London Times

Leading article: The throwback kid

An awesome performance from an astonishing rogue

America once had founding founders. It now has shameless sons. In a spellbinding performance of extraordinary audacity, Bill Clinton did not so much rewrite history as transport it to a parallel universe. A serial philanderer, unprincipled operator and habitual rogue managed to repackage himself as a cross between an Old Testament prophet, college professor and international statesman. A period in office that owed more to the Dukes of Hazard than West Wing was presented as if it were Mr Smith goes to Washington.

A man who exploited the Democratic Party much like a delegate might use a Blackpool tram — as a means of moving from A to B but with no other sense of responsibility for it — wrapped himself in the poetry of progressive politics. The comeback kid became the throwback kid in a triumph for charm over credibility, revisionism over record and chutzpah over substance.

The breadth of Mr Clinton’s reach was amazing. He claimed credit for the liberation of Kosovo, an enterprise in which he had to be dragged kicking and screaming by Tony Blair, as if it were the storming of the Normandy beaches. He pronounced the merits of the “integrated global community” that he intended to construct between lucrative lectures. He took on the cause of Africa as if that continent were some sort of consolation prize for no longer being able to exercise power in his own country. He talked about the affairs of Nigeria, then Rwanda, then Mozambique, then South Africa. For understandable reasons he decided to leave Ugandan affairs alone.

And the audience loved it. They were not so much eating out of his hand as all but throwing their underwear at him. It was more Tom Jones than Thomas Jefferson. It was ironic, though, to put it mildly, that a party conference that has spent much of the week sniggering about the sex life of a former Prime Minister suddenly engaged in an act of collective memory loss when Mr Clinton hit the stage. It is paradoxical that an event that has witnessed so much anti-Americanism almost ended with a moving rendition of We Shall Overcome.

It added to the theatre of a day marked by surrealism. It involved John Major charging about in Texas, Edwina Currie setting out her stall in a radio studio and Mr Clinton munching Big Macs on the Blackpool front. Towards the end of his remarks, the former President admitted that politics was “a combination of rhetoric and reality”. There was rhetoric aplenty available yesterday. Reality, by contrast, must have taken the afternoon off.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2002

Answers

Control freaks choke at American diner

By Cathy Newman, Chief Political Correspondent

Published: October 3 2002 5:00 | Last Updated: October 3 2002 5:00

Important Labour donors were lined up for a few precious minutes' conversation with Bill Clinton as the party tried to cash-in on the former US president's attendance.

At an exclusive dinner on Tuesday night the former president was ushered around the tables by Lord Levy, Tony Blair's chief fundraiser, as the cash-strapped party sought to derive maximum benefit.

But the former president broke free of his minder and started working the room on his own.

Favoured donors who had been lined up by Lord Levy to speak to Mr Clinton had to compete with other diners for a moment with the former US president.

The private event was held in the Lancastrian suite at the Imperial Hotel, and was attended by Kevin Spacey, the Hollywood film star, more than 500 cabinet ministers, business executives, ministers and MPs. Donors paid up to £5,000 for a table of 12.

One donor said yesterday Lord Levy was "furious" that his handling of events had been undermined: "Levy decides who gets to meet who. He introduces them. Clinton completely blew him off. He took over the whole show. Clinton is not part of Labour's control-freakery. He waved and smiled and all these women just swooned."

Ultimately Charles Clarke, Labour chairman, took over the chaperoning of Mr Clinton around the dinner, where he was mobbed by normally hard-headed businessmen and women desperate for his autograph.

The folklore has it that Labour's fundraising dinners are glitzy, slick affairs. The reality was rather different. Donors were packed into a stifling room so crowded that many had to move their chairs to let waiters and waitresses pass.

The food - salmon mousse to start - arrived so late that Mr Clinton had started to work the room before the main course - lamb cutlets - arrived. Some executives left without eating the food.

So did Mr Clinton, who, flanked by Mr Spacey and Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's director of communications and strategy, filled up on burger and chips at a seafront McDonald's.

Downing Street had also arranged for Mr Clinton to attend a party hosted by News International, owner of The Times. It is thought that the promise of a visit from Mr Clinton was part of a drive to woo The Times, in an attempt to persuade the paper to support any campaign for euro entry.

But the former US president failed to turn up, choosing an American burger instead of the British bacon butty that was offered by News International.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2002