Page Two

(concerning Clintonism in America)

Bill Clinton is a Joke.

That is the bottom line, and since we Clintonistas do everything upside down and backasswards, let it stand at the top and the beginning. The Clinton Administration is the most hilarious set of human events in the history of the Republic. Of our 1993-1998 banana-peel Republic. The Impeachment Controversy is the funniest subset of those funniest political events. Give the devil his due: Dr. Limbaugh continually reiterates that he is "having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have." Naturally so, for he lives in Clintonian times, and, unlike far too many of his contemporaries, has a real gut feeling for the Zeitgeist. Of course Limbaugh is great only when he emotes; when he reflects, he is juvenile and reactionary. But at least he enjoys politics. Though I shall, as I promised, defend the right of the Laodiceans not to care about the present farce one way or another, it is a great pity they don't relish politics, because they're missing the greatest show on earth. A sad fate, theirs! much like living in Periclean Athens without having a taste for drama or architecture or philosophy, like living in Vienna under Joseph II and being tone deaf.

Whatever I may scribble hereinafter, and I'm not certain myself just how it will go, we must put first things first, so allow me to repeat Axiom One of all sound Clintonology and Clintonography:

Bill Clinton is a Joke.

I promised to disappoint the White House basement types, and that ought to do the trick. The notion of defending POTUS because he's a joke and not in spite of his being so either hasn't crossed their minds or else has been considered and rejected. They have to struggle to make out that he is a Great Statesman, That arduous struggle itself adds to the general ludicrousness of things, making their boss a bigger joke than ever.

Although we shouldn't get bogged down in psychological speculation, it is irresistable to wonder whether Clinton appreciates his own absurdity. I think a case could be made out, and my prime exhibit would be that very strange state paper http://www.pbs.org/weta/wwir/amhis/clintoninaug.html , Clinton's (first or 1993) inaugural oration. There is no doubt that Clinton wrote this specimen himself: compare it with the 1997 counterpart, which is the eye-glazing sort of prose you can buy from the ghostwriters by the square yard, and you'll see that no hired scribbler would have dared to hand in anything so peculiar. Of course the speech says almost nothing substantive, but it says nothing the authentic Bill Clinton way, which is a mirth-inducing one. Unfortunately seeing the mirth of it requires a quantum of background and perspective. Entirely apart from psychology or gossipizing, it is worth looking at a bit to help sustain my thesis that BC has been a joke from day one.

On day one, then, POTUS commenced as follows:

		My fellow citizens, today we celebrate the mystery
 	of American renewal. This ceremony is held in the depth of winter,
	but by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force
	the spring. A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy,
	that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America. When
	our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world, and
	our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure,
	would have to change. Not change for change's sake, but change to
	preserve America's ideals: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

If our public education is as bad as the rightists allege, I suppose 15% of the people will see that the Declaration is alluded to here. Perhaps 0.15% will see that Wills and Wills' Jefferson are alluded to. If any percentage at all, however exiguous, understands exactly what "mystery of ... renewal" refers to, let them explain it to me, who don't. However, it is "force the spring" that most invites commentary. The phrase has not caught on. When I searched for it on the web as the key phrase to get a copy of the address, it was well down a list of items having to do with manufacturers of machinery. Still, "force the spring" is a Bill Clinton joke, though an inside joke. Wink, wink, nod, nod! Catch the allusion?

Before I explain it, let's consider a simpler example of the same figure of rhetoric. Judge Bork, who is no doubt a rabid Clintonophobe, has a book out called Slouching Towards Gomorrah. Here the percentages would be maybe 50% for recognizing Gomorrah and 5% for the Yeats allusion. The important thing about this allusion is that it is a perversion of the original, what we might term a parabartlettism. You have to recognize the familiar quotation after it's been twisted a bit. Clinton's inaugural is chock full of these parabartlettisms, queerly addressed over the heads of almost all his listeners to ... -- to whom, exactly? (An original example of the figure: I'm always tempted to admire the Republicans' devotion to "life, liberty, and sacred property.")

You might object that this move is "funny peculiar" rather than "funny ha-ha," but that dichotomy is inadequate. I have no doubt that Bill Clinton awarded himself at least an inward smile when he came up with "force the spring." It may be strange, but it is also very definitely a joke. With my apologies to the fit and few who know already, the intertextuality of the joke is as follows:

And this you can see is the bolt.  The purpose of this
Is to open the breach, as you see.  We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring.  And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
        They call it easing the Spring.

That's Henry Reed's "Naming of Parts," an anthology piece, but not quite one of the twelve or twenty scraps of verse every expensively credentialled yuppie is expected to know. Il n'y a de hors-texte, [G. Flowers]

which must imply that Ms. Gennifer Flowers is lurking right here inside this text too. Hello there, ma'am!

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