Bill Clinton was talking about his place in history with Dick Morris a few weeks ago in the Oval Office. They went over each of the presidents one by one, the Washington Post told us, to see where Clinton ranked. Clinton acknowledged with becoming modesty that he couldn’t be in the top tier — Lincoln, Wilson, FDR — without a major war. But he could tuck in right below, around Teddy Roosevelt, anti you can imagine Morris as they went down the roster: “Garfield? You smoke him, Mr. President. Hayes? Toast. Andrew Jackson? Couldn’t triangulate his way out of a paper bag.”
A president wouldn’t feel comfortable swirling this topic around in his mouth with his classy advisers. Panetta, Rubin, and Christopher would frown at such self-aggrandizement. But with the vulgar Dick Morris, a president could really open up, cast decorum aside, and let the self-absorption flow. Bill Clinton has that vulgar side. He’s the one who placed all those confiding middle-of-the-night phone calls to Gennifer Flowers. That’s why he’s an attention-craving politician and not a law professor somewhere.
