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Clinton's stardom grows with disgrace By James Langton in New York

THE prisoner of Chappaqua wanders alone through the empty rooms of his suburban estate. Abandoned by his so-called friends, deserted by his wife, the man who was once the leader of the most powerful country in the world now has only his dog and a faithful retainer for company.

So emerges a portrait of Bill Clinton in political exile. Barely six weeks after leaving the White House, the former President of the United States of America struggles to escape the scandals that continue to haunt him.

Reports suggest that he struggles even to make a telephone call. After eight years with the White House switchboard at his beck and call, the former President is said to find even using a telephone beyond him, frequently cutting off callers in mid-conversation.

Where there was once an army of retainers, only a military valet, known simply as "Oscar", remains at Mr Clinton's side. Like a bleak version of Jeeves and Wooster, it is Oscar's task to cook and clean, while at the same time explaining to his bumbling master the intricacies of bank cashpoint cards and how to extract telephone numbers from his new Palm Pilot.

Mr Clinton is said to be finding the political and physical isolation hard. "He is pretty much walled up in Chappaqua," the northern suburb of New York where the Clintons first bought a house last year, a family friend told the New York Times last week. Asked to describe Mr Clinton's mood, the friend said simply: "A funk."

The paradox is that the 11-room house, tucked away down a country lane and far from urban civilisation, was a token gesture to establish his wife's credibility as a genuine New Yorker when she decided to run for the US Senate. It was for her, not him. Now that she has scooped the prize, Mrs Clinton has scampered back to Washington, where the couple recently took possession of a $2.85 million Georgian mansion, barely a five-minute limousine ride from the White House.

Mr Clinton has visited the Washington house for just one night, a fiasco that saw him being smuggled into the capital like a disgraced movie star at a court appearance. Desperate to avoid the press, Mr Clinton eschewed the airline shuttle from LaGuardia airport, taking a three and a half hour drive down the New Jersey turnpike.

Secret service agents later described the trip as "a security nightmare" that they had tried to talk him out of. En route, dozens of highway patrols from four states were forced to abandon their normal police duties to escort the motorcade in both directions.

The experience seems to have convinced Mr Clinton - for the moment - of the futility of maintaining any semblance of married life. Mrs Clinton is said to be furious that her husband has upstaged her political debut.

In any case, she has problems of her own, with an FBI investigation into allegations that she bought votes from the Hasidic community in New York in exchange for presidential pardons from her husband for four Orthodox Jews convicted of fraud. Her advisers are said to have told her that the last thing she needs is any suggestion of contact with her disgraced husband.

The couple's daughter, Chelsea, who remains loyal to her father, has returned to university in California. Mr Clinton still has Buddy, however, the chocolate-brown labrador who tested his loyalty early on by dragging his master to the ground on their first walk in Chappaqua.

A core of White House staff are remaining loyal - but they are not close at hand, working instead in downtown Washington. Mr Clinton's personal secretary, Betty Currie - now the custodian of Socks, the Clintons' cat - and a squad of 10 constitute the former president's transition team. He has yet to visit them but they are as devoted to him now as when he was in office. Mr Clinton's press secretary, Julia Payne, maintains the fiction that her boss is now a private citizen whose movements are nobody's business but his own.

Meanwhile, the circle of friends and advisers on whom the former President can depend continues to shrink. There is no question of his brother-in-law and golfing buddy, Hugh Rodham, helping to unpack the estimated 120 boxes of personal White House possessions, as he did when Mr Clinton first arrived in Chappaqua.

Nor is there any sign of Denise Rich, the wealthy songwriter who promised at least $400,000 for Mr Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas, after which her ex-husband, Marc, was pardoned for massive tax evasion.

Mrs Rich is now said to be ready to do some singing of her own, both at a Manhattan nightclub where she is performing some of her compositions, and also possibly to the authorities, in exchange for an immunity deal which would enable her to escape future prosecution over the pardons.

For the moment, Mrs Rich has indicated that she will take the Fifth Amendment and refuse to incriminate herself if called before a congressional investigation into the pardons. So, too, has Beth Dozoretz, the winsome chairman of the Democratic National Committee, whose appearances in public with Mr Clinton suggest an unusually close relationship.

Ms Dozoretz, a close friend of Mrs Rich, has also promised to raise $1 million for the library project. Last week, she denied that she had visited the White House almost 100 times during the Clinton presidency. The congressional investigation is now examining White House logs that suggest both she and Mrs Rich were present in the White House on the evening that Mr Clinton finally decided to pardon Marc Rich.

Others have distanced themselves from Mr Clinton's actions. Two of his most senior aides, John Podestra, his White House chief of staff, and Beth Nolan, a lawyer, both insisted on Thursday before the congressional inquiry that they had strongly advised against pardoning Mr Rich.

A close friend and former White House counsel, Bruce Lindsay, also said he had believed that the Rich pardon was a dead issue until he heard later that it had been granted. Mr Lindsay said he had strongly opposed the pardon because Mr Rich was a fugitive from the law.

The sight of so many friends trying to save their own necks has done little for Mr Clinton's mood. Paul Begala, a Democratic Party strategist who still talks to the former President, says that Mr Clinton is "puzzled" by his changed circumstances. However, he insists that he has avoided the self-pity and anger that accompanied previous reversals of fortune.

At other times, Mr Clinton tries to revive the grand ambitions of his post-presidential era. He has made the best of losing his first choice of an office in Manhattan by setting up shop among the black voters of Harlem, who still adore him as one of their own. Mr Clinton returned to Harlem again last week for a concert at the famous Apollo Theatre, signing autographs, shaking hands from his seat and generally sharing the limelight with the evening's other star, the singer Roberta Flack.

He is likely to find more purpose when his office opens on 125th Street in the early summer. It will at least provide an alternative to the bleak winter landscape of bare trees that can be seen through the windows of his home. He will also find plenty of people willing to listen to him. His appeal as a public speaker is undiminished by the scandals, despite the hasty apology from the investment bank Morgan Stanley Dean Witter to its clients after he spoke at a company event in Florida last month.

Mr Clinton is now a hired gun who is said to command a minimum fee of $100,000 for speaking engagements in America and about $250,000 to travel abroad. He is represented by the Harry Walker Agency of New York, whose other clients include Henry Kissinger and the astronaut John Glenn. The agency's president, Don Walker, says that requests to book Mr Clinton are "piling up like airplanes over LaGuardia on a foggy day".

He admits to being baffled at what he calls the "dual reality" of the troubles besetting the former President and his demand as a speaker. "At night, I watch the talking head TV shows and it sounds as though it's all falling apart. Then I go to my office and I've never seen anything close to this in 29 years," he says.

At a conference organised by Variety magazine last Wednesday, Mr Clinton berated the media for an obsession with the celebrity culture, rather than serious issues such as Third World poverty. The same culture, though, nurtured by his penchant for scandal, looks likely to rake in millions for Mr Clinton in the coming months. Next week, the former President heads to the East Coast gambling mecca of Atlantic City to address the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.

Later this month, he will take the road to Salem State College in Massachusetts for an event that sold out in 48 hours. Mr Clinton is also understood to be planning an extensive overseas tour to Europe, Asia and Africa, where he will attempt to establish an image as a roving international statesman. If that fails, at least his travels will take him further and further from Chappaqua.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001