AND ANOTHER THING
How the grinning sinner in the White House can atone for his crimes
PAUL JOHNSON
It is all very well allowing Bill Clinton to address our Cabinet, but what are we to do about this delinquent? He is, ex officio, the leader of the Western world, the head of the sole superpower and the ultimate guardian of all our liberties. Like it or not, the Americans and all of us are stuck with him for the next three-and-a-half years. Yet he is indelibly stained, fatally wounded morally, an ethical cripple, leering and sim- pering at us from his White House asylum. His record of iniquities, big and small, is breathtaking in its comprehensiveness and its stunning consistency. More high crimes and petty misdemeanours surface every month. Has he ever done anything in his entire misspent life which has not been slip- pery, mean, mendacious or downright crooked? One wonders.
I remember thinking, when he first emerged on the national scene, 'No one who has been five times elected governor of a state like Arkansas can possibly be honest,' but never in my worst imaginings did I contemplate such a spectre of tri- umphant amorality. And what makes it worse is that the American people, know- ing that he was thoroughly suspect — to put it mildly — re-elected him by a hand- some majority, and are, to some extent, willing accomplices in his awfulness. So what is to be done about this dreadful man?
Happily, I have confidence in the Chris- tian doctrine of redemption. There is good in all of us, waiting to be brought into active life. By definition, no human being created in God's own image can be incorri- gible. Even monsters like Hitler and Stalin might have redeemed themselves if only someone had known how to press the right moral nerve in their tangled ganglions of crime. I witnessed the doctrine of redemp- tion at work in the case of Richard Nixon. Not that I am comparing Nixon to Clinton — far from it. Nixon was a decent man who tried all his public life to serve his country to the best of his considerable ability and was, in many ways, an excellent president. But he allowed his judgment to be corrupt- ed by the exercise of office: like Icarus, his wings were singed by the proximity of solar power and he fell to earth with a sickening crash. He was, however, a patriot and he chose to abdicate rather than subject America to an impeachment crisis, even though this meant he never had the chance to present his case. Thus the process of his redemption began even while he was still in the White House, and it continued for the rest of his life, during which he became an exemplary human being as well as an elder statesman of unusual wisdom.
I got to know him well during these years and my admiration for his courage, public spirit and, not least, his extraordinary anxi- ety to learn and educate himself, which continued into his eighties, grew steadily. Only weeks before his death, he gave a superbly well-informed talk, entirely with- out notes, on the complexities of Russian domestic politics, in Jonathan Aitken's house in Westminster, and he then answered questions over the whole range of geopolitics for an hour or so. I remember thinking — as I suspect did others present — 'Here is a truly great man.' He said to me once: 'I never got a square deal from the media in my lifetime. Do you think I'll get one from historians after I'm gone?' Me: 'Not necessarily, alas. History does not always do justice. But I promise you I will do everything in my small power to see you right.' I have tried to make good this promise in my A History of the American People, out this autumn.
Clinton's case is different because there are, as yet, few signs of redemption. Indeed, the man's response, whenever another of his misdeeds is uncovered, is to emit further puffs of lying smoke. His eel- like agility in slithering through the mine- field of charges blowing up all around him is indeed impressive. But justice in America is not mocked; slowly, inexorably, it is clos- ing in. An impeachment, though feasible under a Republican Congress, is highly unlikely. Clinton would fight like a cor- nered rat, all the way, and the conse- quences for American government would be too awful to contemplate. But Clinton will be nailed all the same, as a bad man and a disgrace to his office. So can he, will he, redeem himself?
It is not impossible. The American presi- I think we've got squatters.' dency is the greatest elective office in human history and has certain metaphysical qualities which adhere to its occupants, however ignoble. Clinton will be in the White House until his term expires and it may be that a sense of the immense moral responsibilities which go with the job will eventually penetrate even his conscience- less opacities. And he now has nothing to lose, politically, by doing good. There may be no votes in virtue, but Clinton no longer has much use for votes anyway.
There are two major services to humanity this bad man can render. The first is to con- tinue, with conviction and enthusiasm, the task he has already begun out of necessity — the transformation of the American wel- fare state. Traditional welfare has proved a great evil, not primarily because it costs more than even the richest nation can afford, but because it destroys people, morally and physically. By helping to put right what has gone wrong in American welfare, Clinton can not only benefit his own country but point the way to many oth- ers in the West. Secondly, he can do some- thing about the 'evil empire' of communist China.
As we approach the millennium, the Peking regime is the outstanding unre- solved moral problem left from the 20th century. This odious system of government, now nearly half a century old and endured by a billion unfortunate people, has already killed more of its subjects than Hitler and Stalin put together, and maintains more political prisoners — about 20 million than the Gulag Archipelago and the Nazi camps combined at the height of their capacity. The fact that Britain is about to hand over six million free people into the custody of this tyranny — thus giving the lie to Robin Cook's foolish prattle about Labour's human rights policy — merely underlines the need to do something deci- sive to bring this appalling anomaly in our civilisation to its natural end.
I believe it is on its last legs, as was the evil empire of the Soviets in the 1980s, and that some intelligent exertion on our part will finally topple it. Just as Ronald Reagan (assisted by Margaret Thatcher) broke open the prison of the Soviet Union, so it may be the historic destiny of Clinton (aided by Tony Blair) to liberate the hap- less Chinese people. Is this the way the grinning sinner in the White House can atone for his crimes? We must pray so.
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