Talking points

Clinton links Lieberman to Hillary's Senate run.

by Seth Gitell

LOS ANGELES - On Sunday, President Bill Clinton wasted no time in capitalizing on Vice President Al Gore's pick of Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman as a running mate. That is, he wasted no time in capitalizing on the pick as one that could benefit his wife Hillary who is, of course, running for the Senate in New York.

Cosponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the National Jewish Democratic Council, the United Jewish Communities, and the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles - the two-hour rally attracted media bigfoots including Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, Michael Tomasky of New York magazine, and David Brooks of the Weekly Standard. Clinton was there to talk about the Middle East peace process. Which he did at length. But he also used the occasion to sell the largely Jewish audience on his wife's run for the Senate. He told the crowd of about 4000 Lieberman boosters that he was happy about Gore's pick for vice president. He praised Lieberman as "a brilliant man - a little bit of an iconoclast." Though it wasn't clear whether Clinton meant Lieberman was an iconoclast for criticizing him during the Lewinsky scandal or whether he was referring to something else. "He's always willing to think new thoughts," Clinton said. He also talked up Hillary's record on the Middle East (his wife had made a speech to the crowd earlier that was received a lukewarm reception). And he reviewed his own Middle East agenda.

But it was hard not to be distracted by Clinton's anguish over the fact that he must relinquish the presidency come January - no training in Freudian psychology was necessary to pick up the president's inner torment. Clinton pontificated on his efforts on behalf of peace in the Middle East. He listed and took partial credit for some six Middle East peace achievements - the Oslo Peace Accords, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and the Hebron Agreement, among others. He confessed that he had put his full mental faculties into the search for peace in that part of the world - including "whatever powers of psychology I've acquired over the years." Making the scene more surreal was a logo for the Sony film Hollow Man looming high above the president's head.

In a truly weird moment, Clinton interrupted a somber discussion of evil in the world - including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and white supremacist killers - to defend Gore on the ridicule he has received for claiming that he invented the Internet. "By the way, Al Gore did sponsor the legislation that created the Internet," said Clinton. "Part of my job since I'm not running, you know, is to correct the record." Now Clinton's a high profile James Carville.

Lower-level Clinton pals warmed up the crowd before the president took the stage. Steve Grossman, former head of AIPAC and the Democratic National Committee and a gubernatorial hopeful in Massachusetts, introduced Andrew Cuomo, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Cuomo, in turn, talked up Grossman to the crowd. "He sounds like a governor doesn't he," Cuomo said. "With that Massachusetts accent he sounds like a governor of Massachusetts."

The remarks of one of the warm-up pols made Cuomo's actually sound clever. Charles Schumer, the junior senator from New York gave his usual bellowing speech, and then was supposed to yield the stage to a Klezmer-mariachi band that had been entertaining the crowd. Getting ready to finish, Schumer said "as we bring the klezmer band before us." Silence. "You're supposed to laugh at that," Schumer scolded the crowd. No one laughed.

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