American Rhapsody (24 page)

Bill Clinton was the abused, real-life punching bag available as “exhibit A” for many of the nineties liberal causes. The president of the United States was the personification of the nightmare that many liberals felt was repressed and regressed deep within the national psyche. He was the living victim of the horrors we were trying so hard to eliminate for our children and grandchildren.

If the shrinks were right about it all, then Bill Clinton himself was responsible for none of his own actions. He was a nice-looking stage upon which two sluts and two drunks had acted out a psychodrama that opened in Hope, played in Hot Springs, and became an international sensation at the White House. If the shrinks were right, Bill Clinton wasn't just a victim; he was a casualty. But if the shrinks were right, it also meant there was one hellaciously screwed-up human being with his finger on the nuclear button.

There he was on television, this victim in chief, asking to be forgiven for something he wouldn't admit to having done. How hard it was not to shed empathic tears over abandoned Bill Clinton!

Bill Blythe abandoned him by dying. His mother abandoned him for a job out of town. His stepfather abandoned him for his bottle. His mother abandoned him by remarrying his stepfather. His grandmother abandoned him by dying. His grandfather abandoned him by dying. His stepfather abandoned him by dying. His mother abandoned him by marrying two more stepfathers after Roger Clinton finally died. Gennifer abandoned him for a book, as did Dolly Kyle. His mother, Vince Foster, Ron Brown, and Rabin all abandoned him by dying. Stephanopoulos abandoned him for a book and for Sam and Cokie. Dick Morris abandoned him for a book and for Rupert Murdoch and Trent Lott. Barbra abandoned him for a TV actor. Monica abandoned him for a book and Ken Starr. Hillary and Chelsea were on the fence. Which pretty well meant only Buddy was left. As Harry Truman had said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

Buddy was certainly an improvement over Zeke, Chelsea's crazed cocker spaniel, killed, finally, outside the governor's mansion in Little Rock while chasing a car. Zeke had barked nonstop, clawed at doors, had even caused a political uproar by constantly violating Little Rock's leash laws. Even dog psychiatrists couldn't silence the demented Zeke; only a car could.

While Buddy didn't seem to be as politically PR-savvy as previous presidential dogs like Fala (FDR) and Yuki (LBJ), he probably wouldn't splat the Great Wall of China, like Bush's C. Fred. Although Buddy still wasn't house-trained, thus limiting the photo ops. Plus, he had gone right up to Monica as she sat in the private study and had instantly shoved his nose right between her legs. “Buddy,” Monica had said, “you're better at this than your daddy.”

As the shrinks kept shrinking Bill Clinton on the talk shows in an effort to save him, White House spin doctors were concerned that some friendly liberal shrink would start saying that . . . judging by his behavior . . . Buddy was a victim of abuse, too. Just like his master.

[8]

Bob Dole's Johnhenry

W
ho knew? Right? Nobody knew. During the campaign. Against Clinton. For the enchilada. I was on message. Character, character, character. Who would you leave your kids with? And all that time. He was getting his johnhenry blown. By our next-door neighbor. Jiminy! By this girl. Lipinski. Kaczynsky. Whatever.

Bob Dole didn't know, and neither did Elizabeth Dole. We knew she was our next-door neighbor. We'd seen her at the elevator. But we didn't know she knew his johnhenry.

Funny, isn't it? How things work out? Yeah, right here at the Watergate. All three of us. Bob Dole. Elizabeth Dole. Monica Lipinski. And our neighbor, Lipinski, gets bigger than Watergate! Dorothy had it right. Right? In that movie about Kansas. “We're way out of Kansas now, Tonto.”

I was gonna win the election. “There are doers and there are stewers.” Dad said that. Three times is a charm. Somebody said that. Eighty and '88; this was three. Had it set up right to stay on message, on message, on message. Told 'em some jokes. Got grasshoppers so big in Kansas, they eat pigs' noses. Got cabbage leaves we use for circus tents. Use cornstalks to build bridges. Then back to message—Character! Character! Character!

