Come on, admit it. You enjoyed it and so did just about everybody else. And why not? It was fun while it lasted -- "fun" being a relative term, of course, but one suitably applied to a spontaneous outbreak of malice and rancor, so out-of-step with the enforced cheeriness and good manners of last week's Republican National Convention.
We refer to the minor contretemps between President Clinton and the man he defeated in 1992, former President Bush. It all began, as the world knows -- or, more accurately, as the .00001 percent of the world knows that's paying attention to politics this summer -- when President Clinton, looking dapper in a royal blue shirt and a khaki two-button suit, went on a riff about the coming election at a Democratic fund-raiser. "As near as I can tell," the president said, his accent thickening, as it often does when he's trying to launch a quip, "the message of the Bush campaign is: 'How bad can I be? I've been governor of Texas. My daddy was president. [Pause for laughter -- rich Democrats will laugh at anything!] I own a baseball team . . . '"
To which President Bush testily replied, on NBC News a few days later, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait a month. . . . And if he continues that, then I'm going to tell the nation what I think about him as a human being and a person."
Now, there are a few points to be made about this little episode. First, how come President Clinton always dresses better when Mrs. Clinton is out of town? Second, it should be noted that, even by the standards to which he has habituated us all, the president's performance was singularly without class. Watching these strange stand-up routines of his, it is increasingly difficult to remember that Bill Clinton is still president of the United States. This is a fact of life that he himself has forgotten often over the last seven years. But now, as he lowers himself into the role of his vice president's attack dog -- subordinate to his own subordinate -- he looks less presidential than ever, if such a thing is possible.
Which leads us to the third point. THE SCRAPBOOK is a big fan of family loyalty and applauds President Bush's spirited defense of his son and the implicit criticism of Bill Clinton. We only wish we'd seen it before. He says that he has refrained from criticizing Clinton until now out of "respect for the office." But there have been times over the last two years, particularly during the impeachment unpleasantness, when President Bush could have paid that office its highest tribute by making clear how its current occupant had degraded it. Many Republicans did just that, at considerable political risk. Only now, after some unkind remarks directed at his son, does the former president rise to the defense of the office he himself filled so honorably.
Well, better late than never, we suppose -- and, as we say, it was fun while it lasted.