Clinton Was Never at a Loss for Words

The first time I ever heard the name Bill Clinton, he had just been introduced in Atlanta to give a nominating speech at a Democratic National Convention. It was summertime in the South, July 20, 1988, and advocates of Jesse Jackson had just nominated their candidate as grandiloquently as the reverend could have himself.

Now a tall gent with a wavy, Bob’s Big Boy head of hair--darker then--stepped forward inside the Omni, a hall where basketball’s Atlanta Hawks played their games. Crowds in this arena hadn’t been known for being noisy, given the team’s lack of success. This night’s audience was making up for that.

Cheers rang forth when Clinton came to the microphone. Not that many in the auditorium knew the Arkansas governor from the man in the moon, but because now it was time to trumpet the virtues of Michael Dukakis, the party’s nominee-to-be. Delegates were eager to commence their chant: “Duke! Duke! Duke!”

I knew nothing of this Clinton fellow, not that he was a youthful 41, or that he was teaching at the University of Arkansas when he first ran for office (state attorney general). Nor did I know that 10 years prior to this convention, Clinton had become America’s youngest governor.

The stranger just began talking.

Television filled in viewers on Clinton’s background. The conventions no longer rated the prime-time coverage they once had, but they warranted more air time than now.

Clinton kept on talking. Turned out he had plenty to say.

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Fifteen minutes had been allotted for his speech. Clinton drafted most of it himself, and fiddled with it right up until show time. It ran 18 pages. He did nine drafts in all.

Clinton kept on talking.

The delegates did indeed react, practically on cue at every pause. That was to be expected. Yet on droned Clinton, well beyond his 15 minutes.

“Wrap it up!” somebody from one of the delegations finally shouted, for almost all to hear.

Television grew as restless as the audience. ABC cut away from the speech, and NBC soon bailed too. A red light flashed from a TelePrompTer, notifying the speaker that he had gone too far.

Clinton kept on talking.

A delegate seen on TV raked an index finger across his throat, the traditional “cut him off” gesture. Clinton knew something was up. He said later that when the “Duke!” cry began, he thought the crowd was saying: “Boo!”

More than 30 minutes after he began, Clinton was still going. By now, the TelePrompTer was switched off, in the hope he’d stop.

“In closing,” Clinton said, and the entire hall erupted with hallelujahs.

These were the first nationwide hurrahs for William Jefferson Blythe Clinton IV, and this week’s will be the last. Oh, he’ll still bring a lecture hall to its feet in times to come, and there may even be some substance to the stories that the 42nd president wouldn’t mind hosting his own TV talk show.

We know he can talk.

As a matter of fact, Bill Clinton’s election campaigns and eight-year reign will be remembered most for things he tried to talk his way out of . . . from the memorable I-did-but-I-didn’t admission on marijuana to his I-did-but-I-didn’t fudging on the delicate matter of adulterous sex.

Our first president’s claim to fame was that he couldn’t tell a lie. Our last president’s was that he couldn’t distinguish what was a lie. His excuse for denying a sexual relationship under oath was because it didn’t “constitute sexual relations as I understand that term to be defined.”

Thus this loquacious Lothario became our second president to be impeached, and our first sitting president held in contempt of court. The man with wavy hair had turned out to be a hairsplitter for the ages, fibbing furiously about what he’d done until somebody once again had to tell him: “Wrap it up.”

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History will praise Clinton deeds. He ordered in bombing when Iraqis balked at cooperating with U.N. arms inspectors and when Slobodan Milosevic failed to withdraw troops from Kosovo. Economically, he kept America sound.

Honesty, alas, suffered.

A day after Clinton denied having sex with another woman, his wife angrily condemned a “vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

That’s the kind of talk I will remember most from this administration. In closing, Clinton words spoke louder than Clinton actions.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com