ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 18, 2006
(This week, Bill Clinton's five-year suspension from the Arkansas Bar Association expires. I wrote this column on May 24, 2000)
WASHINGTON - - When I first heard that Bill Clinton was going to lose his law license in Arkansas I was shocked.
And that's because I didn't know they HAD lawyers in Arkansas.
I figured they just flipped coins there or maybe wrestled to resolve disputes.
But, no, it turns out Arkansas does have lawyers. And none of them ever tells lies.
Never.
Because if they do, they get disbarred, which is what an Arkansas Supreme Court panel wants to do to Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton, as you may remember, lied when he said under oath in a deposition that he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.
I don't have an actual transcript handy but I think the deposition went like this:
STARR: Did you have sex with Monica Lewinsky?
CLINTON: Which one was she?
STARR: Intern. Chubby. Brought pizza to the Oval Office. Flashed her thong.
CLINTON: What was on the pizza?
STARR: What difference does that make?
CLINTON: I am trying to remember if she was the chubby intern who flashed her thong and brought a pepperoni pizza or if she was the chubby intern who flashed her thong and brought the half-sausage, half-green pepper pizza.
STARR: (exasperated) Did you have sex with either of them?
CLINTON: Define sex.
STARR: Define sex?
CLINTON: Define pizza.
STARR: Did you have sexual relations or not?
CLINTON: With the intern or the pizza?
STARR: The intern!
CLINTON: Nope, never, uh-uh, no way, negative, not.
STARR: Are you lying?
CLINTON: Define lying. Define are. Define you.
In any case, Clinton says he was not lying when he said he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky because in his mind sexual relations is a home run and he got only to third base.
The American people apparently found this a very convincing argument, because opinion polls show that Clinton is the most popular president in history ever to get to third base with an intern in the Oval Office. While on the phone.
The only really serious thing that Clinton did wrong, apparently, was Lying While a Lawyer.
Apparently this is a very big deal in Arkansas.
Clinton has not practiced law for the last 28 years, but sends in a $100 check to Arkansas every year to renew his law license. (For $200 in Arkansas you get to be a judge. For $300 you get to be coroner.)
I don't know why Clinton bothers doing this. Maybe he gets a discount card for drive-in movies or 10 percent off all chainsaws. I have no idea.
But he who lives by his law license dies by it and now Clinton may suffer the humiliation of having a bunch of lawyers in Arkansas saying he is not fit company for them.
For some crazy reason, Clinton is fighting his disbarment. Here is a guy who has been disgraced before the world, shamed before his wife, embarrassed before his child and impeached before history.
But what does he find too humiliating to bear? Getting kicked out of the Arkansas lawyer's club.
Clinton's friends have rallied around him. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has called the panel that recommended Clinton's disbarment a "kangaroo court" and then said: "They've already gotten their pound of flesh. What more do they want?"
I don't know. But a pizza ought to do it.
(I am reprinting some of my favorite columns. This first appeared on January 11, 2000.)
BEDFORD, N.H. -- John McCain walks onto his bus and sits heavily in a red, leather swivel chair. His mouth is a small, grim hyphen in what is normally a sunny face.
He is remembering the good old days. Those days that came a few months ago.
"We started out in a van," he says. "We started out with one reporter. And now ..." He pauses and looks out the window of his bus to where his second bus, the overflow bus, the bus for the reporters who cannot squeeze onto this bus, sits idling in the parking lot of the Bedford Wayfarer hotel, sending clouds of exhaust into the chill air.
He shrugs. Bill Bennett, former drug czar, former secretary of education and currently Mr. Values, maneuvers his bulk down the narrow aisle of the bus and sits in the chair next to McCain.
He has not given his endorsement to John McCain -- he has offered to help all the Republicans -- but he has clearly given his heart to him.
"You look up to him," Bennett says. "He is the anti-Clinton. He's an honorable man. The American people want a president they can look up to again. That idea has captured the American imagination. (SET ITAL) He (END ITAL) has captured the American imagination. You need to bring people back, you need to have them believe in the possibility of politics."
On this day, however, John McCain is worrying about the possibility of John McCain. Insurgents are usually reformers, and the Achilles' heel of the reformer is hypocrisy: A large part of McCain's campaign is based on throwing the money lenders out of the twin temples of politics and government, but newspaper articles have been revealing that McCain has a fondness for riding on the corporate jets of his campaign contributors and has also been writing letters on their behalf to governmental agencies -- letters that have led to some lucrative business deals.
"You've got to expect this sort of stuff," McCain tells the reporters packed together in a tight semi-circle around him. "With increased traction, you get increased visibility."
By which he means the kind of visibility that paints a target on your chest.
Soon, his day will brighten, however. His bus will pull into a church parking lot and he will bound off to address a standing-room-only crowd of 600 -- a big crowd for New Hampshire, especially on a workday morning.
They will give him a rock star welcome, and when he is finished answering their questions, they will mob him, people clutching his best-selling memoir to their bosoms, waiting for an autograph, waiting for a word, waiting for enough proximity to reach out and touch him.
Support for an underdog is a passionate support. It is what they need, it is what they depend on to make up the vast gulf in resources or organization or name-recognition that the front-runners enjoy.
If you are an underdog, you are not the default choice, you are not the automatic answer, you must give people a reason to vote for you.
During McCain's presentation, a fifth-grader stood up and asked McCain how he decided to run for president. "My wife claims it was because I received several sharp blows to the head while in prison," McCain says.
Like always, the audience laughs and, like always, the phrase hangs in the air: While in prison. While in Vietnam. While being tortured. He does not need to say more.
Just as when he climbs back onto his bus and now, in a better mood, he shows off his new black topcoat and tells the reporters without any prompting that a) it comes from Nordstrom, b) he bought it because he had to give a speech on the Mall as part of Washington's millennium celebration and c) "It only took them one day to tailor it for my shortened arms."
Shortened when they were broken. Shortened when he ejected from his plane. Shortened when they were twisted and beaten by his captors. "There is no depths I won't sink to in seeking your support," McCain tells people. Most people think he is joking. Most people should think again.
Bill Bennett, as always, has the answer. "Americans are the most romantic people in the world," he says, "and they've fallen for the guy, they've fallen for McCain. They fell for Clinton. They've fallen for Bradley. Gore doesn't have it. But McCain does.