Didn't have to mention the war stuff. The shoulder. The cigar box. The pen in my right hand. Bob Dole took a lickin' but keeps on tickin'! Everybody knew about it. Wasn't like back in Kansas. Hadda run those TV ads. A picture of me and a picture of my shoulder. It wasn't there. Didn't even have to talk about the war. Everybody knew. Like they knew about his draft dodging.

The great silent issue of the campaign. World War II against Vietnam. Years in the hospital against his years at Oxford. A Purple Heart against his deferment. NASA against
Sputnik.
The NFL against the NLF. Kansas against Hollywood. Dead against Red. Love it against leave it. Leaded against unleaded.

The other big issue besides the war to end all wars—isn't that what Eisenhower called it? That issue was his johnhenry. We called it character. Everybody knew about him, and his johnhenry, too. Bob and Elizabeth Dole were happily married. Everybody knew that, too. The war stuff worked into that. Bob Dole was physically challenged, not the kind of man who
had
a johnhenry. It was
my
character against his. Apple pie against cherry pie. Maturity against his saxophone. Bifocals against his sunglasses. My missing shoulder against his johnhenry. Bob Dole tells the truth! Bob Dole loves America!

Knew going in that we had just the tiniest amount of exposure there, too. On johnhenry. It was my divorce. Batted it around with my guys. With George Will's wife and Rudman and David Keene. But it was so many years ago, back in '72, we thought Bob Dole would be okay.

Reagan was divorced. And Phyllis, my ex, had come back aboard. She sold
DOLE FOR PRESIDENT
buttons in '88. And our daughter, Robin, who was a kid in her forties now, had been a part of every campaign.

So Bob Dole had mended the bridges. He'd pork-barreled the home district. Plus, the guys all felt Elizabeth's presence would get us over this. Elizabeth looking radiant up on the platform. Her arms around Bob and Robin Dole. Most voters wouldn't even know that Phyllis was still alive.

Jiminy, we got off to a bang-up start, didn't we? Bob Dole on message: Character! Character! Character! And right during the Democratic National Convention, johnhenry was the issue that came up. Like a hand grenade had landed in the middle of their party. Blown all of their shoulders off. Philip Morris, the little weasel, caught with a pro. Morris, Clinton's pimp, caught paying two hundred dollars an hour. So he could suck her toes. So he could get down on the rug naked and bark like a dog. Bob Dole had to laugh. It was too good to be true. Even though Trent and Jesse Helms were a little itchy. Morris worked for them, too.

But I laughed. Morris even told the pro he wanted to have at it with Hillary. He told her there was bacteria on Mars. That was top secret. He let her listen in as he spoke to Clinton. While the pro did what our neighbor girl was doing. All they could do was let Morris resign. Though I know he still gave Trent advice afterward. And somebody at the White House called him an “externality.” Yeah, that was a good one. He was an externality all right. Like the kind men have. Character! Character! Character! And then this happens. And Morris's externality reminds the voters of Clinton's externality. On message. On message. On message. I'll say!

Bob Dole said not a word about it, of course. Bob Dole stayed on the high road. He remembered the advice from President Nixon he'd gotten in '72. When Bob Dole was getting divorced. Bob Dole went to the Old Man and offered to resign as chairman of the Republican National Committee. And the Old Man told me that a politician had to be judged on his public behavior. Not his private one. He gave me a book that Bob Dole read carefully. It was about Israeli, the Hall of Fame English prime minister. Very big, Israeli. Bigger than Churchill. Bigger than Thatcher. Babe Ruth big. Dempsey. Sam Rayburn. And the book said Israeli was married half a dozen times. Jumped around more bedrooms than the clowns jumping around at Ringling and Bailey. So Bob Dole said not a word about the weasel down on the floor. Barking like a dog. But the voters all heard very clearly. What Bob Dole wasn't saying.

What a start! A landslide start! A mandate start! And after that start 
 . . . I fell down.
In Kansas. In California. You probably saw the pictures. I couldn't help it. Bob Dole tells the truth! Bob Dole loves America! I'm not young. I'm mature. I tried to stay on message. But they started firing their poison gas. The libs, as the Old Man said, are like that. They wanted to get back at us for Morris, the weasel naked on the floor.

