A 'Perplexed' Clinton Struggles With New Isolation
iht.com
Adam Nagourney New York Times Service
Friday, March 2, 2001
NEW YORK Bill Clinton walked into an AIDS fund-raiser at the Apollo Theater in Harlem the other night to a flicker of applause and recognition from the audience. His wife was in Washington, so Mr. Clinton's company for his night out consisted of Representative Charles Rangel of Harlem, the singer Roberta Flack and a modest crew of Secret Service agents.
The former president spent the next four hours in a cramped center seat, at times chatting with Mr. Rangel, a Democrat, and Ms. Flack, and occasionally autographing a program that was passed over the seats.
Mostly, though, he was a very famous man who was sitting very much alone.
That night in Harlem captured, in many ways, what life has become for Mr. Clinton in the six weeks since he left the White House. Whether he is roaming around his 11-room home in Chappaqua, New York, with his dog, Buddy, unpacking 120 boxes and filling bookshelves, learning how to use his ATM cash card and his new Palm Pilot, or venturing out of the wooded confines of northern Westchester County for a night in Manhattan, a man who so craves attention and company is described by friends as adrift and often isolated.
He has lost much of his White House staff, the counsel of many of the people who have guided him through eight years of intermittent crises, and even the daily companionship of his family. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the new senator from New York, essentially lives in Washington, and their daughter, Chelsea, 21, is about to head back to college in California.
Mr. Clinton's friends had warned him of the solitude he would face as he made the adjustment to becoming another spouse of a member of Congress, living alone in the suburban house that his wife chose while she was running for the Senate.
But the incessant controversy over a series of last-minute pardons has exacerbated his forced isolation. Many of the people to whom he might turn were involved in either seeking or reviewing the pardons and thus have drawn the attention of congressional and federal investigators. Several of them, including Bruce Lindsey, the former deputy White House counsel, were expected to testify before a House panel Thursday.
"The staff you want to help you out are part of the story," said one of Mr. Clinton's former White House aides.
Mrs. Clinton was described by friends as torn over her husband's predicament - at once angered that the pardons he granted have sullied her entry into public life but also distressed that no one is around to help the former president deal with the public relations disasters that have marked his entry into private life, or to help him work out of what a family friend described as "his funk," at a time when "he is pretty much walled up in Chappaqua."
The two Clintons continue to share advice, one friend said. But that has been complicated by their geographic separation, by suggestions of some of Mrs. Clinton's advisers that she draw some distance from her husband, and by the continuing distraction of Mrs. Clinton's new job, the friend said.
They have yet to find time to take the vacation together that Mr. Clinton had said they would take at the first congressional recess, now long passed.
The difficulties of Mr. Clinton's personal transition have become a subject of increased discussion and concern among his friends, even as they plot ways to rehabilitate his image.
The former president's paid transition staff - about 10 people, including schedulers, a correspondence unit, a press secretary, and his longtime personal secretary, Betty Currie - work out of an office in Washington.
Mr. Clinton has explicitly avoided visiting Washington until the furor over the detail of his exit subsides, a friend said. As a result, he has spent only one night there since he left office, staying with Mrs. Clinton in their new home near Embassy Row. He has yet to visit his transition office.
In Chappaqua, the former president's staff consists of a personal valet who cooks him meals and tends to his clothes and his household needs. When he travels, he is accompanied by the personal assistant who served the same function for him while he was president.
Despite the isolation of his private life, he remains a celebrity, especially in New York. The very first week that Mr. Clinton was in New York, he attended a performance of "Aida" at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was mobbed by operagoers. But if his appearance at the Apollo Theater the other night is any indication, there are signs that the novelty may be fading: His presence was mentioned only once from the stage, and most theatergoers seemed as impressed at catching sight of Ms. Flack as they were with seeing Mr. Clinton.
Mr. Clinton's friends and advisers describe him as subdued, angered and, to some extent, perplexed at the extent to which he has remained a prominent and vilified figure in American public life.
Still, one friend who speaks regularly with him, Paul Begala, said that Mr. Clinton was not reacting the way he had during other difficult passages in his life. "I've seen him self-pitying, and I've seen him enraged, but I haven't seen him that way now," Mr. Begala said. "More than anything, I've found him to be puzzled: It's like, 'How can anyone think that way?'"
James Carville, his longtime friend and adviser, said he had told Mr. Clinton that he needed to get out there and "tell his story" before it was too late.
Mr. Clinton has begun over these past few days a campaign to help his image. He will begin a series of trips overseas, including visits to India, Africa and Europe. Part of this is to make money - overseas speaking fees tend to be much larger than domestic ones - but also to identify himself with public service, like aiding the victims of India's earthquake.
A number of Democrats applauded the news that Mr. Clinton was about to head out of the country and, presumably, off the front pages.
For now, one of Mr. Clinton's friends said, that might be the very best thing that could happen to the former president and his party. |
