From private parts to foreign parts

Spectator, The, Sep 5, 1998 by Steyn, Mark

Whether or not Secretary Albright is a witch, Saddam Hussein certainly understands that in the land of the one-eyed trouser snake they're all stumbling around in the dark. Saddam's won; in Kosovo, Slobodan Milosevic has won; on the nuclear front, China's won, and North Korea, and India, and Pakistan. No doubt once Osama bin Laden gets hold of a few Soviet nukes, the administration's 'war' on terrorism will be quietly dropped, too. You can gauge the White House's enthusiasm for the struggle by the way they lobbed 55 million bucks' worth of cruise missiles at bin Laden from US warships. Sending aircraft over to drop bombs would have been cheaper and arguably more effective, but Bill Clinton cannot order American servicemen to risk their lives. Thus, this president's achievements dwindle to their core objectives: bin Laden, no; bin laid, yes.

Commentators have lately been congratulating the American people on the subtle distinction they've drawn with President Clinton: while they may deplore his performance with Monica Lewinsky, they admire the way he's doing his job. After the last two weeks, if one must choose, it makes more sense to like the way he's doing Monica and deplore his job performance. With exquisite justice, the Clinton scandals are at last converging with the real world. Bill Clinton's Peter Pan presidency has been held aloft by three invisible strings: the first was the implicit promise of his Gennifer Flowers 'confession' that he would keep his pants buttoned till the end of his term; the second was that the Dow would continue its effortless rise; the third was that, with communism vanquished, the world had been made safe for a babyboomer White House. The first string snapped on 17 August, the second was partially severed on 31 August; and the third . . ? Going, going, gone.