Casanova in Chief Had Better Tend to the Home Front

Good morning.

This day, in this room, from this chair, I would like to discuss Bad Boy Bill Clinton’s cross-my-heart-and-hope-not-to-lie talk to the American people, regarding his testimony to a federal grand jury in the Monica S. Lewinsky lust bust.

Here in my Map Room, which features maps to the movie stars’ homes and a Thomas Guide to street addresses in Rancho Cucamonga, I listened with great interest as our Casanova in Chief confessed another of his conquests.

He sat there in a handsome blue tie--a gift, maybe?--and addressed “questions about my private life, questions no American citizen would ever want to answer.”

Which was another lie, Mr. President, inasmuch as American citizens voluntarily answer such questions from Howard Stern and Jerry Springer day after day after day.

Anyway, as most of us now know, Bad Boy Bill spilled the beans.

He changed his previous story.

He went from Monica Who? to Oh, THAT Monica!

He mentioned “the two people I love most,” wisely identifying them as his wife and his daughter.

And he concluded, “Thank you for watching,” like a guy who was getting ready to add, “Here are a few scenes from next week’s episode.”

Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill . . .

*

I don’t know what everybody else thought of the season premiere of Monday Night Mea Culpa, but one sentence stood out for me from the president’s speech. One sentence rang out like a gong.

“I misled people, including even my wife.”

Uh oh.

Words that will live in infamy.

“I misled people . . . even my wife.”

Red alert.

Never mind everything else he said. Forget about what Kenneth the Menace intends to do to annoy Clinton next. Forget about which gifts Bill gave to the First Mistress.

Just worry about Hillary.

I couldn’t help but picture her, during the president’s entire talk. I couldn’t keep from wondering what she knew and when she knew it.

“I misled people . . . even my wife.”

When the president said that, I half-expected to hear a dish crash. I waited for an Oval Office ashtray to go flying off the wall behind his head.

This couldn’t be . . . nah. . . .

The first time she was hearing this?

Wouldn’t that have been a television first?

It could have become the first presidential address in history that launched right into a test of the Emergency Broadcast Network.

I have to presume that at some point during the “spectacle of the last seven months,” as Clinton called it, he took Hillary aside in a helicopter or someplace and gave her the cheap and sordid details.

“Oh, honey, by the way. . . .”

Because unless she was finding black strands of hair around the White House that didn’t belong to their hound Buddy, I have to conclude from the president’s choice of words that he kept Hillary in the dark for as long as he could.

Which is why I think everything--his popularity, his legacy, his ability to put this affair behind him for good--rides on his wife’s reaction now.

Because this is not about sex.

Because this is not about lying.

This is about Hillary Rodham Clinton either saves her husband’s hide and cheatin’ heart--again--by supporting him 100% and keeping a stiff upper lip, or she packs a suitcase and sits on a sofa with Barbara Walters and tells the world that her priorities through the year 2000 are now, in order, (1) her daughter Chelsea; (2) health care; (3) that hound, the four-legged one, and (4) hiring a good lawyer to get 50% of everything Bill owns, including any merchandise Lewinsky returned.

“I misled people . . . even my wife.”

I’m imagining a memo on Bill’s desk:

THINGS TO DO TODAY

Help fix Asian economy . . . investigate Africa terrorist attack . . . call Hussein’s bluff . . .

THINGS TO PUT OFF TILL LATER

Have chat with Hillary.

*

Near the end of Clinton’s talk, he said, “It is time to stop . . . the prying into private lives and get on with our national life.”

Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill . . .

Way to spin, chief. I agree, let’s move on to a new frontier, cross that bridge into the 21st century and stop feeling your pain.

Now go buy your wife some flowers, pray she lets you off the hook--again--and have a nice birthday today. A sexy mistress sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy once. Don’t even think about it.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053, or phone (213) 237-7366.