Boy Clinton

I have again taken up and started reading David Maraniss�s 1996 biography of Bill Clinton after leaving it somewhere during Clinton�s days at Yale Law School, where he mostly spent his college days being absent and effortlessly brilliant. I wonder though who got the better transcript of records: Bill or Hillary? Maraniss doesn�t tell. What he does tell was the marked contrast between the two with regard to style. Bill would prevaricate, be nice and conciliatory in discussions and debate while Hillary would aim for the bull�s eye and be matter-of-factly about it. The difference in style was especially evident when Bill and Hillary teamed up for a moot court competition, which, incidentally, they lost.

Reading Maraniss, one gets a glimpse of the young Clinton dreaming up his own presidency as early as during his undergraduate years at Georgetown, telling people he met that he would call on them someday to ask for their votes when he shoots for the White House. Oh, the presumption of youth! His friends, including Robert Reich (future labor secretary) whom he knew at Oxford as a fellow Rhodes scholar, had therefore this foretoken that the Boy Clinton, whose towering interest is government, is headed for something big. Could be as big as the Pennsylvania address, no one knew then for sure.

Politics, for Clinton, is �the only track I ever wanted to run on.� He could have married one of his many pretty girlfriends and yet he settled for the bespectacled and far from pulchritudinous Hillary, with talent and ambition equal, if not greater, than his own because her being a potential political star could significantly boost his chances to land the job he wanted in politics.

After reeling from his governorship re-election defeat, which made him the youngest ex-governor in American history, Clinton�s Machiavellian consultant Dick Morris conceived of the so-called �permanent campaign, � whose three basic tenets are:

� 1. �Means and ends, pragmatism and idealism, had to be �completely interwoven.� �When you lead in an idealistic direction, the most important thing to do is to be highly pragmatic about it. And when necessity forces upon you a problem of great pragmatism, you need to use idealism to find your way out of the thicket.�
� 2. Never rely on �free media.� Use paid media, commercials and grassroots mailings whenever you want to get your message to the public.
� 3. Use polling as a form of copy writing and as a way to organize your thoughts.


Now for future candidates among us that�s what I call free advise. I�ll write more on this growing Clinton business next time.

The Supreme Court has affirmed its November 15, 2002 decision ordering the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) to refund to its customers excess charges it has imposed since February 1994. The decision dated April 9 hasn�t been posted yet in the Supreme Court website.

Misocapnic regulations

Sherry Colb, law professor at Rutgers, has this Findlaw comment piece on New York�s ban on smoking in all bars, nightclubs and other public facilities. The ban, Colb writes, is reasonable and is consistent with protecting citizens� liberties.

Davao City also has such a ban promulgated through a city ordinance. I am not sure though whether the ban extends to nightclubs. Probably not, because the last time I was at the Venue, the most popular nightclub there, I saw people smoking their lungs away.

Preempting wars

The news reports say that the Americans are almost in control of Baghdad; the Iraqi Information Minister is in egregious denial, claiming on TV that the American soldiers are in retreat.

With the Iraqi invasion almost under Bush�s belt, the new American security strategy of preemption would probably survive the rigor of post-war discursive parsing�barring, of course, a major disaster in the reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The success in Iraq, if and when it comes, will further strengthen Bush in his resolve to strike anyone who may threaten the dominant power of the US. With Iraq about to fall, will Syria and North Korea be that far behind?

The United States has been unclear and equivocal about its intentions with regard to these two countries. I remember hearing Colin Powell saying something to the effect that North Korea is, unlike Iraq, containable. Incidentally, a highly informative essay from Foreign Policy explicitly argues that contrary to the pronouncements of the US State Department Saddam Hussein can be deterred and thus containable.

I guess if the Bush administration is to be true to the logic that brought it to Iraq (preemptively striking those who pose a threat to American interests) Syria should be next. One of the reasons Bush targeted Saddam Hussein was the fact the he was actively contributing to terrorism by offering cash rewards to Palestinian suicide bombers. Syria is also doing the same thing and is even rumored to have been the beneficiary of Saddam�s last-minute bequeathals of some weapons of mass destruction.

The American eagle is now approaching to land in Baghdad. Let us all pray it does not take off so soon again.

This is my first post and I hope this works.