-Caveat Lector-
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Peace at any cost is a prelude to war!
Clinton's dark side emerges on golf course
FROM BEN MACINTYRE IN WASHINGTON
A STRANGE, solitary figure could be seen on the Army and Navy Country Club
golf course outside Washington on Sunday night, whacking ball after ball into
the pitch darkness as the rain poured down.
It was Bill Clinton, inadvertently offering the stark image of an
increasingly isolated and frustrated President heading towards the end of his
second term, his temper rising and his power waning.
Dusk was already gathering when he suddenly announced that he was going to
play golf, alone, and for two and a half hours he worked his way around the
sodden course, deserted save for his Secret Service detail and a handful of
damp journalists.
"He was playing in the pitch dark," one reporter said. "He was swinging and
wildly hitting balls everywhere."
Mr Clinton's obsession with golf is well known, but his eccentric solo
session has inevitably invited speculation about his state of mind in the
twilight of his presidency. "It was odd. It was strange," one White House
official was quoted as saying.
With just over a year of his last term remaining, Mr Clinton is having to
cede the political spotlight to his would-be successor, Al Gore, and to his
wife, while his ambitions for his own legacy have become bogged down in
partisan politics and bitter budget wrangling. Recently Mr Clinton has taken
to public bouts of introspection, and by his own admission the presidential
temper is starting to fray.
"Some days I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, in a foul humour," he told
an audience earlier this month. "It has occurred to me really that every one
of us has this little scale inside . . . on one side there's the light forces
and on the other side there's the dark forces in our psyche.
"Life is a big struggle to try to keep things in proper balance," he added.
Mr Clinton's darker side was on full display last week after the Senate
rejected the treaty banning nuclear tests that he had planned as the
centrepiece of his foreign policy.
Mr Clinton lambasted Republican senators for what he called their "reckless
partisanship" and "isolationism". And the Senate is not alone in feeling the
rough edge of the presidential tongue.
In the past few weeks he has been heard to lash out at his conservative
enemies, unsympathetic media and even the FBI. Earlier this month, at a White
House picnic, one reporter for Investor's Daily found himself in a slanging
match with Mr Clinton, who then gave instructions that the journalist be
banned from all such functions in the future.
Mr Clinton's frustration was also evident recently when he reflected on the
stalled peace process in Northern Ireland and compared the opposing sides in
the conflict to drunks addicted to violence.
The President's periodic bursts of ill humour may be partly attributable to
disappointment with the campaign being run by his Vice-President, whose
election Mr Clinton sees as crucial to preserving his own place in history.
He has been vociferous in his support of Mr Gore, but last weekend the
front-runner for the Democratic nomination clearly hinted that he might forgo
Mr Clinton's help. Many voters see Mr Gore as tainted by the scandals of the
Clinton presidency.
The President is also said to be finding it hard to adjust to playing second
fiddle to the political ambitions of Hillary Clinton. While he jokes about
joining the "Senate spouses club", associates say he feels more than a twinge
of envy that his political career is winding down, unglamorously, at a moment
when hers may just be taking off.
Some associates say Mr Clinton is still determined to leave an imprint from
his final year in office and is gearing up for a battle over spending with
Republicans in Congress. "He's been in great spirits and he has lots of
fight," Terence McAuliffe, a Democratic fund-raiser and Clinton confidant,
told The Washington Post.
But Mr Clinton's public comments have taken on a mournful, valedictory tone,
and his introductions to White House visitors now tend to start with the
formula "as our time here draws to a close".
On a recent trip to New York a park guide joked that the President could
always get a job with the National Park Service. "I can work cheap, I've got
a good pension," Mr Clinton replied.
But White House insiders say that for all the jocularity, the future is
weighing heavily on his mind.
But the only thing that Mr Clinton has stated with absolute certainty about
his plans after leaving the White House is that they will involve a large
amount of golf.
When he climbed, dripping, into his limousine after Sunday's impromptu and
solitary round of golf, his aides declined to say what he had scored. Perhaps
he was not even counting.
**COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107,
any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use
without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational
purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ]
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
