Long Time Leaving (59 page)

He might even have worked through his predicament by way of a sonnet:

Whether he had taken his own poetic advice or not, he would have left himself a better lie, so to speak, on the golf course of history. And he might not have been reduced to quibbling, in a legal context, about the meaning of
sex
and the meaning of
alone.

W
e mustn't compare viable presidential candidates with ourselves. Apples and oranges. If they had as much character as we do, they wouldn't be in the running. It is our responsibility, however unpleasant, to compare them to each other.

Then, after the winner takes office, we are free to find him wanting absolutely. And when he leaves office, the question of his legacy arises. That presents a more elevated exercise. We get to compare him to Jefferson and Lincoln and all.

So, let's see. Bill Clinton's middle name is Jefferson. And we may rearrange the letters of his name to spell “Lincolnbilt.” Otherwise…

Maybe it is too soon. The big galoot still tugs at us personally, like a two-year-old trying to drag us over to the candy counter. And as soon as I say that, I know it's unfair. Clinton
worked.
He
strove.
He made Newt Gingrich look like a
real
baby. He deserves to be compared to someone of stature.

The person I am thinking of may seem unlikely. But I have been considering this ever since the Monica Lewinsky revelations, when a Northerner took the occasion to inform me snidely, “I thought Southerners were gentlemen.”

I drew myself up and, having only a split second to cast about for a riposte both urbane and airy, I fell back on that odd colloquialism “Bite me.”

Undaunted, the Northerner went on to inquire, rhetorically, “Would Robert E. Lee have”—and here he cited an example of Clinton's inappropriate behavior toward a subordinate that I (unlike Kenneth Starr) am too much of a gentleman to go into the specifics of in print.

“No,” I told him, “he wouldn't have. Lee didn't use tobacco in any form. Though his agenda, too, was thrown off somewhat by a cigar-related incident.” I had in mind, of course, the discovery by a Union soldier of a copy of Lee's plan to invade Maryland, which some Confederate had wrapped around a couple of cigars and lost.

So there's that.

Then, too, Lee referred to the enemy as “those people,” and to General Pickett (at Appomattox) as “that man.” Clinton referred to Ms. Lewinsky as “that woman.”

Lee was an uncannily successful tactician, adept at snatching advantage from the jaws of recklessness, who was less effective—perhaps because he lacked the requisite leverage—in overall strategy. You could say the same about Clinton.

Lee's father was an illustrious scapegrace whom he never saw again after he was five. Clinton never knew his own father, and his stepfather was no damn good.

You can see the differences between Lee and Clinton in their mothers, but each man was extraordinarily close to her, to some extent filling in, from an early age, for the steady husband she never had. Lee's mother was an impecunious aristocrat who stressed religion and duty, whereas Clinton's was a good old girl who loved to play the horses, but each man still spoke feelingly of the gap left by his mother long after she died.

Each man had, or has had so far, one difficult, long-term marriage, to a woman widely regarded as uncuddly.

Both of them relished the company of women other than their wives. Lee confined himself to flirting, dancing, corresponding passionately, and gossiping with them, remaining physically faithful to his wife. Clinton came of age during the sexual revolution.

Both men were, in their respective ways, attentive and nurturing fathers—Clinton to one child on a pretty regular daily basis, Lee to seven children mostly from a distance, because duty took him far afield.

Lee was an ebullient, fun-loving sort until, roughly, his fifties, when duty weighed him down. Clinton was an ebullient, fun-loving sort until, in his fifties, personal scandal weighed him down, though nowhere near as much as might have been expected.

Neither man was much concerned with making money. Lee's wife inherited property, which was lost in the war. Clinton's brought home a good deal of bacon, which became a political liability.

Lee spent most of his adult life employed by government and living in housing he didn't own. Same goes for Clinton so far.

Strapping, charismatic presences, both of them, and tending toward corpulence and rubicundity in middle age. Prominent noses—Lee's being the considerably more classical.

Both of them fought against radical Republicans. Clinton outslicked them; Lee didn't.

Clinton, when a war he disapproved of was thrust upon him, avoided military service. Lee, when a war he disapproved of was thrust upon him, rejected the chance to fight for the Union he believed in and sided with the people he was closest to.

Clinton, distrusted by the military, dispatched bombers from a safe distance, at times on dubious grounds. Lee, an intrepid American war hero as a young man (in, however, the historically less than reputable Mexican War), sent thousands of men who idolized him to their deaths in the Civil “War and kept trying to get up into the forefront himself, but the troops kept shouting him back to where it was safer. Of the two men, Clinton, a thoroughgoing civilian, has been less scrupulous about killing civilians. But by any standard, there was lots more blood on Marse Robert's hands. And in old age he said his greatest mistake was getting a military education.

Both men had a tendency to fall out with once-trusted subordinates.

Lee disapproved of slavery philosophically but identified with Virginia slaveowners, readily averred that blacks were inferior to whites, and could get no cooperation from the slaves his wife inherited. Clinton has great rapport generally with African Americans, who have provided him with his staunchest base of support. Toni Morrison even called him the first black president. Lee did make a point of kneeling next to a black man who came to the altar of his church after the war.

