In a seedy attempt to sully the Clinton’s pro-family credentials, the Manchester Guardian announced in a recent headline: “Clintons Are Playing The Family Card.” The article suggested that the First Couple’s use of Dan Quayle-like terminology during the Beijing maelstrom was an eelish ploy to ward off conservative critics. Not fair! The Clinton administration has always been strong on this issue. After all, many of its alumni have staked their careers on it.
Like recently resigned Abner Mikva for one, who left not because of the perpetual litigious morass that is this White House Counsel’s office, but because he wanted to spend more time with his family. Ditto his predecessor Lloyd Cutler, who set a self-imposed time limit before accepting the job because he couldn’t wait to get back to his “young, peppy wife,” sexagenarian Polly Kraft. When former chief lobbyist Howard Paster and deputy chief of staff Roy Neel had their turf sprayed by bigger dogs, they checked out altogether, claiming they weren’t getting enough family time.
“I’m going to be Mr. More for a while, go to PTA meetings and pack lunches,” said Neel, before quadrupling his salary along with Paster in the private sector. “I am looking so forward to becoming irrelevant.” Paul Begala knows something about that, too, in his new incarnation as professor and columnist for George. But did Begala leave his unoffcial White House post because he talked too much or alienated Leon Panetta? Pshaw. Said Begala: “I want to be a better father.”
