Imagine

There are times when it’s pleasant to imagine how things might have been different.

Because I’ve always been interested in history and politics, I sometimes imagine what might have happened had one or two things shifted just a tiny bit.

My favorite alternate reality begins by imagining that Teddy Roosevelt had never made that silly, unconsidered promise not to seek a third term in 1908.

By 1912, Teddy had his party’s conservative establishment on the run.  Given his popularity and the enormous support he could rally by means of the “bully pulpit”, the possibilities would have been stunning.

 

Had TR run for a third term, he might well have taken the United States decisively – even irreversibly – in the direction of a social democracy, anticipating Europe by decades. 

And that’s not even to discuss how much early American intervention into World War I would have altered the tragic outcome of that war.

I spend less time imagining that someone had stopped Sirhan Sirhan from assassinating Bobby Kennedy on the night Bobby won the 1968 California primary.

I’m not sure RFK would have won the Democratic nomination that year – given the immense control LBJ wielded over the Democratic Party.  But it’s hard to imagine that RFK wouldn’t have made it to the Oval Office in 1972, or 1976.  And from there, it’s not hard to imagine him leading us toward a far more progressive future.

But my most tragic “what if” involves the Election of 2000  - and it has nothing to do with recounts or “hanging chads”.

I imagine what would have happened if Bill Clinton had resigned from office after being impeached by the House of Representatives in December, 1998.

And on this, my feeling are heightened, because - at the time - I publicly called for Clinton’s resignation at precisely that time.  I had not influence, and no one really noticed.  But I'm on the record.

Please understand.  I had voted for Mr. Clinton twice.  And I tend to think a public man’s private life has nothing to do with his fitness to serve – though I do bar lying, baldly and directly, to the American people.

But what I was mainly thinking about was America’s future.  I imagined then, and I imagine now, what might have happened if Al Gore had taken office in late 1998, or even better, on January 21, 1999 (which would have allowed him to run for two additional terms).

I imagine President Al Gore taking office, and gradually getting past the damage inflicted upon the nation by Clinton’s misconduct and subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of his actions.

I imagine an incumbent President Gore running for election in his own right in 2000 – with all the advantages of the incumbency, and with the stain of the Clinton era a year and more behind him.

I imagine a President Gore in office during the 9/11 crisis – dealing forcefully with the Afghan Taliban, but not getting drawn into a foolish invasion of Iraq.

I imagine no Iraq War; no No Child Left Behind; and a far more competent – or less incompetent – handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Most of all, I imagine the United States, led by President Gore, moving into a place of world leadership in dealing with Global Climate Change.

The world would be a very different place, if Al Gore had been president instead of George W. Bush.

And, as the incumbent, there’s almost no way Gore would have lost to George W. Bush, or any other Republican who ran in 2000.

And here’s the point:

When friends question why I have problems with Hillary Clinton, there are many things I could mention.  But my problem with her is really a problem with them.  And it comes down to – not something they did – but something they didn’t do. 

When they had a chance to do the honorable thing – to have Bill resign in favor of his Vice-President – they opted to cling to power.

Not for the country.

Not even for the party.

For themselves.

And the cost to the rest of us, to the world, and to the future, has been measureless.

Again, take a few minutes to imagine a United States in which the George W. Bush years had been, instead, the Al Gore years. 

Really think about that.

Then ask yourself whether, in the supreme crisis of their political lives, either of the Clintons demonstrated an instinct to put their country, or its people, ahead of their own interests.

To me, they simply didn't.

And this, I think, is the ultimate disqualifier.