The Slickness

For anyone who thinks the moniker "Slick Willie" implies strictly douchebaggery, this week's performance by President Clinton should put that caricature to rest. Not only can this man sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves and talk the pants off any white-trash chick in this country, he is also an absolutely incredible statesman in the truest sense of the word.

All he had to do was show up in North Korea and pose for a picture to get what he wanted. He didn't even need to smile in the picture. That's game. How can the charm, the classic "women want him, men want to be him" charm translate all the way from rural Arkansas to the most isolated and psychotic corner of the world?

All we have to do to answer that is to imagine George W. Bush embarking on a similar quest. Can any of us imagine a single country in the world, including ours, where George W. Bush would be received as a statesman?

Bill Clinton can go to North Korea, he can go to Belfast, he can go to Rome. It doesn't matter where he goes; he is loved. If George W. Bush went to Rome, he would be arrested on outstanding warrants for kidnapping and torture. An interesting contrast, and it tells us all we need to know about their respective foreign policies.

Bill Clinton talked to the world. George W. Bush's policy was to tell any group or nation not wholly in our sway to go sit in the corner. North Korea wants nukes? Al-Qaeda is determined to strike inside the US? Well, I'll just ignore them. That'll teach 'em.

As a brief aside and postlude, let's imagine that the two American journalists President Clinton had released were white women rather than Asian. "America Held Hostage" strikes me as a probable headline. Right?

And as for the right-wingers who disparage this hostage release, sure than some nefarious trade must have been made, remember Iran-Contra? The government sold weapons to the country holding American hostages (Iran) and gave the profits to death squads in Nicaragua, both acts being illegal. Somehow I doubt Slick Willie went that far in North Korea.