Jiminy, they called
me
the hatchet man! Accused me of writing the mother of a candidate I was running against in Kansas. Telling her he was an alcoholic! Accused me of calling another opponent an abortionist! Accused me of saying the Democrats caused 1.8 million American deaths in World War II! Accused me of using my missing shoulder to get my votes! Accused me of being a snarling attack dog! And now here
they
came!

Accusing me of choosing a running mate, Jack Kemp, who they said was a homosexual. And a draft dodger. They didn't do it directly. They
denied
doing it. To give the story more play. To take the voters' minds off the weasel on the rug. The weasel denied doing it himself. Like the weasel he was. The weasel said reports were untrue. That he and the president's campaign were “tracking” rumors. That Jack was a homosexual. And had gotten out of the draft due to a pro football injury.

Bob Dole knew how slimy this was. A slander upon a fine, upstanding NFL family man. The veteran of countless linebackers. Roughings of the passer. An effort to character-assassinate Bob Dole's missing shoulder. The weasel was denying. Done to obscure un-American activities. Of the two johnhenrys. Kennedy's—I mean Clinton's. And Philip Morris's. Bob Dole tells the truth! Bob Dole loves America! This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The next shot they took came even closer to me. Roger Stone. One of my campaign aides. A good man. A fine Republican. A patriotic American. Director of President Reagan's Political Affairs. Even kept close touch with the Old Man in his final years. Visiting him at his New Jersey house. Whispering him political gossip. Keeping the Old Man in the loop. And now the rags were showing pictures of Roger. Bare-chested and wearing a mask. Pictures of his wife on a bed. Not wearing a whole lot. Pictures that were a part of ads Roger had run. In sex magazines. Looking for group sex. They were seen at a sex club. At an orgy. One of the ads run by Roger's wife said something about a hot babe. Who needed real men.

Bob Dole didn't believe a word of it. I didn't care
what
the pictures showed. They wanted to get Roger because of Reagan. Because of the Old Man. Because of Bob Dole. Because Roger was the best man we had for negative advertising. Because the sex maniac I was running against for president had hit on Roger's wife. At the Old Man's funeral. The same wife whose picture was in the ads. Who said she was 40DD-24-36.

Think about that. President Nixon is barely in the ground. I'm giving the eulogy. (Bob Dole cried.) And the president of the United States—at the funeral of one of the greatest presidents in history—is thinking about his johnhenry. They wanted to get Roger. And they got him. As I say, I didn't believe a word of it. But I asked him to resign.

Then they got Arthur Finkelstein. A bullet to the spine. Arthur was Roger's mentor. One of the best consultants on the Republican side. A little to the right. Working for the antihomosexual guys. Helms. Don Nickles. Lech. Faircloth. A lot of Arthur's guys were now working for Bob Dole. And it just happens to come out now—after Morris—after Roger—that Arthur is
—aarg!—
homosexual. That Arthur is living with his
—aarg!—
homosexual husband. Or wife. Or whatever. I don't know about that stuff. We didn't have that stuff in Kansas. And they're raising two boys. Yup. That's what I said. Arthur's a homosexual. Getting paid by those guys who don't like that stuff. And he and his whatever have two boys.

I struck back at the bastards. Never let it be said that Bob Dole doesn't return fire. That he doesn't spear with his helmet when they spear him. “Can't never not do anything.” Mom said that. I went after the bastards' supply line. Their money supply. Hollywood. Bob Dole told them they made money from music that voted for the “raping, torturing, and mutilation of women.” From movies that cast their ballot for “nightmares of depravity.”

I laid it on real good. The Old Man would have been proud of me. It was like one of my speeches back in the old days. About the longhaired vermin in our streets. Bob Dole got their attention. Bob Dole burst at them with machine-gun fire. George Will's wife and my other guys thought the bullets were ricocheting all over Clinton.

