In The Northwest: Canadians warm to that familiar Clinton magic

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In The Northwest: Canadians warm to that familiar Clinton magic

Monday, November 12, 2001

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Security was going to be so tight, said a local newspaper story, that the former president of the United States would not even venture out of his hotel room here for golf before speaking to a Children's Hospital Foundation dinner.

Nobody ever kept Bill Clinton cooped up. And there he was Friday afternoon taking an unannounced stroll down Granville Street and onto the bridge after playing a round at the Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club.

Clinton haters would have glowered at the reception given the man in a black turtleneck. Young women outside Epoch Hair Design took up a Cantonese-accented chant of "Clinton! Clinton!" Office workers leaned out a window and yelled, "Look up here!" Clinton obliged.

A school bus halted in the middle of the Granville Bridge as kids and teachers pressed noses to the window. An agitated Secret Service agent motioned the driver to get moving. A moment later, to the relief of law enforcement from two countries, Clinton finally stepped into his van.

Clinton lost no opportunity, during his walkabout as well as in his speeches here and earlier in Calgary, to give full support to successor George W. Bush in the war on terrorism. "We're doing what's right," he shouted in response to a question, and the struggle is "one that we must win."

Speaking here, Clinton framed the war against terrorism as "a big fight for the soul of the 21st century." It pits those who believe in open community against those like Osama bin Laden who believe everybody should "think alike, look alike, act alike," said Clinton, and that anybody who doesn't agree is "a legitimate target -- even if she's a 6-year-old girl accompanying her mother to work."

A global sense of community will be required to defeat such absolutism, Clinton said.

"The world's poor cannot be led by people who think their redemption lies in our destruction," he said. "The world's rich cannot be led by people who indulge us in the belief that we can forever deny to others what we claim for ourselves. The world's people cannot give in to either terror or shortsightedness. We live in a world without walls."

Clinton's backing of Bush contrasts with the unrelenting attacks he faced from Republicans and the political right. They were at him from the hour he was sworn in to the flight home on the day he left office.

The scene along Granville -- in a Canadian city that Clinton has visited four times since 1991 -- gives clues to how the "Comeback Kid" withstood the slings and arrows and recovered from self-inflicted wounds.

Nobody is better with the folks. Prime Minister Jean Chretien briefly visited the Granville Island market in his 1993 campaign. Otherwise no Canadian leader has worked the streets as Clinton did between 1993 meetings with Russia's Boris Yeltsin, during a post-Asia Pacific summit shopping tour in 1997, and on Friday.

One soulful handshake followed another. The ex-president leaned down to talk with a quadriplegic man in a wheelchair and posed for pictures with a gleeful schoolgirl. "Got it?" he asked.

In America, the folks did well during his presidency. Real income rose for middle-class families, while welfare rolls fell sharply. If Clinton were still in office, he would surely be pressing to extend unemployment and health care benefits for the aerospace, airline and travel industry workers who lost jobs in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

A visitor from Los Angeles, Bob Herman, shook hands with Clinton outside a Chinese restaurant.

"Didn't always approve of his private life, but he was an effective president: Give him that," said Herman.

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who chaired the Democratic Party under Clinton, was in Seattle on Saturday. Dodd smiled when told of Clinton's walkabout.

"Clearly on his watch, this nation did a lot better than it ever did before for people," said Dodd. "He gets some credit for that. But there was also his style of governing, the ability to connect with people. ... He needed it for himself, and he understood its value. People warmed to it."

Undeniably, Clinton has a sense of entitlement. Watching him suggests biographer Jack Beatty's description of legendary Boston Mayor James Michael Curley: "He came from the people, but was not of the people."

In Calgary and Vancouver the ex-president collected as much in speaking fees -- an estimated $200,000 -- as he made in his last year in the White House. A new set of golf clubs was delivered for his round at Shaughnessy. About 100 privileged guests -- plus 130 in Calgary -- paid $1,000 apiece to have their picture taken with Clinton. (Republicans once charged $5,000 for a photo when Ronald Reagan visited Seattle.)

Clinton's enemies will never rest. A conservative publishing house in Chicago, Regnery, has put out a succession of screeds that right-wing radio hosts helped turn into best sellers. The Drudge Report Web site has turned its rumor-spreading sights onto Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As barrels of ink rolled at her parents, Chelsea Clinton has hit Talk magazine with a soul-baring article about her Sept. 11 experiences in New York, and the anti-American feeling she now encounters as a student at Oxford.

How does it feel to have one more scribe in the family? "It's a great article. I'm so proud of her!" Bill Clinton said. His grin lit up Granville Street.

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com

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