Here’s a riddle making the rounds on Capitol Hill:
Question: What is the difference between Indiana Jones and President Clinton?
Answer: Indiana Jones faces fewer hazards.
Well, okay, that joke’s not really making the rounds on Capitol Hill. I’m just giving it a start.
It helps to explain the most surprising political phenomenon of our times: The more trouble Clinton gets into, the more his public approval ratings go up.
It is a natural human trait to desire a simple narrative to help us make sense of complicated issues. Most Americans don’t have a lot of time to study the details of national issues. Instead, we elect politicians to mind the details for us. We don’t want to sweat the small stuff. We want to feel good. We want the political equivalent of the movie hero.
Ronald Reagan understood that. His Secret Service code name was “Rawhide.” He came from Hollywood, the land of dreams, to Washington, the land of politics, and so practiced the art of turning dreams into reality.
Clinton also has given us Hollywood images. First, he was “Bubba.” Then he was “Elvis.” Now he is Indiana Jones, the quiet college professor who, donning his fedora, his leather jacket and armed with his bullwhip, went out to seek adventure, narrowly dodging one deadly confrontation after another.
Call him “Arkansas Bill.” Love him or hate him (and many find it easy to do both at the same time), Hollywood would have a hard time creating a more complicated hero. His Temple of Doom bears a striking resemblance to the Capitol Building. Instead of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” he faces a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Like Reagan, Clinton makes people feel good. More important, he gets people to want to root for him.
You could see it when he promised voters “I’ll be with you until the last dog dies.” You could see it in New Hampshire in 1992 when he proclaimed himself “the Comeback Kid” after surviving allegations (that turned out to be true) of a sexual affair with Gennifer Flowers.
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You can see it every time he rebuffs questions about Monica Lewinsky with “We’re just going to keep on doing what the American people sent us here to do.” You could see it when he rebuffed a question about when he might consider resigning with “Never.”
This image of loyalty to the voters, even while he was unfaithful to his wife, helps explain why his approval ratings surged upward to the highest of his presidency shortly after he became only the second president in American history to be impeached. He may be a cad, but he’s our cad.
While Clinton’s approval ratings soared above 70 percent in some polls, Republican ratings slumped. A CBS-New York Times survey, for example, found Clinton’s job performance won approval from 73 percent of adults, while Republicans won only 36 percent, with 59 percent expressing an unfavorable view. It was their worst rating in the poll’s 14-year history.
This follows a trend that has become familiar over the past year. When allegations of Clinton’s sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky surfaced last January, his approval rating jumped from the mid-50s to the mid-60s.
When he acknowledged on August 17 that he did have relations with Lewinsky after all, his approval rating jumped again. At this rate, imagine what might happen if he is removed from office. His approval rating could soar through the roof.
That’s why I have given up on counting out the self-proclaimed Comeback Kid. Quite the opposite, I am detecting a big reason why so many members of the public, beyond his hard core of liberal Democratic supporters, like Clinton so much: He’s fun to watch.
After a half-century of Cold War and three decades of soaring crime and economic uncertainty, Americans want to feel good. The Cold War is over. Crime is down. Our economy is humming along. Americans of all races tell pollsters they have not felt this good about the way the country is going since the mid-1960s.
For many, the most miserable day Americans have experienced recently came last Saturday, the day of Clinton’s impeachment.
It was a day in which I saw the House of Representatives vote to impeach a president who calmer heads said should only be censured. It was a day that divided Americans more deeply than perhaps any day since the volatile Vietnam War era.
It was a day in which I saw a good man, Speaker-designate Robert Livingston (R.-La.), resign from Congress because puritanical zealots have made marital history a new criterion for public service.
It was not pretty; it was politics. It was also ugly, ugly enough to make a playboy president look good.
Considering what’s gone before, anything could happen next. I don’t know how this action-adventure is going to end, but Clinton could hardly have cast a better bunch of enemies.