After the Civil “War, Lee championed reconciliation and national unity, at least in spirit. After the Reagan revolution, Clinton pulled something approximating the traditional Democratic coalition back together and reconciled it to the American mainstream, at least in effect.

Lee was a neo-Federalist “Whig and a grimly devout, self-mortifying Virginia Episcopalian. Clinton is a semiliberal New Democrat and an upbeat, sin-acknowledging Arkansas Baptist.

Lee detested and eschewed politics and speech making. Clinton lives for both.

Lee adhered to honor. Clinton, to “triangulation.”

Lee's hero was George “Washington. Clinton's are John Kennedy and Elvis.

Lee most dreaded and avoided scandal and besmirchment, determined as he was to live down his father's. Clinton will be striving to live down his own.

Hard, dedicated workers, both men, of keen—if not, except in maneuver, original—intelligence.

Lee was called the Marble Model. Clinton, Slick “Willie.

Lee became an icon of the South, to which he always belonged, and eventually even of the country as a whole, though not so much anymore. Clinton won't likely get confined to a region or a niche.

Lee ended his years as a dutiful, rather enlightened college president,
inspiring young men and disdaining proffered easy money. Clinton may accept a university gig; he's evermore a fund-raiser.

The closest equivalent to Lee today? Maybe Colin Powell. The closest equivalent to Clinton in Lee's day? Maybe—not an insult—P. T. Barnum.

We might think that Lee would not have liked Clinton. Would not have approved of his presidency, anyway. But Lee sometimes had a soft spot for a hardy scamp. Clinton would have found a way to enjoy Lee.

And all I can say is, it takes all kinds.

D
on't mess with Texas,” said George W. Bush at his nominating convention. By that I believe he meant don't mess with Texas Republicans. Like those Texas delegates who knew just what to do when addressed by a gay speaker.

I'll bet their mommas taught them that. “Now, child, sometime in your life you will be addressed by one who sins against all [Republican] decency. You're going to get all awkward and won't know what to do with your hands. So here's what you do. Just take off your cowboy hat and pray.”

You could tell the Grand Old Party was getting more tolerant of diversity, though, because no delegates took off their cowboy hats and prayed while being addressed by a black person. And Colin Powell was speaking not just for himself but for the entire Jamaican American retired general community. Having mastered inclusiveness now, Republicans may move on to economic populism—they'll pledge that by the year 2004, every child born in America will be an Initial Public Offering. The market takes care of everything else, why not babies? As Joe Lieberman said in his speech at the other convention, Republicans think the best way to feed the birds is to give more oats to the horses. Doo-doo economics.

Ah, there I go again. Tipping my hand. I am a yellow-dog Democrat. So are almost all of my friends, especially the Southern ones. We feel free to scoff at Democratic nominees, too, but we vote for them because we regard them as bad enough. The Republican ones we regard as egregious. Relativists that we are in most respects, in this we come
close
to absolutism: we would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.

I'm not saying Republicans are bad people, necessarily. I can see where east-Tennessee-and-around-in-those-hills Republicans are coming from, also black Planned Parenthood Republicans. But those are isolated pockets. Speaking of pockets, Republicans in general are to corporate capitalism as MTV and its devotees are to mindless rhythmic kineticism: I'm okay with corporate capitalism and mindless rhythmic kineticism, within reason, but do they need my
help?

Maybe Republicans in government are such dorks because Repub-

licans don't believe in government—all the cool Republicans are in business. Well, fine. Where would America be without that mad-dog dollar drive? But what makes the economy work is collaboration between two highly compatible but not identical interests, capitalism and democracy. Government needs to accentuate democracy to keep capitalism from leaving folks behind. (And pricing itself out of the market.)

How can anybody who campaigns for a government job have the gall to denounce government support? I interviewed Dick Armey once, got along with him okay in person, and bent over backward not to write about him from some kind of predictable anti-defense-spending, pro-social-welfare perspective. And yet I did two years of military service; he never did any. I've been a small business for thirty-two years; he's always been employed by state universities and the Congress. Any career politician knows as much about free enterprise as a hooker who caters to doctors knows about practicing medicine.

Democratic politicians, however, do tend to push the tax burden upward toward the more highly compensated—toward me, for instance, which I believe is healthy. They also tend to shift the burden of lifestyle accommodation toward straight white males—toward me, for instance, and I believe that is healthy (though I am not above incidental rearguard resistance).

The yellow-dog Democrats of a previous generation were that way because they still resented the party of Lincoln. Those of my generation come from the opposite side. We are yellow-dog Democrats because we resent all those old-style yellow-dog Democrats who, when the Democrats started getting the black vote, became Dixiecrats, then Wallaceites, then jumped to the party of Nixon. We are yellow-dog Democrats because it feels good. We can embrace the earthy hardheadedness of our forebears, while eschewing the taint of peckerwood separatism.