NYPost

HOW BILL FELL Tuesday,March 6,2001

A MAN driven by a consuming need for power and approval has lost his legacy in a tawdry corruption scandal reminiscent of Spiro Agnew. How did Bill Clinton become corrupted?

He wasn't always like this. In the early years, Clinton didn't care about money. Born poor, he prefered hamburger to Chateaubriand. An inept fund-raiser, he usually had to borrow at the last minute to pay for his ads for his constant Arkansas re-election campaigns. Even the 1992 Clinton campaign was hand to mouth; he begged for funds each week, raising a pittance compared to his later successes.

It was only after losing Congress in 1994 that Clinton learned to raise money. Desperate to finance the TV ads that would restore him to power, he realized that people would stand in line to give money in return for photos for their walls or knickknacks for their desks. And boy, did he learn! Where he raised only $9 million in the 1992 campaign, he spent $330 million in 1996.

But he never stopped. The Energizer Fund-Raiser kept on going, generating cash for 1998 congressional races, for the Democratic National Committee, to repay his '96 campaign debts, and also (indirectly) for his legal defense fund. After '98, he helped raise tens of millions for Hillary's campaign, for Al Gore's, and for the Clinton presidential library.

He was unable to stop. As he focused his seductive charm on donors, their checks brought him the sense of conquest and self-affirmation that he craved. A man who once cared little about money, he became awash in it. Meanwhile, he came to need money more and more.

The allure of luxury began to intoxicate him in 1979, when he first moved into the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, designed and largely furnished by former Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller. Living in a spacious mansion with drivers, servants, baby sitters and staff began to subtly change him.

Hillary needed no changing. From the first days of Bill's career (when she benefited from insider trading in futures) to her Whitewater investment and her profiting from state business at the Rose Law Firm, Hillary craved luxury.

She chafed at the contraints of politics. In 1985, she proposed building a swimming pool at the mansion, financed by gifts from friends. (Sound familiar?) "Why should my daughter not have a pool just because my husband is governor?" she asked petulantly.

"Next time you fly into Little Rock, count how many pools you see," I countered. "That's how many votes you'll get if you build one." They built the pool - after the election.

In the White House and Camp David, Bill and Hillary grew to enjoy the ultimate in luxury. As the day to leave approached like the pumpkin coach arriving to carry Cinderella home, one can imagine their panic at the imminent disappearance of their valued lifestyle. After 22 years of the best in food, entertainment, housing, child care, housecleaning, transportation, security and staff, the days of wine and roses were coming to a close.

The Clintons would do well financially after the White House - but not well enough to replace a staff of 450, a magnificent mansion decorated with antiques, scores of household servants and a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet waiting at their whim.

So they determined to raise well in excess of $100 million for the Clinton Library - a library that reportedly will cost only $50 million to build. The surplus will pay for a life of staff, perks and luxury, akin to that which surrounded them on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But as his presidency wound down, the kind of donors upon whom Clinton relied began to change. The partisans, the ideologues, the special interests were no longer interested in giving to a man about to lose power. Even the donors motivated by ego began to fall away, their pride satiated, their walls filled with his photos.

Now he came to rely on those who wanted the one thing he could give, by himself, even in his final hour in office - presidential pardons. People like Denise Rich and Beth Dezoritz moved to the forefront. As their cash poured in, the strands of this money-raising web thickened and became ropes binding him to those with the checkbooks.

The moment of truth arrived as Clinton's final hours ticked away. No longer able to procrastinate, Bill Clinton had to put up or shut up in satisfying the demands of his new friends. In the waning hours of his presidency, Bill Clinton threw it all away. He consigned himself to the ranks of Harding and Grant, as the ultimate in corruption among our presidents. Now he is ensnared not in a scandal about sex or power, but a torrid, petty case of financial corruption.

His real friends have long since left. His advisers are gone. He stands alone - having survived all the perils of politics, but succumbing to the addictions of wealth and luxury.

La dolce vita triumphed.

-- Anonymous, March 06, 2001