Citizen Clinton

(4 of 4)

In the end, one has to wonder about Bill Clinton. So talented, so intelligent, so candid about his demons--and so much in thrall to them, even now. He professes optimism and says he forgives his enemies. "It would be a mistake to treat them the way they treat us," he said at N.Y.U.--good advice, if a double-edged bit of high-mindedness, confirming his supporters' angriest assumptions. His book and attendant commentary seem calculated to reopen old wounds. One wonders how Clinton reacted to the funeral of Ronald Reagan, another optimistic small-town son of a drunk, who served two full terms as President and was a lightning rod for the opposition. But Reagan never admitted to demons, and he was always confident about his fate. Clinton professes not to have thought about his own funeral yet--whether he wants the riderless horse, the pomp of the National Cathedral--but he must be wondering whether he will rate the same outpouring of tears and encomiums as Reagan, whether his personal Armageddon will ever be resolved and his reputation restored or whether, instead of a placid eternal flame at his grave, he'll have to make do with occasional, torrid blasts of heat lightning.