Bill, You Rogue.

Random observations while Bill Clinton is speaking.

There is something lovable about the sonofabitch when he decides to turn it on.

An interesting description of a little-mentioned job requirement:  "He has the intelligence and curiosity every successful president needs."

He says "Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States," but "I love Joe Biden."

He may have been assigned to talk about foreign policy, but he made short work of that and got onto the economy.

Michelle looked tense during Hillary's speech, but she looks ecstatic with Bill's.

He's doing a good job of reminding people why they're dissatisfied with Republicans.

Watching the Clintons watch each other speak, with open and unforced delight, you get the sense that they really do love each other.  (At least, they love each other's political talent!)

He calls Obama's biography "a 21st-century version of the old-fashioned American dream."  Still building a bridge to the 21st century.

AND THEN:  John Kerry gets the fun of enumerating John McCain's flip-flops -- on energy, immigration, Karl Rove tactics.  Kerry never uses the F-word, but points out the schizophrenia between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain, and then says slyly, "Talk about being for it before you were against it."

Beau Biden tells the story of the car accident that killed his mother and sister and injured him (then 4 years old) and his brother right after Joe was elected to the Senate.  Not only Jill Biden, but Michelle Obama weeps. 

. . . Just slept through most of Biden's speech.  Not entirely his fault; the tide just came in.

Obama comes on the stage and bounces on his heels in mock surprise and awe at the sight of the crowd.  He seems really charged up, sounds like an excited kid.

Al Gore kissed his wife on the lips onstage; Obama appears to have kissed his running mate's wife on the lips.  (But in Gore's case it was stagy; Obama just seems impulsive and overenthusiastic.)

Springsteen playing.  Biden carrying a tiny, dazed blond grandchild.  (He showcased a tough, sharp old mom to rival McCain's.)  Amazing how tall and skinny and lanky Obama is.  He's actually older than both JFK and Clinton when they were nominated -- hell, he's almost 50 years old! -- but he seems much younger.  Puer aeternus*.  He cuts the figure of a basketball-playing teenager.  Can the yoke of the Republic really rest on those skinny shoulders?  The upside of youth is there too:  boundless energy.  You can see it simply in the propulsive vitality with which Obama grabs and shakes people's hands.

The archetype of the Puer Aeternus is one of the most potent influences on the expression of spiritual aspiration. The spirit of Puer is uplifting, soaring into realms of divine inspiration and optimism full of visions, ideals, creative ideas and dreams. Puer . . . can seem like a spark of light that flashes into the world through its visions. Notable prophets, creative geniuses and visionaries throughout history have almost certainly been influenced by this archetype. . . . Puer dominated young people often seem possessed by an almost sublime if somewhat ungrounded and dreamy spiritual quality. They are often very sensitive and artistic but do not easily cope with the demands of the world. They may be drawn to earthy partners in relationship to help ground them . . . . Their search is for a safe environment that will parent them and provide a support for their aspirations.

John McCain, by contrast, is senex, the archetype of the "old man."  A Jungian would say (annoyingly) that they "constellate" each other, that is, whenever one shows up it invokes the other.

The visionary inspiration of the Puer finds its polar opposite in the earthy pragmatism of the Senex, the "old man". . . . Senex is the archetype of practical structures and systems, which begin to shape and order the world around and within us.

Senex in our society is particularly expressed through systems, laws and institutions that attempt to shape and organise society. Senex seeks to create and maintain organisations and systems, which give a stable, ordered basis for control and authority in matters such as administration and education. . . . This principle is at work in the boundaries and limits of the apprentice or noviciate studying under a master. It brings us into relationship with the demands of commitment and the need to engage in work and endure the hardships of gradual mastery of ourselves . . . Senex teaches us by experience. It is an aspect of fathering which earths us in a realism that cannot ultimately be ignored.

The vision and idealism of the Puer archetype and the order and realism of the Senex archetype bring us to a significant and uncomfortable dichotomy. Puer and Senex do not easily live alongside each other and yet to develop they need each other. Puer's vision is brought into reality through the vehicle of Senex. Usually however the ungrounded idealism of Puer and pragmatic power of Senex come to blows and Senex tends to win.  (An example of this can be seen in the Tienamen square protests in China. The ideals of the student population fired the imagination of the masses to support their quest for democracy. The council of dogmatic old men that make up the Chinese government epitomised the most negative destructive aspect of Senex, which ruthlessly crushed the uprising.)

When Puer and Senex are at their most negative they live as shadows of each other and can be extremely destructive. When Puer spirit is out of relationship to the grounding pragmatic influence of Senex it can lead to spiritual illusion, an idealism that is an avoidance of the necessities of incarnating in normal life. . . . The negative Puer type . . . are often incapable of bringing their ideas, visions and aspirations into concrete reality. Spirituality remains ungrounded, "heady" and idealistic, which can lead to a kind of unreal, inflated belief that they are special and must not be demeaned by earthly demands. Their spiritual task is too important to be sullied.

Regretfully the polarities of Puer and Senex are often unconscious and at odds with each other. Behind the Puer disposition one can often hear a shadowy Senex that is morally rigid, dogmatic, judgmental and authoritarian.

Comments

[huxley]

It would have been really interesting if 9-11 had happened during Bill Clinton's presidency.

No, I'm not being sarcastic. There might well have been a remarkable leader underneath all that charm and intelligence and pollwatching that Clinton never tapped into because he didn't have to.

[PatHMV]

I think he and Hillary really do love each other. But I think one (just one, not the whole thing) component of that love is mutual political admiration and a belief in their strength as a political team. So it sometimes seems more cynical than I think it really is, to those of us on the outside looking in.

Huxley, you may be right. I suspect that Clinton (or at least his upper level staff) were of mixed minds about that (in their heart of hearts, at any rate). The administration I worked for left office a year before Katrina hit. We watched our successor administration do a not-very-good job, and thought alternately: "We would have done MUCH better" and "Thank GOD that didn't happen on our watch, 'cause we may have screwed it up, too."

[Outis]

I watched the speech on C-Span's feed, and through the first half of the speech whenever they flashed on Michelle Obama she looked like she was about to have a root-canal with no anesthetic.

[Ben (The Tiger)]

It just kills Bill Clinton that his presidency was in precisely that gap when the United States didn't face a significant foreign policy challenge.

He'd have loved to lead the country through a time like that, and it just didn't happen.