I tried to stay on message. Character! Character! Character! But some of my guys were worrying. Maybe the message was turning into a double-edged sword. A plague of Kansas locusts. A game of Russian roulette. I felt like we were dodging bullets. That Bob Dole was back there with the Tenth Mountain Division. At the Pra del Bianco. Or wherever.

The troops—Roger, Arthur—were taking hits. I was weary. Stumbling. But if I could just slog through the mud. For a little while longer. I'd plant Old Glory on election day. Atop this heap of dirt and slime. And win the Super Bowl. I didn't pay attention to the polls. The polls were sniper fire. Bad calls made by the refs. Polls had to be ignored. I had to keep plowing up the middle. On a cold day in Green Bay. Through the shrapnel. Sniper fire. Win one for the USA. The Gipper. FDR. Ike. The Brooklyn Dodgers. Whatever.

Almost did it, too. Almost planted that flag. Almost won my championship ring. Took my bullet in the middle of October. Just a few weeks before election day. It was the divorce. Phyllis! Phyllis and Robin!

First the rags wrote that I met Phyllis at the hospital. When I was in rehab after the war. That she helped me walk again. Cut my meat for me. Helped me go back to school. Took notes for me there. Helped me pass my bar exam. Always took dictation for me. Sewed my clothes. Sewed campaign workers' clothes. That in the final year of our marriage, I was sleeping in the base-ment.
Alone.
That I had dinner with Phyllis and Robin twice—on Christmas and New Year's. That after twenty-three years of marriage, I dumped her. By just saying, “I want out.”

Making me look as bad as Gingrich. Asking his wife for a divorce settlement while she was in the hospital. Diagnosed with cancer. It sounded bad. A woman who'd helped me to walk again and cut my meat. Dumping her like that. I couldn't deny any of it. Bob Dole tells the truth. Bob Dole loves America.

But that first bullet just grazed me. They quoted Phyllis as saying I was a workaholic. That's what broke us up. I was working too hard for America. If you need a reason for dumping somebody who's helped you walk again, America's not bad. Plus, there was no hostility. She made money selling her Bob Dole buttons, right? Robin was being paid by the Dole for President campaign, right? So far not too bad.

Then I caught one in my missing shoulder. A piece of shrapnel the size of a big fat lie. Wounded in the campaign for Europe. Wounded again now in the campaign against Clinton. Wasn't even sure if Phyllis knew about this stuff. Workaholic, huh?
Yeah, right.
A week before the election, after staying on message: Character! Character! Character! After my Hollywood speech about values. And they nailed Bob Dole on character. On his johnhenry. Because he couldn't keep it zipped. Equating Bob Dole with the sex maniac he was running against.

It was a long time ago. The early seventies. But I knew that wouldn't matter. The whole country was sexually bats then. But I knew that wouldn't wash, either. Bob Dole was Bob Dole. Bob Dole had the Purple Heart. Bob Dole had the missing shoulder. Bob Dole wasn't supposed to have a johnhenry.

Her name was Meredith Roberts. She was thirty-five at the time. A secretary at George Washington University. I was forty-five. A senator. The rags had found her now. She was sixty-three. Still single. Living with a bunch of cats. She was still mad at me, too. She told about how she used to call Bob Dole “Bobby D.” How everybody thought Bob Dole walked on water. But she knew Bob Dole wasn't squeaky-clean. How we were supposedly madly in love.

Jiminy! I wasn't surprised she was still mad at me. She thought I dumped her for Phyllis. She thought I was going back to my wife. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I did go to Phyllis, but it was a different Phyllis. It wasn't my wife. It was Phyllis
Wells.
A model. Character! Character! Character! And now Bob Dole was Bobby D.

Bob Dole tells the truth! Bob Dole loves America! But Bob Dole wanted to be president! We tried to stop the bleeding from this hit. It wasn't easy. It was clear now that I'd dumped the woman who'd helped me to walk again for the sake of my johnhenry. Then, for the sake of my johnhenry again, I dumped the woman who was taking care of my johnhenry. For a model who took
better
care of my johnhenry.