Bill charms media off Hill's problems

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Bill charms media off Hill's problems

John Kass

September 6, 2007

After his latest stunt, who can doubt that former President Bill Clinton is the smartest, craftiest fellow in the history of American politics?

For months, most of America -- myself included -- has been avoiding a question of national importance. It's the big Bill question:

What do we call Bill should his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Hsu), win the presidential election, allowing Bill to romp about the White House once again?

Clinton answered it on Oprah Winfrey's show.

He now wants to be called the First Laddie.

"My Scottish friends say I should be called 'First Laddie' because it's the closest thing to 'First Lady'," he joked with Winfrey on her program the other day.

Oprah, surprise, surprise, is backing U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Rezko/Daley.)

"I'm not so worried about what I'm called as what I'm called upon to do," said Clinton.

He's not the only one who's worried. I figure half the Democrats and most Republicans are worried, too.

Mr. Bill showed up on the Oprah show to insist that if Hillary is elected, he'll have little to do, and that she'll wear the political pantsuits in the family.

"If she's writing an important article or giving an important speech, she'll ask me to read it," Mr. Clinton said. "And once in a while she'll ask me for some advice on something strategic. But she knows so much more about a lot of this stuff than I do because I'm far removed from it."

See? He's not involved. The poor guy is so far removed from American politics that he had to go beg some Scotsmen for a nickname.

And what a nickname it is.

First Laddie is so plucky and boyish -- and therefore non-threatening -- that Clinton deserves a medal for crafting that whopper and delivering it on national TV.

Americans hear the phrase, First Laddie, and what comes to mind is an image of a young man in a kilt, wandering the highlands, whistling, searching for lost lambs.

First Laddie also evokes Albert Finney as "Tom Jones" in a decent movie based on the excellent novel by Henry Fielding, in which Tom has many adventures with various seductresses, while gorging on oysters and haunches of beef, as there was no proper pizza to speak of in England in the 1700s.

And that's why Bill Clinton is so brilliant, and that's why he infuriates Republicans.

He's kept a relatively low public profile in his wife's campaign, until most recently, when he began appearing with her over Labor Day weekend, and popping up on talk shows, winking, joking, being Bill, sucking up all that media oxygen.

By strange coincidence, his appearances came as news organizations began focusing on top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who was so close to the Hillary Clinton presidential effort that her campaign deemed him a "HillRaiser" for his prowess in bundling contributions from others. He also raised a bit of cash for Obama.

It turns out that Hsu was also a criminal fugitive. He pleaded no contest in 1991 to felony grand theft in California, facing up to 3 years in prison, for defrauding investors up to $1 million before he fled the state.

On Wednesday, Hsu skipped a bond hearing, and a new arrest warrant was issued.

Naturally, Republicans want to change the subject from all that Republican corruption to some Democratic corruption. But that was difficult with Bill glomming the First Laddie thing, outfoxing them, using his wits to aggravate them.

Many Democrats must be aggravated, too, since so many have backed Obama simply because he's not a Clinton, and because they see a Clinton Restoration as a nightmare for their party.

But for now there's the First Laddie, on Oprah, smiling, giving himself a pithy nickname through the fiction of "Scottish friends" on a golf course.

Surely, a coalition of Barack Democrats and Republicans can come up with a better nickname for the guy.

They might try "Director of Enjoying Oral Sex in the Oval Office While You're on the Phone with a U.S. Congressman Discussing Sending Troops to the Balkans" But that's not catchy.

Perhaps Obama can send wife Michelle out to continue her catfight with Hillary and call Mr. Bill something in a musical, yet dead language, like "In Loco Parentis."

But Barack is above all that. He won't stoop to conquer.

He's about reform and "transcending American politics as we know it," according to his script.

Yet all this distracts us from the central issue:

What are we to think when Bill Clinton opens his mouth and reminds us that he's lurking, pretending he's not involved, the way George Wallace wasn't involved when Wallace's wife became governor of Alabama in 1966.

Obviously, I wouldn't dare compare the two men. Wallace was a segregationist. Clinton, according to many supporters, was the first black president.

And someday, he might be the First Laddie of the land.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...394,full.column