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| The Mirror misses Clinton |
| 2001-09-15 |
CLINTON STEPS IN TO COMFORT SHATTERED VICTIMS AS BUSH WEEPS AND TREMBLES THE former president held the woman tightly in his arms and let her pound out all the tears and the rage on his shoulder. Another woman approached and collapsed in a wailing heap on to his chest. He clutched her to him, lowered his head, and whispered words of comfort in her ear. A small boy stood beside him, looked up in awe, and the big man pulled him towards his stomach. He patted his head, looked down with pity in his eyes and gave the lad a look which said he represented all that mattered now. The future. All around him, New Yorkers gathered, some to pass on their thanks that he had rushed to their side, others to grab his hand and use him as an emotional crutch to make it through another wretched day. All felt lifted to be in the presence of the man they had looked to for most of the past decade when their country was in its hour of need. Bill Clinton was back on home soil after a trip to Australia, looking, acting and feeling like America's natural born leader. New Yorkers, who three days after their world caved in had still to see George W Bush descend on their city and show them leadership, greeted Clinton like a returning Messiah. He, in turn, treated them like a priest tending a wounded flock. And it all came so naturally and so genuinely that it seemed somehow bizarre that he hadn't been driven there in a limousine bearing the seal of office. The scene made me, as an outsider, and surely millions of Americans, ask: Will the real president please stand up? Wearing sports jacket and casual shirt, Clinton was mobbed outside The Armory building, where 2,500 distraught New Yorkers queued to fill out missing person reports which demanded the smallest details on their lost loved ones. He went on to tour the World Trade Center wreckage with his daughter Chelsea, who had been only 12 blocks away when the twin towers collapsed. As his grey head came into view, faces in the crowd shone with hope. They cheered, they wept, they hugged him. They pushed photo-copied pictures of their missing loved ones into his hands asking him in desperation to help them through this. And he did. Looking gaunt and tired from the stress of the past few days and the long flight from Australia, he took all hands that were offered, pumped them, looked into people's eyes and nodded reassuringly. He was clearly feeling their pain. This was the city where he had recently set up new offices in Harlem. This was the state where he now lived with a wife who is their senator. He was feeling their pain and dealing with it like the true statesman he is. "We need not to show fear and not to give in to these people," he said with calmness and clarity. We need to prove them wrong by how we respond to this." When pushed on the dilemma facing his successor, he offered his full backing to whatever course of action he takes. He said: "I believe that the magnitude of this has generated support for the United States and for taking action against these people that did not exist before. And that will open up some options for the president that would not have been there before." But it was the people Clinton had come to see and it was on them he lavished his empathy and charisma. Here was a leader trying to deal with his people's anguish as they moved from shock to mourning in the second phase of emotional rehabilitation which follows all disasters. And his eyes were dry. Unlike George W Bush, Clinton wasn't weeping for himself or his nation but soaking up their tears, helping them to grow stronger and more resilient as he did so. Here he was, flying straight to the carnage at the heart of the nation at his first opportunity. Bush, on the other hand who, when tragedy struck scuttled around national airspace like a frightened rabbit as New Yorkers laid down their lives, had still to turn up in the city. Bush's absence up until yesterday afternoon, had seemed both bemusing and wrong. His speeches had been stilted and uninspiring. His language muddled. His state of mind veering between an awkward blankness and an unfocused fury. The president had left his desperate people feeling even more confused and frightened. Worried that a void had opened up at the top of their democracy. And then Clinton turned up and showed in a few brief minutes the way to fill it heroically. Which gave America one more reason to weep. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |