On the Right - Where Do We Go Now with Clinton?(Bill Clinton; issues of pardons granted)(Brief Article)

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 23

Where on earth do we go, in the matter of Bill Clinton? President Bush is nicely philosophical when he tells the press that he is up to his keister in things to do and that we must move onward: i.e., attempt a launch that frees us from mundane concerns over the life and times and tribulations of Bill and Hillary. There are, of course, those who think that President Bush is having us on. One reporter says that White House aides are gleeful over the turn of events. Perhaps a retaliatory prankster will invade the quarters of the Executive Office Building and jiggle the computers so that when you type out the word Clinton you get a mug shot of Bill on your screen and, as text, "Wanted: For Bribery and Theft. Last Seen Disavowing Brother-in-Law."

It is fair, I think, to give a pass to conservatives on this round of Clinton- dismay. We did our best for years and years, contributing even an impeachment. The effect on the voting public was zero. Now suddenly the Gallup poll shows Mr. Clinton nose-diving from his high- altitude permanent home at 63 percent approval to 42 percent. Analysts wonder how that can be. Florence King, writing in National Review, comes up with an explanation. She speaks of the "eleventh-hour kleptomania committed by departing Clintonians aboard Air Force One. More Americans were more shocked by the theft of silverware, dishes, and blankets than ever cared about Monica, Whitewater, and Chinagate combined."

And she recalls the famous Lizzie Borden. That's the lady remembered in Bartlett's Quotations with, "Lizzie Borden took an ax / And gave her mother forty whacks; / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father forty-one!" "The citizens of Fall River, Massachusetts, reacted the same way when Lizzie Borden was accused of shoplifting twelve years after being acquitted of double homicide. You know God's in his heaven and all's right with the world when rock-ribbed Yankees shake their heads and grumble 'Murder is one thing, but . . .'"

Scarcely a day goes by without a disavowal from a Clinton. The paramount figure is Marc Rich. Mr. Clinton selected the most august confessional in America and wrote to the New York Times averring that Rich, Inc.,'s contributions to sundry Clinton causes had nothing, nothing to do with the pardon's being granted. But people asked themselves, reasonably: Okay, let's take Bill at his word, that there was no formal quid pro quo. But then ask yourselves ...