I just read Rob Kall’s comments in OpEd about Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative and the awesomeness of Clinton’s leadership accomplishments. Literally hundreds of millions of human beings world-wide will be the recipients of the great benefits of Clinton’s foundation work. I quite agree with Rob Kall’s observations; although I also don’t support Hillary Clinton as my first choice. I think Hillary- and Bill for that matter- is much too cozy with the banks and mega-corporations. They would probably argue that they have to be. I don’t think so. But let’s put that aside for the moment.

Rob’s comments got me to think about Clinton as a national leader. I think Clinton had the potential to be toward the very top of the list as one of our nation’s greatest presidents. He was quite a good president no doubt. But will history place him in the category of a Lincoln or FDR? I doubt it. What happened? What stymies his potential greatness?

If you listen to Bill Clinton these days he seems to view what’s happening in this country as an ideological dispute that will balance out as the opposing parties sit and reason together. I heard one of his recent speeches. He was expounding the ideological differences between liberalism and conservatism. A full professor at Harvard or Princeton would have envied his command of the subject matter and the clarity of his presentation. It’s always the same way with Bill Clinton, no matter what he’s discussing. He has the facts and figures cold and his analysis is almost always flawless and precise. So what is the problem, at least as I see it? Clinton, in the speech I’m referring to seemed to be of the opinion that all would be well if we could just iron out our ideological differences. In other words it’s just all politics as usual. Really, Bill? Take a look around you. The country is in the middle of an unwarranted war that has probably cost close to a million human lives and which will cost the U.S. treasury close to a trillion dollars. The U.S. president has advocated torture in defiance of the Geneva Conventions. And the American people are witnessing their constitutional rights being vitiated while they are being transformed into a nation of chronic debtors by a government which aids the credit industry to assess outlandishly usurious interest rates. Politics as usual? Who better than you should know that it’s not. The Neo-Cons hounded and vilified you non-stop from the first day of your presidency to the last. And in the process they managed to gain control of Congress and install George Bush as your successor. It’s arguable that their unrelenting opposition prevented you from accomplishing many of the great things you were capable of. Healthcare is an example: I’ve heard cogent views that their main reason for opposing the universal healthcare you were trying to establish was their fear that if you succeeded the Republicans would become the permanent minority party. Even a former Republican like John Dean describes them as being without conscience and on at least one occasion that I witnessed didn’t shirk at calling them proto-fascists. So what’s with you? You still think that this is all just a gentlemen’s game? The fact is that their only real ideology is power-for-profit. All the rest is spin. What’s the point of denial?

Why doesn’t Bill Clinton speak out with more command? That’s the question. President Carter has spoken out to some extent. But how many really listen to him? And even President Ford, in a tape released at the time of his death, decried the “belligerence” of the Cheney faction. What is going on with Bill Clinton, who has wide popularity with the American people and who would doubtless command the full attention of a high percentage of the population if he chose to speak?

Bill Clinton, in his autobiography My Life, describes the difficult trials of being raised in a home occupied by an alcoholic stepfather. He talks about his childhood efforts to keep the peace and even to intervene to prevent violence to his mother. And then there is his poignant account of how he without fail and without exception dedicated himself to preventing his childhood friends or anyone else from knowing that anything at all was wrong in his household. Everything is fine at home. One wonders when he began to believe it himself. And he diverted himself by pursuing high-school, college and later local politics, learning the ropes quite thoroughly. But the issues are so much more deadly serious now. That’s really the case. There’s no denying it, Mr. President. And there’s no escape. Psychologists refer to it as the child-of-an-alcoholic syndrome. And what it boils down to is the habit of not seeing and/or denying the truth. It’s a way to escape pain and humiliation. Working in social services and mental-health for many years I saw this first hand. Nothing negative that’s going on around the affected person is recognized for what it is. “Everything’s really just fine. Don’t be such a down.” Even as adults, no longer faced with trauma, the blinders stay on. Objectivity is lost. A gap remains in perception. Do I know for certain that Mr. Clinton is affected by this syndrome or to what extent? Of course not. I don’t know him personally. But if he is and if it’s preventing him from truly seeing the trouble we‘re in, then I appeal to him to work it out. As an ex-president and a man of great popularity he is capable of having a crucial positive effect upon the destiny of this nation, which is in danger of quickening decline at the hands of very dangerous and fundamentally un-American forces.

President Clinton, we appeal to you. Speak out! Lincoln had his Gettysburg Address. FDR had his Nothing-to-Fear speech. What will be the exact title of your I-am-very-troubled- to- see-what-is-happening-to-my -country speech? I can’t think of anyone else who can do it. You’re elected.