Aldrich’s Book Pro-Con Is Gary Aldrich A Fuddy-Duddy? Or Is His Book On The Clinton White House Right On The Mark?

Go ahead and dismiss FBI agent Gary Aldrich’s book as shoddy journalism. But as an expression of what angers Americans today, it is right on the mark.

If GOP candidate Bob Dole wants to win the presidency in November, he should pay close attention to its message: Americans desperately want order in an increasingly chaotic world.

In his book, “Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House,” Aldrich portrays himself as a frustrated enforcer of that order.

But the self-centered White House aides won’t be brought into line. They think they don’t have to play by the rules; they use foul language, dress like slobs, abuse the help, keep messy offices.

It’s easy to make such complaints about disorder look silly, but the force behind them is broad and powerful - an inchoate national rage about things being out of control. It shows up in polls that consistently show Americans believe the country is on the “wrong track” despite good economic news. It showed up in the 1994 congressional elections in which voters rejected Democratic incumbents. Then, a year later, it showed up in a shift in public attitude that rejected Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who seemed uncontrolled himself.

In his book, Aldrich seems to be stamping his feet and screaming, “Why can’t these Clinton people behave?” This is not much different from the more generalized distress in America: “Why all the crime, the violent lyrics, the dirty TV shows, the children having babies, the welfare, the crooked politicians? Why can’t we bring back the old America?”

But nostalgia is an inadequate cure for what ails us.

Oscar Handlin, a Harvard historian, puts the problem perfectly in the new issue of the American Scholar: “At some point, midway into the 20th century, Europeans and Americans discovered they had lost all sense of direction. Familiar markers along the way always had guided their personal and social lives. But now, disoriented, they no longer trust the guideposts and grope in bewilderment toward an unimagined destination.”

This groping has led to the rise of religious fundamentalism, of self-help gurus and spiritualists. Ultimately, writes Handlin, most of us are left wondering, “‘To what end?’ That question, unanswered, breeds suppressed discontent.” Rage, I would say.

“The storm in which the humans of 1996 fly,” writes Handlin, “is that created by the social effects of technology and affluence, by totalitarian impulses and the erosion of values, by art without form, by the relativism of science and the failure of other forms of knowledge to establish reference points along the way.”

Handlin’s history and Aldrich’s memoirs share the pervading sense of a loss of direction and order.

Aldrich’s job was to conduct background interviews with new Clinton staffers so presidential lawyers and the Secret Service could give them security clearances.

But the staffers, with the acquiescence of White House security officials, mocked Aldrich. The aides showed, he writes, “an apparent total disregard for honesty, integrity or even cooperating with me, with the FBI.”

However, Aldrich’s book is less important for what it reveals about presidential practices than it is for the anger and sorrow it expresses about a lost order.

When was it lost? “The Second World War,” writes Handlin, “marked a decisive break.” Before 1945, the sense of some direction and purpose in human affairs had remained largely intact.

But after the war, it faded. So it’s no surprise, really, that the World War II generation, as Bob Woodward points out in his new book, “The Choice,” “already has produced six presidents while most generations had only three. And Dole, the old survivor, was the patriarch.”

But in the metaphor of Vice President Al Gore, writes Woodward, this World War II generation decided in 1992 to turn over leadership of the kingdom it had built to its son. Now, says Gore, “it’s not fair to take back the reins.”

We’re certainly having second thoughts. If this country is as angry and bewildered as, for example, Gary Aldrich is, then it makes sense to give the reins back to a generation who knew where it was headed. Just one last time.

xxxx

For opposing view, see Bill Press’ column under same headline.