by Jules Witcover

The foreign-policy tandem of Bill in North Korea and Hillary in Africa, both in the service of a President Obama they vigorously campaigned against last year, is like the return of an old vaudeville act, playing the Palace with renewed luster. | iHaveNet.com
The Clintons Again (© Dick Locher)

Well, after all the domestic criticisms of Bill and Hillary Clinton, it seems the old bargain of the 1990s -- two for the price of one -- is back, this time on the international stage.

The foreign-policy tandem of Bill in North Korea and Hillary in Africa, both in the service of a President Obama they vigorously campaigned against last year, is like the return of an old vaudeville act, playing the Palace with renewed luster.

This time, however, it's without all the negativity that seems has often cast the Clintons as a political odd couple, as a pair of blindly ambitious self-seekers muddling through personal scandal and miscalculations.

Their individual roles in freeing the two young women from imprisonment in North Korea on allegations of spying demonstrated their own talents for survival in the bare-knuckle competition of political life.

As Obama's surprise choice to be his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton soft-pedaled her hard-line approach to the North Korean regime and played a part in the secret diplomatic dance that finally sent her husband on the humanitarian mission to Pyongyang.

As his wife was in the midst of a rigorous tour of African countries, Bill Clinton, generally seen as on the outside looking in at the Obama administration, momentarily seized the global spotlight with his dramatic dash to the Korean Peninsula.

But he did it with a self-discipline not always demonstrated in his stormy domestic political career. Wearing a mostly solemn demeanor, he made no comment on the dispute with the North Korean regime over its nuclear-weapons aspirations. The Obama White House emphasized that he went with no instruction or authorization to engage in any diplomatic negotiations.

In a serendipitous circumstance, the saga also produced another dramatic moment. Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, now the employer of the two young American journalists, joined the welcome party for the returning jet flight in California bearing the two women and the former president.

The two men were widely reported as having been bitterly estranged over Clinton's virtual exclusion from the 2000 Gore campaign that ended so disastrously for their Democratic Party. But now they hugged each other and Gore expressed fulsome appreciation for his old boss's successful trip to Pyongyang. The back story in all this was that Gore had blamed Clinton's White House sex scandal for his 2000 loss, and Clinton blamed it on Gore's failure to involve him effectively in the campaign.

Nevertheless, the whole episode was at least a brief cameo of Democratic Party togetherness -- Bill, Hillary, Al and Barack -- all on the same page of playbook at a time the Democratic administration is embroiled in a world of crisis at home and abroad.

Bill Clinton's humanitarian gesture may amount to no more than a temporary thaw in otherwise frozen relations with North Korea. Still, it strains credence that the former president spent hours with Kim Jong-il without some discussion of policy disagreements.

In terms of American politics, the mission raises once again the question of the proper and potential role of former presidents as constructive national resources once they leave office. In 1994, when Jimmy Carter undertook a similar humanitarian trip to Pyongyang, he initiated discussions on the nuclear issue that were unauthorized by then President Clinton. That history may well have been a factor in his own demeanor this time around.

American presidents have become such towering world figures, for good or ill, that letting them drift off into a post-White House life of lucrative speech-making seems a great waste of global influence, if not downright scandalous.

The most recent former president, George W. Bush, has begun to join the lecture circuit, and it's hard to imagine, given what he left behind, how much of a positive role he could play as an American good will ambassador.

But if Bill Clinton has been able to resurrect himself after all he's been through, who knows?

Clinton has also been busy with lucrative speechmaking as he pursues other humanitarian efforts. Maybe that mix is the best we can hope for from our White House retirees, though Jimmy Carter stands as a conspicuous exception, and maybe why he is often called our best former president.

 

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