Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reading about Annika’s travails in her new digs when the last part of her post jarred your Maximum Leader’s memory.

William Jefferson Clinton.

Now your Maximum Leader realizes that he has said some very uncharitable things about our former president in the past. (And this post may contain a few more…) But, your Maximum Leader believes that most of his criticisms of Bill Clinton were policy based.

Your Maximum Leader believed that something was fishy about Whitewater, but nothing could be “pinned” on the Clintons. And it isn’t like all the various Special Prosecutors didn’t try.

NB: Your Maximum Leader was going through some old (pre-blog) e-mails between himself and the AirMarshal and Big Ho to find something he thought he wrote about. But he can’t find it. In a series of messages either the AirMarshal, or Big Ho, (or both) were surprised that your Maximum Leader did not support the Special Prosecutor law and was glad to see it expire. The Special Prosecutor is a bad idea. It is a creature that is neither executive, nor legislative, nor really judicial It spends lots of money, appears to be answerable to nobody (and don’t blather on about the “3 Judge Panel” - they didn’t do a damn thing to rein in any SP), and just goes on and on and on. The SP is really an abrogation by the legislative branch of their responsibility. (Hey… The legislative branch not doing what is should! That could be a whole post in an of itself.) If the executive does something the legislature things is wrong-headed or illegal, they (that is the Congress - House and/or Senate) should hold hearings and investigate. If they don’t feel they can expend their political capital on hearings. Well then tough toenails. The executive gets a free pass. Anyway… Where was your Maximum Leader… Oh yes…

The bimbo eruptions really didn’t bother your Maximum Leader too much either. Except insomuch as they spoke to the president’s character. Your Maximum Leader does believe that Bill Clinton’s character leaves much to be desired, by my standards. You may have different standards. (You likely do in fact, that doesn’t make yours right by any stretch it just makes them yours.) But your Maximum Leader believes that most Americans, as evidenced by Clinton winning two elections, have lower standards than does he in the character department. (And don’t blather on about Perot in ‘92 or how Clinton never won over 50% of the popular vote… It doesn’t matter now, and didn’t at the time either. Our system worked the way it was meant to.)

As for the whole Monica thing. Your Maximum Leader didn’t really care that Clinton was getting his animal instincts satisfied by an intern. Okay, that isn’t fully true. There are serious issues with the leader of the free world making a young intern the instrument of his sexual gratification. But, assuming they were both consenting adults (which it seems they were) that somewhat mitigates the whole thing. What is most distressing is Clinton lying about it under oath in a judicial proceeding. Why put yourself in that situation Bill? It is stupid. Your Maximum Leader has little use for public officials who lie in sworn testimony. Anyway…

What really annoyed your Maximum Leader about Bill Clinton was that he is an obviously talented and intelligent man who didn’t really believe in anything. Your Maximum Leader takes that back, Bill Clinton believes in Bill Clinton. That is what is annoying. He is a smooth operator in politics. He can be very thoughtful. But in the end, his political compass is geared only towards making people like him. Your Maximum Leader is convinced that at any time before he graduated from law school Bill Clinton could have become a Republican. The label just didn’t matter to him. He is a left-leaning centrist. He very easily could have been a right-leaning centrist if the right people had gotten to him early enough. (Pardon the pun.)

It is the waste of talent that both annoys and aggrevates your Maximum Leader. Your Maximum Leader watched Clinton’s speech to the Chicago Book Fair (the one that kicks off his new book tour). It was a great speech. It showed everything of which Clinton was capable. He was thoughtful, charming, and insightful. In a way it showed the lost potential of his presidency. If he had been able to harness his energies for a useful purpose he could have accomplished much more.

But he didn’t.

Carry on.