Political Drama

The dual-mouthed, acid-for-blood, insect-like creatures of the Alien series are often described as “perfect killing machines.” They seem to be designed for maximum deadliness and little else—physical specimens cast into a monolithic perfection. Although there may not be such thing as a perfect killing machine, James Fallows’ write-up at the Atlantic’s Aspen blog, which recounts his recent encounter with former President Clinton, suggests there may be such a thing as the perfect political machine:

What do you notice [about Clinton] close up? A few details:

- His physical scale. As measured by the tools known to modern science, Clinton is not technically that big a man. When standing next to him waiting to go on side, I was re-astonished to realize that I was looking straight into his eye. Even before his noticeable weight loss of the last few years, his body wouldn’t stand out by modern American standards as being particularly huge. But everyone who has ever seen him in person is first struck by his size and his room-filling quality. The reason I was astonished to find we were actually the same height was my certain knowledge that, as I walked behind him onto the stage, I was going to look like the batboy accompanying the slugger onto the field. Part of the explanation is that his head is disproportionately large, and so (as former White House correspondent James Bennet has pointed out) are his facial features. His hands, too, are to a scale of a man six inches taller than he is. They are also much more gracefully formed than the rest of him, he gestures with them as if were aware of their visual impact – as he must be. It is a predictable act of tromp l’oeil: like a cat or dog that makes itself much bigger by puffing out its fur, Bill Clinton somehow makes himself seem physically bigger than he could really be.

[snip]

- Being around Clinton in the prelude to this kind of live event is a reminder of how physical the professional of politics is. Before a similar on-stage interview in New York, I was with him for about ten minutes before we went on stage. He spent the time as if he were a batter in the on-deck circle. He did squats, cracked his knuckles, turned his head from side to side, and in general looked as if he was working himself up into the right fighting form for the performance ahead. (Meanwhile, I was nerdishly going through my notes.) This time he roared up with the Secret Service and we were on stage 30 seconds after his arrival.

- Bonus point on the physicality of politics: I have never seen anyone write about what I know (from having worked on Jimmy Carter’s campaign in 1976) to be a fundamental reality of a national political campaign: Fatigue explains a very large amount of what goes well and poorly on a campaign. It also it a huge advantage any incumbent has over a challenger. (The incumbent travels in style and gets a lot more sleep.) More on this later.

[snip]

- The other exception [to Clinton’s normal style of statesman-like answers] was of course Clinton’s answer about Karl Rove. After hearing some mention of Rove in an answer, and remembering that Rove was coming to Aspen (though not on the day I mentioned), I decided on a whim to ask Clinton what he would ask Rove. His face changed in a way that suggested that the Id was coming out. You could see a man who loved the act of politics – and who actually respected Rove as a fellow devotee.

Not surprisingly, I’m no fan of Clinton. But his political acumen deserves respect, at least when it comes to communication. As a maker of policy, his record is debatable at best, but his flair for performance is unmatched in recent politics. Politics is, in a sense, our nation’s ongoing story of itself, its narrative framed in perfect dramatic terms: two starkly opposed sides in complex, ever-shifting, high stakes conflict. People often grumble about the politicization of art and drama, but what Clinton and the best political performers do is turn politics into a dramatic art.