Clinton Savors the Job Till Last Moments

Bill Clinton always said he would work till the last hour of the last day. It turned out he was telling the truth.

There was nothing casual or leisurely about the departure of this man, who, at 54, is now one of the youngest ex-presidents in history.

For Clinton, leaving the magnificent public stage of the American presidency after eight tumultuous years has been a painful separation. After all, former GOP rival Bob Dole once quipped that it would take a police SWAT team to drag Clinton from the Oval Office.

The president’s last weeks have been a veritable blur of trips, speeches, parades and receptions. He was able to enjoy the perks and powers of his office, without worrying about any international crisis to deal with or recalcitrant Congress to worry about.

In the final three weeks:

* Staff members surprised him at a party when they brought to the White House driveway a bus from the 1992 campaign, and dozens of people he hadn’t seen in years showed up to laugh and joke with him.

* With the Marine Corps band playing rousing martial tunes, a procession of military honor guards, including a fife and drum corps contingent in full Revolutionary War uniforms, marched past Clinton at his final review of the troops.

* He went to New Hampshire to thank the voters who made him the “Comeback Kid” in the 1992 primary, giving him a boost to the White House, and he promised the people once again, as he did eight years ago, “I’ll be with you till the last dog dies.”

* He sat with daughter Chelsea in the visitors’ gallery at the U.S. Senate, grinning as he watched his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, being sworn in as a U.S. senator from New York. Later, he told a reception crowd, “I resisted all temptation. I didn’t take one of those little Kodak cameras in there.”

* A few days later, the ceremony was reenacted at a packed theater in New York’s Madison Square Garden, where a crowd of delirious Democrats gave the outgoing president a tumultuous ovation. People yelled, “Four more years!” The entertainment was worthy of a president: Opera singer Jessye Norman sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” Nobel literature prizewinner Toni Morrison read from her novel “Jazz” and pop singer Billy Joel sang “New York State of Mind.”

In the last days, Clinton felt free to throw off the cloak of statesmanlike neutrality typically worn by presidents. “I tell everybody as I’m sort of dwindling into irrelevancy . . . the only way I can really get any big headlines is to say what I really think.”

He did just that when he flew to Chicago, scene of the 1996 Democratic convention, and told a roaring group of 3,000 fervent Democrats that George W. Bush didn’t actually win the election. “By the time it was over, our candidate had won the popular vote, and the only way they could win the election was to stop the voting in Florida.”

When reporters asked him about it later, Clinton said, no big deal, it was a jest. “I was trying to have a little fun with Bill Daley [the former Commerce secretary who ran Vice President Al Gore’s campaign]. . . . I was trying to say what a good job he had done running the campaign. And we were all just having a good time.”

At all his final appearances, Clinton would finish his remarks, then begin working the crowds, shaking hands, gripping people by the shoulder, smiling, joking. He looked like a hard-working candidate, frantically seeking the approval of a few more voters before election day. He was still president, and he loved every last minute on the job.

As for his new life as a former president, Bill Clinton realized he had some major adjustments to make, like entering a room without musical accompaniment. “What I need is an automated tape of ‘Hail to the Chief’ so I know when I’m going into a room; I won’t be lost,” he joked in a wistful manner one night on an Air Force One flight returning from Europe.