Letter 2 America for June 16, 2014

Dear America,

Sorry I'm late, but what I wanted to write to you yesterday about was Hillary Clinton's "Town Hall" meeting on CNN, and it didn't go on until 5:00 in the afternoon.  It was interesting too.  It seems that Clinton has learned to control her wicked witch persona and project some humility and vulnerability.  And while I never thought she was that smart--certainly not as smart as her husband--she handled herself pretty well.  Maybe she's smarter than I thought.  And as for aplomb, she showed some yesterday, though there wasn't really a challenge of any significance, such as might have penetrated her public persona.  All in all, it was a journeyman's performance, and it was on national television.  Considered along with her appearances before the Republican lynch mob in congress, it looks like she's ready.  She's backed off her front runner's egotism and become more thoughtful, which makes her look less like an ambitious politician and more like a national figure who's goal really is public service, but there was something missing.

I'm from the era when presidents were like royalty in that they were always addressed with respect, and in return for that deference, they gave a sense of paternal competence--there still hasn't been an opportunity for a president to express maternal competence...yet.  My first vivid recollection of a president facing the press, for example, was when John F. Kennedy held a press conference some time before the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Life was pretty good then, but as in all political eras, he had his critics, and they always had a voice in the press, which is as it should be.  But when they confronted Kennedy with a question about something controversial, it was abundantly clear who had the power in the room.  He might give an answer that the questioner didn't like, but it was Kennedy's answer, and that was pretty much that.  And of course in recent memory, there was Hillary's husband, Bill.  His style was more intellectual in that he didn't wear his gravitas and the gravity of his office like a cloak of impunity.  Clinton's style was to be better armed than those who were questioning him.  I never saw him asked a question to which he didn't have a good answer...a credible answer.  He knew every statistic that was relevant to every major issue, and he had thought out his positions on everything to the extent that they all hung together in a cohesive, internally consistent political philosophy.  He didn't have to resort to "because I'm the president" as a response because he could always justify what he did rationally...and most importantly, acceptably.  Clinton was the captain of his ship, but he didn't have to remind anyone of it because he could always rely on the fact that no one else had a better idea to support the course he chose, or so it seemed, though even Clinton would admit that there were judgments he made that he regretted, the one that he mentions most frequently being the failure of the United States under his leadership to intervene in Rwanda, but then, no one else did either.  Both Kennedy and Clinton had that presidential mantle around them, and it was nothing they had to work for.  It was natural for them to be in control, though neither one of them had control of his fly.  Of course, Hillary Clinton has no fly, so that won't be an issue, but what about the rest of it.

Somehow, when she was being questioned by Christiane Amanpour, it looked like a conversation between equals, not an interview by a supplicant reporter asking for the gift of a higher authority's wisdom, which is what it looked like when Bill used to take questions from the press.  Even President Obama manages to project superiority when he is speaking to the press, and he is as unassuming as any president I have ever seen.  But Hillary Clinton didn't seem to be above the fray yesterday, and that was what was missing.  A president has to be able to project his leadership without invoking it.  He...or she...must be able to command respect, because once he or she has to demand it, it can never be wholehearted.  That was the mistake Hillary Clinton made when she was running for president in 2008.  She would take the stage and demand everyone's attention, even that of her opponents, by speaking over the others, or laughing that haughty laugh when they said something she didn't like rather than addressing it.  That won't work for a president...not today it won't.  It may be something physical in her personal presence, or it may be something in her tone of voice.  For all I know it's her hair or her clothes.  But whatever it is, it is missing, and she had better find it if she wants to be president.  She has to find a way to project the notion that she is the mother of us all, and more important, that we like it.  She must find a way to verify her ideas on their merit rather than just by the fact that they are hers.  In short, she doesn't quite have that indefinable element of stature that all great presidents have.  At any given time there are four or so living presidents, plus the one in office.  When they get together, it has been said, they form the most exclusive club in the world.  Though it isn't that way anymore, what with the Bushes in the club and all, it used to be that they comprised a pantheon of what you might call immortal mortals.  They were men who weren't like the rest of us.  They were smarter and they had a kind of fortitude that only a handful of men in the world can have at any given time.  The question is, can Hillary stand in the same pose with those former presidents when her term is done as photographers take pictures of a historic gathering and look like she belongs?  It seems trivial, but I think the American people are sick of presidents who can't.  W doesn't look like he belongs there, and though his father had more integrity than W did, he wasn't any smarter, and certainly didn't seem like anything more than an interim president between Ronald Reagan and the next guy.  I don't think the voters are willing to put another minor figure into that exclusive club, and they are going to be looking at Hillary Clinton very closely to see if she, unlike the Bushes, belongs.

Your friend,

Mike