Class Clowns - The Clintons in their world.(scandalous activities of Bill and Hillary Clinton)(Column)

In Shaw's Heartbreak House, a burglar is captured by the guests at an English country-house weekend. At first they intend to hand him over to the police, but gradually they realize that this will require them to appear in court, give evidence, and generally suffer minor inconvenience. But when they accordingly decide to let the burglar go, he surprises them by refusing on the moral grounds that he really ought to pay for his crime. After some haggling, the guests get up a small silver collection to compensate him for his guilty conscience. And the burglar is about to depart when he is recognized by one guest as having pulled a similar stunt at another country-house party. It transpires that "the burglar" makes a comfortable living by exploiting the laziness and embarrassment of the English upper class in this way. The main difficulty he faces in this profession, moreover, is not persuading the rich to part with their money, nor securing his release, but getting caught in the first place. Sometimes he has to throw furniture about loudly in order to attract attention and provoke his own capture. It is in fact a full-time job, to persuade a corrupt and idle upper class even to notice his criminality.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have not yet reached the level of felonious expertise achieved by Shaw's burglar (although there is said to be a certain amount of furniture-throwing by Mrs. Clinton at times). They have not yet persuaded anyone to pay them for not speaking at conferences or for locating to another neighborhood. But they have reached the stage of forcing the political and media class to notice their criminality.

Indeed, the air of Washington and New York has been loud with lamentations about their bad behavior of recent days. Those who turned blind eyes and deaf ears to the multiplying scandals of the Clinton years, or who defended the Clintons against the Puritan witch-hunters of their own inflamed imaginations, now suddenly rail against the dreadful tackiness of the Hill-Billies. Clinton's plea bargain, in which he in effect admitted the perjury he had long denied; the expropriation of White House furniture; the Marc Rich pardon; the discovery that Hugh Rodham was being paid for obtaining other pardons; Hillary's icy and unpersuasive denial of any connection with her extended family's activities-all these have caused scales to drop from eyes. Consider:

"It's a pie in the face of everyone who ever defended you. You may look bad, Bill, but we look just plain stupid."

-Richard Cohen,

the Washington Post.

"What was the flaw? In one word, immaturity . . . The same sense of immunity-of indestructibility-that made him the self-styled 'Comeback Kid' also led him to repeated instances of reckless behavior with disastrous consequences."