Imagine there’s no Clintons
(It’s really hard to do)

Bret Stephens, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, outlines his reasons for being a Clinton hater. The occasion was a birthday party for Shimon Peres, where Clinton bemoaned the lack of peace in the Mideast, and sang John Lennon’s atheist anthem “Imagine.” The lyrics are below:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

Does he really believe this dreck? Would the good folks in Arkansas who elected him 392 times to state office agree that “no religion” is an ideal world? Would the plurality of U.S. voters who put him in office supported the elimination of the nation-state?
Of course not. He’s one of the Hollow Men, the Men without Chests, the Last Men, the New Class. He will pick up an instrument of traditional religion — the Bible — and without a hint of shame carry it into church while surrounded by the press. Then a few years later he’ll turn up at a party and start singing about how traditional religion is an enemy of peace and mankind. If you point out the inconsistency, you are a fool, a rube. You don’t get the postmodern joke: Clinton dwells in Nietzsche’s land beyond good and evil, where there is no standard with which to evaluate him except how good his performance is. Consistency is for absolutists, and absolutists are the kind of people John Lennon hates, people who believe in religion, possessions, countries, and all the rest. They’re the only real enemies.
Bill Clinton keeps on going, never in a state of being, always in a state of becoming. He’s still got some game left — his wife must be elected president, and he’s flailing around trying to codify his “legacy.” Let Stephens have the last word:

…there never was a “President Clinton.” There were, instead, two incarnations of Candidate Clinton: first the challenger, then the incumbent. In both cases, no such thing as “policy” could be said to exist; Mr. Clinton moved where political convenience dictated.