not mess with interns.” Yet the most powerful man in the world had been unable to resist that base, prurient enticement.
One member of the Clinton entourage would recall watching the president deliver an emotional speech about the proposed peace accord in Armagh, Northern Ireland, shortly after his controversial grand jury testimony. The staffer watched silently, tears welling up. Not only was the Lewinsky mess a maddening distraction, but now the chief executive was suffering from a “lack of credibility,” a “lack of mandate,” and a growing “inability to do anything in Congress.” “There had been a chance to change history,” the staffer thought to himself, “and he [President Clinton] blew it.”
Those surrounding the embattled president also knew that Clinton had “stiff-armed the press” for years, refusing to devote much energy toward befriending the Washington press corps, even though the media would inevitably sit in judgment of his administration. Now it was payback time.
A scattering of newspapers around the country began calling for Clinton’s resignation, on the theory that, whether or not he had committed an impeach-able offense, he had thoroughly disgraced the office of presidency. Public opinion polls fluttered uncertainly like flags in a chilly wind, indicating that many Americans were plagued by conflicting emotions—their distaste for Clinton’s actions, on one hand, and their abhorrence of the invasions of privacy committed by Starr’s office, on the other.
The Journal Star in Lincoln, Nebraska, editorialized: “Bill Clinton should resign as president. He has created a sordid mess. He has prolonged it with lies. The nation wants to put this tormenting distraction behind it.” The Daily Oklahoman pronounced: “He seemed sorrier he got caught in sex acts than he was for lying about it or for damaging his office and the country.” The Sacramento Bee echoed the advice of Republican Senator Orrin Hatch