Lord, I miss Bill Clinton. I even miss some of his grotesqueries, like his alleged statement in a new book—The Squad by Ryan Grim—that Hillary’s 2016 campaign “could not sell p—-y on a troop train.” (I do not miss his randy tom-catting and acting out on his seedy impulses, as with Monica Lewinsky.) But I do miss his unwillingness—his hormonal inability—to cave all the time to the left-wing identity gang. I argued back in New Hampshire in 1992 that his fling with the lounge-singer Gennifer Flowers would help him with working-class men. Here was a guy who super-sized at McDonalds, put astroturf in the back of his pickup truck (“but not for the reason you think I did”), ogled pretty women, stepped out with big-haired lounge singers—he was living the blue-collar male fantasy—and, despite all that, actually seemed to care about people like them. That sort is pretty much gone from the Democratic Party now and it’s a shame. You see, there’s this thing called testosterone; unrestrained, it can lead to monstrous guy-behavior, wars, rape, violence, free-range oafery. Over-restrained, it leads to a fundamental distortion of human behavior, like asking a lion to be a flamingo. Indeed, Donald Trump’s excessive parody of locker-room banter is one of his strengths with guys, especially guys who are tired of walking on eggshells in the presence of women.
Let me be clear: The era of Harvey Weinstein-style male rampage criminality is over. At least, I hope it is. Speech that demeans an individual is awful; Donald Trump making fun of the way Carly Fiorina or Adam Schiff look is barnyard crude. Trump is a racist and a thug—and, sadly, that seems to work to his advantage. But there is a middle ground between Trump’s barbaric behavior and the prevailing wussitude of the Democratic Party. The tyranny of the Thought Police is so complete that it’s no longer possible for a man to tell a woman, “Hey, you look great today.” Or vice versa. There are those who see perversion in Joe Biden’s innocent handsiness (He once held Sanity Goddess’s hand for 15 minutes—literally! No joke! he would say—as he lost track and greeted other people). It is not possible, in Democratic Party politics, to say that Cornel West—or any black or otherwise “protected” person—is an egomaniacal phony. It is not possible to dispute the “activists” in any identity group without being called an -ist —racist, sexist, misogynist, pronoun fascist—of some sort. The party seems to be hurtling toward full-bore vegetarianism (yes, yes it’s ok not to eat meat, just don’t disdain me if I do). The impulse toward equality is a good one; anything that tends toward civility has value, but the imposition of word-fascism has dealt a serious blow to the Democratic Party, especially with blue-collar guys of all hues. Right now, Joe Biden’s unwillingness to offend immigration activists—who do not represent the majority of Latinos—on border security is costing him funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the necessary steps to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the border. (By the way, the Dems’ silly insistence on calling such people “undocumented” rather than “illegal” is another example of sensitivity run amok. These people, admirable as the vast majority of them are, are not entering our country legally. If you don’t call a thing what it really is, you convey weakness not sensitivity.)
Clinton was an excellent President because of his willingness to push back on liberal excesses like the notion of “blaming the victim” when it came to criminality or welfare fraud. He was the “first black President” because he understood that the black community was increasingly middle-class, deeply proper and guided by the church on issues like crime and morality. In 1993, Hillary Clinton admitted to me, with caveats of course, that two parents were better than one. By 2016, she couldn’t say such a thing—which was one of the reasons she lost.
Bill Clinton was also strong when it came to pushing back against the left on other fronts, like economics. He slapped down their stimulus plan in 1993, focusing instead on balancing the budget—and, amazingly, he did balance it...and he raised taxes…and the economy boomed. Biden, by contrast, listened to the left, and not to centrists like Lawrence Summers, who counseled against too much post-Covid stimulus. The wages of excess liberality turned out to be inflation. (In Clinton’s case, the wages of economic libertarianism were an obscene deregulation of the markets that led to the crash of 2008.)
Chris Matthews famously postulated that the Republicans and Democrats were the “Daddy” and “Mommy” parties, respectively. All things considered, that puts the Dems in a good place: women tend to take the vote—and, let’s face it, life—more seriously than guys do. But sanity dictates moderation in all things. There has to be a happy place—if not a Happy Meal— between Bill’s McDonalds diet and Hillary’s adhesion to cardboard-tasting Dean Ornish cuisine on her plane. (Bill has since gone Vegan and he’s looking pretty pale to me; an occasional t-bone wouldn’t kill him.)
Michelle Obama once asked me if I was going to write a book like Primary Colors about them. Her husband started to laugh and said, “Klein can’t do that. We’re too boring.” To my mind, the Obamas were anything but boring. They were living proof that you didn’t have to be louche to be compelling. But you can’t be shackled by the jackboots of political correctness, either. The Thought Police have sapped the blood from the Democratic Party. It’s ok to use colorful language from time to time; it’s ok to screw up and say something stupid but true. It’s okay to have bad habits; in fact, it’s reassuring. People don’t want a goody-goody President. FDR drank a pitcher of martinis every night and cheated at poker. There was always too much eat-your-peas to Hillary’s public efforts (in private, she could be a hoot). It’s okay to admire a member of the opposite sex, or your own if that’s the way you roll. It’s only human.
GAZA
There’s a terrific piece in The Washington Post by Celeste Marcus about how crucial it is for the Jewish community to stand up for a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. Tom Friedman backs that up with great reporting, as usual, from the region. I think special pressure should be put on the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) right now to push for a two-state solution. All too often—and all too disgracefully—AIPAC has been a lickspittle organization, doing Bibi’s bidding. It’s time to grow some backbone. It should be abundantly clear that Israel’s future is to be governed by a centrist coalition. And even more abundantly clear that there will be no peace until there is a Palestinian state governed by a centrist coalition. In my experience, that’s what most Israeli and Palestinians want. It’s time to excise the crazies on both sides.
And remember, you can get a special discount for the holidays:
This was a funny typo: "yes, yes it’s ok not to eat me, just don’t disdain me if I do"
Bill Clinton 1992 DNC Convention acceptance speech
“Them & Them & Them
We’ve gotten ourselves to where we’ve nearly Themmed ourselves to death
But this is America
There is no ‘Them’
Only ‘Us’
One nation under God
Indivisible “
Indivisible