Portraits of a Political Puzzle
These two images are halves
of a political puzzle. Fit them together, and you may solve the great mystery
of the Clinton presidency.
That mystery, of course, is
Clinton's continued high standing in the eye of the electorate. He's still
enjoying high enough poll figures to have refused to answer any scandal-related
questions at his recent press conference, even to have noted his comfort in
keeping silent. High approval ratings cushion even a stonewall.
Yet polls also indicate that
the same electorate that "approves" of Clinton's presidency suspects that many
of the scandalous allegations against him are true. How can two such opinions
live peacefully together in the same heads?
Gary Hart would probably
like to know the answer to that. That's him in Image No. 1. Hart was running
for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987 when this "vacation"
snapshot of him with Donna Rice on his lap surfaced, promptly crushing his
candidacy. Hart was already reeling from allegations of womanizing; the
photo--which was exhibited often enough to be burned into our synapses--closed
the case against him. The consensus was that, as we could see with our own
eyes, Hart lacked the discipline and character for the presidency. He was
driven from public life.
What,
then, does Image No. 2 show us? It shows us candidate Bill Clinton on a
campaign flight in 1992. Seated next to him on a jump seat is flight attendant
Debra Schiff; she's the one with Clinton's hand between her thighs. The image
is from a video clip shown in February on ABC and since posted on the Internet.
This image has occasioned almost no comment. What does it reveal about
Clinton's discipline and character? Apparently nothing. Or rather, nothing that
the electorate cares to be bothered with. The apparent consensus is that,
whatever we can see with our own eyes, it's Clinton's and Schiff's
business.
If there's any visual difference between these two images,
it's that the one featuring Clinton is more lurid. Hart and Rice are knowingly
posing for a camera; you could frame the shot and display it on the coffee
table (as long as you had the right sort of postmodern family living in the
house). Clinton and Schiff, on the other hand, have been caught off guard; the
result would have a peeping Tom quality if their encounter had any personal
intimacy, which it does not. There's a third person present, a man with whom
Clinton is conversing even as he rubs Schiff's thighs. The effect is
disturbing, because Schiff is depersonalized.
Why, then,
the disparity between the political effects of these two images? Because
one--Hart's--was perceived to contain vital political information and the
other--Clinton's--apparently isn't. In the decade between the public exhibition
of these images, 1987 to 1998, "character" has been largely emptied of the
political significance it had throughout the postwar era, as least as far as
many voters are concerned. In the Clinton era, presidential character has been
decoupled from American character.
Hart's problem was actually that, as a symbol
of American-ness, his "character" mattered more then than Clinton's does now.
In 1987 there was still a significant external threat to the nation and a 40
year tradition of global competition over ideas and issues. Potential
presidents--like astronauts, Olympic athletes, and other Americans playing on
an international stage--still had to carry a lot of symbolic baggage: They had
to appear as forthright champions in a historic contest, disciplined leaders
who embodied national values. Look at Richard Nixon, an emotional stiff who
would have a tough time competing for national office today. Yet in his own era
he could parlay "leadership" symbolism into a pair of landslide victories.
Leadership symbolism was pretty much what Ronald Reagan was about.
What is
leadership minus strength of character? Hart failed that test. But Clinton
never even had to pass it. By 1991, presidential role-playing was already
changing dramatically. The Soviets were gone, and the Gulf War had seemingly
solidified the U.S. global position. The electorate was able to shrug off the
Gennifer Flowers scandal rather quickly; its concerns were becoming domestic.
(Interestingly, Clinton is heard on the Flowers tapes telling her that, when
asked, she can characterize their relationship as she pleases precisely because
there are no known photographs of them together. But Clinton's concerns about
being another Hart turn out to have been anachronistic, as the limited impact
of the Clinton-Lewinsky embrace imagery demonstrates.) Even as Clinton was
running for office, a different presidential model was already asserting
itself.
We've seen this model before. Whenever the country emerges
from a national trauma and focuses on its piggy bank, presidential expectations
shrink. The years following the War of 1812 were, politically, the Era of Good
Feelings. The presidents after Reconstruction were the political ciphers of
Republican ascendancy. In the years after World War I, the business of America
was business.
The idea that Clinton's
"approval" represents something new and immoral in the country is historically
shortsighted. In 1884, a Victorian electorate shrugged off Grover Cleveland's
confessed paternity of an out-of-wedlock son. Didn't matter. Cleveland's role,
like Rutherford Hayes' and Warren Harding's, was to take care of business.
Clinton is said to be concerned with shaping a historical legacy, but as may be
noted from his failed medical care program, his unpopular anti-Iraq saber
rattling, and his largely ignored dialogue on race, the care of business is
pretty much all that's wanted of Clinton, too.
