TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121492/1214640.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 5.8 KB | 125 lines

                                                                                ESSAY, Page 78

Clinton and the Stones of Venice


By Walter Shapiro


    A postelection toudist in Venice slides ineluctably toward
eternal thoughts:

    -- How do the world's pigeons divvy up their assignments?
Are the best and the brightest in the aviary awarded a nesting
place in Piazza San Marco, while the dullards are consigned to
bleak window ledges in Detroit?

    -- Contemplating the small courtyard that still contains
fragments of the boyhood home of Marco Polo, one wonders: Did
memories of almost this same scene sustain the 13th century
adventurer in his wanderings? Or was happiness for him always
the sight of Venice in the rear-view mirror?

    -- Why is the model for America in decline always cold,
dreary and class-riven Britain, and not warm and enveloping
Italy, where thoughts of the trade deficit fade in anticipation
of the next glorious meal?

    Funny how the loss of national self-confidence changes
one's perception of other American tourists. Instead of wincing
at the sight of fellow countrymen (that vintage lament "Why do
the wrong Americans go abroad?"), now takes a perverse pride in
spotting an overdressed couple from Houston berating a desk
clerk or a homesick American family dashing into a Venetian
Wendy's. The U.S. cannot be that broke, comes the comforting
thought, since some of us still have enough credit left on our
charge cards to venture abroad. As the outdoor piano in front
of Florian cafe plays Feelings, there is an irresistible urge
to gauge world prosperity by categorizing vacationers by
nationality: a large Japanese tour group; seven Germans all
with guidebooks; three French couples (undoubtedly sneering at
the food); and -- yea, team! -- five certifiable Americans.

    An American in Venice cannot help feeling marginal, neither
sharing in the borderless bounty of the E.C. nor joining the
Japanese in their shopping-bag odyssey of the great boutiques
of Europe. But then an Italian newsstand beckons -- and suddenly
it's the American Century all over again. Who is that carefully
coiffed blond woman staring intently from the cover of a glossy
Italian magazine? A Roman film star? Princess Di? No, it's
Hillary Clinton. Newspaper headlines in four languages refer
familiarly to a global personality instantly recognizable as
just plain "Bill."

    These days, many Americans would be hard pressed to name
any world leader aside from, perhaps, Boris Yeltsin. Imagine the
puzzlement if U.S. headline writers began invoking first names
like Helmut (Kohl) or Kiichi (Miyazawa). But all through Europe,
Bill and Hillary have suddenly become as familiar as other
one-word American icons like Madonna, Magic and McDonald's. Is
this Clinton mania merely the latest manifestation of the one
eternally booming U.S. industry -- the creation of international
celebrities -- or does it speak to something larger about the
worldwide perception of both America and its new
President-elect?

    Part of it is simply a natural fascination with the new. A
year ago, about the only people in Europe who had ever heard of
Bill Clinton were former Oxford classmates. In contrast to the
parliamentary democracies and their endless reshuffling of
shopworn faces, America stands unique in its willingness to
entrust power to outsiders. Hillary Clinton adds an unexpected
twist -- a woman who has earned her place among the shapers of
policy through merit as well as marriage. For Europeans, the
choice seems clear: Would you rather read about the Clintons or
the squabble over agricultural subsidies in the GATT
negotiations?

    Habit also explains this fixation on the newly elected
President. For nearly half a century, the character and the
resolve of the U.S. President mattered to Europeans in the most
visceral sense -- survival. The nuclear football that Clinton
will inherit on Jan. 20 now seems almost a cold war
anachronism, but the tendency to look anxiously toward
Washington remains an inborn trait. The human mind abhors a
power vacuum; even in the dying years of the Roman Empire, free
men could probably rattle off the names and pedigrees of
Emperors like Petronius Maximus, Majorian and Severus.

    How tempting it is for a star-spangled American patriot to
view Europe's growing Bill-and-Hillary fascination as proof that
the world still needs a strong and resolute U.S. Europe's woeful
incapacity to stop the near genocidal carnage in Bosnia
buttresses this argument, as do the American troops whose
orders read "Somalia." Yet imagine the reaction if the new
Democratic President were someone older and grayer, a Walter
Mondale, say, or a Lloyd Bentsen. An aura of anticipation?
Unlikely. Rather, the likely response would be a halfhearted
shrug at business as usual in the global amphitheater.

    Only in America has power been passed to a new generation
that defines the world in terms of post-cold-war economic
realities. The John Kennedy parallel is inescapable -- how
vividly his sporting vitality contrasted with the solemn
visages of Harold Macmillan, Charles De Gaulle and Konrad
Adenauer. Once again it seems apt to recall William Wordsworth's
lines in thrall of the French Revolution: "Bliss was it in that
dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very Heaven!"

    If there is a message amid the decaying grandeur of Venice,
it is the transience of power and glory. The romance surrounding
the accession of Bill Clinton is destined to be ephemeral --
politics and poetry, by their very nature, cannot coexist for
long. But for a moment, an American tourist amid the stones of
Venice can bask in the awareness that his troubled nation has
embraced the future and that the Old World is witnessing this
leap of political faith with covetous eyes.