Washington Times-May 9, 2000
Listening to the voice of an authentic man
By Wesley Pruden
"In most states," the London magazine Economist observed the
other day, "a retiring president is treated like a returning
hero, the ultimate 'local boy made good.' But not in Arkansas,
and not Bill Clinton."
How true. The man who no longer believes in a place called
Hope is about to be cast into the sea of national forgetfulness,
as the folks inside the Beltway turn their attention to George W.
and Al the Exaggerator. The home folks have no such luxury. Not
yet. The president and the first lady were in Arkansas over the
weekend looting for campaign cash and Miss Hillary took a hundred
grand home to New York. Both Clintons are very skilled, as anyone
in Little Rock would tell you, at imposing on their friends.
In return, the president hasn't done very much for the state
that supported his family with public housing and free groceries
for two decades. Lyndon Johnson sank Texas under federal
largesse, but Bill Clinton has not. He will rarely even speak the
word "Arkansas," referring in speeches to "my home state" or
obliquely to an unnamed place "where I was a governor." He has
only recently begun to return occasionally to Arkansas, now that
he and his cronies in the municipal government in Little Rock are
trying, deviously, to take 27 acres along the Arkansas River for
the Clinton mausoleum, a/k/a library. More public housing: He'll
get a lavish penthouse apartment in the library, rent free.
A team of architects � from New York, not Arkansas � is at
work on the design of the $125 million library and "policy
institute," but nobody can stick a shovel in the ground because
the owner of 2 of the 27 acres has gone to court to defend his
right to own the land. The Clinton cronies are trying to take the
land by calling the library a park, but Gene Pfeifer, the son of
an old Little Rock family, notes in his lawsuit that his land is
in an area the city itself recently zoned not for parks but for
"urban use." The cronies, like good clintonians, argue that the
law is only a technicality that doesn't apply to them and the
city can put anything anywhere it wants and call it a park. The
local courts so far have not agreed.
Pundits elsewhere debate whether the national mood is one of
"Clinton fatigue" or "Clinton nostalgia," but down home nearly
everyone calls it "Clinton shame." The mere mention of "Arkansas"
elsewhere usually evokes giggles and tasteless jokes, and gives
the false impression that he is an authentic son of the state.
Authenticity is much prized in Arkansas and one of the
genuine articles died in his sleep the other night in Little
Rock. William J. Smith was 92 and a friend who encouraged me when
I was a young man. When my newspaper couldn't send me to Los
Angeles for the Democratic National Convention in 1960, I
obtained a leave and hitchhiked to California to see it on my
own. Judge Smith, as the governor's man on the scene, said he
would do what he could to find me a place to stay. He got me a
room at the headquarters hotel and told me that he had put me
down as an alternate delegate. (Sure enough, years later I found
my name in the archives at the Kennedy Library in Boston.)
He could have been governor about the time Bill Clinton was
getting into politics, but he liked working out of sight, and he
did two lasting things for his state. He wrote a revenue
stabilization act, which restored the state's tattered credit and
to this day requires a balanced budget, and effectively ended
imaginative election-night counting in certain rural counties
when he pushed through the legislation to replace paper ballots
with voting machines. Even the corrupt country boys respected
him. A few days after his voting-machine initiative succeeded,
one of them told him: "You're OK, Judge Smith. We knew you wanted
those voting machines, so on election night we gave you some
extra votes."
He built the largest and the most influential law firm in
Arkansas (no scandal ever attached) and he was "the governor's
man" for five of 'em, the last being Orval Faubus. He called and
wrote to me often during the early Clinton years, in an ever more
spidery hand, to call my attention to slurs he read against the
place he loved. He taught a Sunday school class at the First
Methodist Church in downtown Little Rock (Hillary's home church)
for many years, and wrote a little book about the religious faith
of all our presidents, from George Washington on. I wrote to
thank him for the excerpts we printed in The Times and Judge
Smith (like the president, the father of a daughter), replied:
"Most of all, I thank you for the compliments you express so
well for the two women in my life. Each has had a great impact on
me and they have challenged me to try to be more than just
another lawyer, husband and father." The voice of the authentic
Arkansas man, loud and clear.
Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
=================================================================
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths,
misdirections
and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and
minor
effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said,
CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
<A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
