By Frank Brunie, Opinion Columnist, June 5, 2018<\/p>\n
Move over, Alec Baldwin. Bill Clinton does a much better impersonation of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The hair is wrong but the air is right \u2014 self-righteous, self-pitying and suffused with anger that anyone would peddle a version of events less heroic than the one that he prefers. We\u2019re shaming him about ancient groping when we should be showering him with eternal gratitude. And what about his <\/em>pain?<\/p>\n \u201cI left the White House $16 million in debt,\u201d Clinton said, in an interview that NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d aired on Monday, batting back questions about whether he had demonstrated sufficient contrition for converting a 22-year-old\u2019s romantic idolization of him into sexual favors and setting off a sequence of events that savaged her. I don\u2019t know what legal bills have to do with a moral ledger. But I can see that his fixations on money and martyrdom are intact.<\/p>\n Before cries of \u201cfalse equivalence\u201d shatter windows and startle forest creatures, I should make clear that I\u2019d take Clinton over Trump in any role on any day. Trump is the Everest of delusion and depravity; Clinton ascended only a bit beyond base camp.<\/p>\n But at an honor-starved moment when most of our politicians are quicker to shirk responsibility than to shoulder it, I cringe at his evasions, elisions and rationalizations. Is he taking a cue from Trump? Or showing us where Trump got some of his moves and inspiration?<\/p>\n Granted, Clinton is venturing in front of cameras this week to discuss a book he wrote, not the book on him. So he\u2019s frustrated and flustered.<\/p>\n And at 71, he\u2019s not the talker or the actor that he used to be. Those eyes don\u2019t mist as wetly. That lower lip isn\u2019t as ripe for penitential chewing.<\/p>\n But hasn\u2019t he or anyone around him, in response to the #MeToo movement, thought to prepare a script in which he speaks brave and healing words about his own mistakes, the lessons he learned and how all of us can apply and benefit from them?<\/p>\n He\u2019s correct that he has gone through the motions of saying that he\u2019s sorry for the Monica Lewinsky scandal before. But that preceded the fall of Harvey Weinstein, the recognition of sexual misconduct\u2019s pervasiveness and the damning circus of Trump, whose allergy to apology gives Clinton a chance to model a more generous, better way. He sure as hell isn\u2019t seizing it.<\/a><\/p>\n He grows visibly annoyed when journalists are so petty as to bring up the past and the pesky fact that he\u2019s one of only two American presidents ever impeached. He raged when Craig Melvin of NBC News breached this territory. And he promptly turned into Trump.<\/p>\n He pointed fingers elsewhere, excusing his own erotic exploits by insinuating that his Oval Office forebears were no less randy. \u201cDo you think President Kennedy should have resigned?\u201d he challenged Melvin. \u201cDo you believe President Johnson should have resigned?\u201d Give Clinton a break. He was merely playing follow the libido.<\/p>\n He cited polls, outsourcing discernment and judgment to the crowds. \u201cTwo-thirds of the American people sided with me,\u201d he told Melvin. They thought that Republicans\u2019 impeachment of him went too far. But that doesn\u2019t mean that he\u2019s innocent \u2014 or virtuous.<\/p>\n He accused Melvin of sloppy journalism, though there wasn\u2019t a scintilla of sloppiness in the portion of the interview that \u201cToday\u201d shared<\/a>. \u201cYou, typically, have ignored gaping facts,\u201d he said. I myself gaped \u2014 at the Trumpian magnitude of Clinton\u2019s ire.<\/p>\n Those ignored facts were the most ignoble part of his rant. He mentioned how many women he had put in top jobs, presenting the roll call as a counterweight to \u2014 or absolution for? \u2014 the infidelities, the accusations of sexual harassment and Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s claim of rape<\/a>. Does Madeleine Albright\u2019s ascent<\/a> redeem Monica Lewinsky\u2019s evisceration? Was Janet Reno a get-out-of-jail-free card?<\/p>\n What a queasy-making calculus. And what foreshadowing. Decades before many of Trump\u2019s enablers edited out huge chunks of his behavior to rally around his policies, many of Clinton\u2019s fans made a similar if less egregious bargain.<\/p>\n The Venn diagram of the 42nd and 45th presidents overlaps not only where hormones rage but also where entitlement roars. And that entitlement is antithetical to a world in which women get the respect and equality that they deserve and Americans get the leadership that we sorely need.<\/p>\n Clinton\u2019s new book, a thriller written with James Patterson, is called \u201cThe President Is Missing.\u201d That could also be a title for his book tour \u2014 and for a real-time chronicle of the Trump administration. If the president is supposed to be someone more focused on his obligations than on his reputation, on his duty than on his due, then we lack one now, and Clinton isn\u2019t filling the void.<\/p>\n He\u2019s warbling a tune that we\u2019re sick and tired of. Woe is him. Woe is Trump.<\/p>\n I\u2019d tweak the lyrics. Woe is us.<\/p>\n