Bill Clinton says the darndest things. You never know what will come out of his mouth next. A few years ago, he told a group of farmers that he was "the only president who knew something about agriculture when I got [to the White House]," forgetting, just to begin with, Washington and Jefferson, not to mention a living Democratic expresident from Plains. And a couple of weeks ago, he came out with another startling piece of news: At a ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the Marine Band ("The President's Own"), Clinton boasted, "I won prizes in conducting all the way through junior and senior high."
Oh? Were there junior or senior high schools anywhere in America offering prizes for conducting back then (aside from, say, the Curtis Institute of Music)? The president may in fact be a former bemedaled prince of the podium, the Toscanini of the Ozarks, but THE SCRAPBOOK is dubious.
Then, at his televised forum on race a few days later, Clinton informed the audience that he was -- inevitably, really -- part-Cherokee. Some minutes later, an Indian participant complained about the paleface use of "coded" language: "Usually, what they'll do to me is come up and tell me they're Cherokee!" Ouch. Now, Clinton may well have Injun blood coursing through his veins, but, again, one never knows.
Clinton himself seems to be aware of his propensity for telling whoppers -- and of the fact that others know about it. A couple of months ago, visiting an exhibition of Mark Rothko's paintings in Washington, the president told reporters that he and Hillary had spent their first date looking at a Rothko exhibition at Yale: "And that's a true story," he added.
As the Little Rock journalist Paul Greenberg says, "Beware the Clinton Clause," which means the telltale phrase whereby Clinton leaves himself the room to wiggle out of a lie. Maybe it's time to proclaim a corollary to the Clinton Clause: Unless he says, "And that's a true story," it probably isn't.