March 24, 2008

Things I would like to ask Bill

Although Fort Wayne electronic media tried to make a big deal about it, former President Bill Clinton’s visit this week didn’t seem to create much excitement.

The Clinton campaign rented just a portion of the Grand Wayne Center’s huge ballroom. They obviously wanted a “packed house,” and in fact managed to manufacture an overflow crowd who were ushered into another room only to hear an audio connection to the festivities.

Late Tuesday afternoon, someone asked me whether I was going up to see his speech. The prospect had never crossed my mind, but in hindsight, wouldn’t it be interesting to get a chance to talk to this historic character.

It would have been so fitting. Tuesday was National Awkward Moments Day. No kidding.

Considering the number of scandals that surrounded the Clinton White House and his approval ratings at the end of his second term, his resurrection into public acceptance is much more remarkable than the meager gains made late in Richard Nixon’s life.

According to exit polls from the 2000 election, 60 percent of voters disapproved of Clinton as a person; 68 percent felt he would be remembered in history more for his scandals than his leadership; 15 percent (enough to swing almost any election) of those who had voted for Clinton in 1996 voted for Bush in 2000.

That statistic may explain why the elder George Bush later befriended Clinton and why you never see Clinton and Al Gore on the same stage. But Gore can hardly blame Clinton for his defeat. If he would have managed to carry his own home state of Tennessee, he would have been elected president. But I digress.

What would you ask Bill Clinton if you would get the chance?

Heard from Monica lately?

Well, maybe that’s a bit crass.

I would ask him about his pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich just a few hours before he left office on Jan. 20, 2001. Rich’s wife just happened to have made major donations to the Democratic Party and to the Clinton Library.

I would ask him how it felt to be the first president in history to establish a legal defense fund.

How’s your old buddy Ken Starr?

Maybe that’d be too crass, also.

I’d ask him why Hillary hasn’t released their tax returns while all her rivals have.

And I don’t think I could resist asking how the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has managed to help Barack Obama run neck-and-neck with his wife.

Heard from Paula Jones lately?

What can I say? I am crass.

Email Mark Miller

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