Friday, August 24, 2012

The Comeback Kid Keeps Coming

He’s back, and a grateful nation turns its lonely eyes to...Bill Clinton?

Not quite Joe DiMaggio but, in an era of Todd Akin et al, the Comeback Kid will have to do as a most admired icon to remind us of better days, stained dress and all, when the nation’s economy was not collapsing.

In a new ad, the former President looks voters in the eye seductively to say ““This election to me is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment. The Republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper income people and go back to deregulation. That’s what got us in trouble in the first place.”

Those who never succumbed to Bill Clinton’s charm may just as well give up and realize that, “in trouble” or not, he won’t go away—-as Barack Obama’s knight in shining armor this year or Hillary’s husband in 2016 or Chelsea’s proud father in a run for Congress then or later.

He has ascended into that American pantheon of bad boys who, with enough longevity, start to look good.

There is a 1943 movie, “Heaven Can Wait,” in which Don Ameche cheerfully presents himself at the gates of Hell to review his dissolute life from unbridled young buck to aging roué, only to discover that Lucifer finds him unqualified and directs him to an elevator going up.

Give the devil his due. He’s probably a better judge of character than we are.

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