THE LARGEST HEATED TENT EVENT IN HISTORY
Anne Applebaum reports on the forthcoming
Inauguration of Bill Clinton, and the people being swept into power by the new President
Washington THIS IS a great place to work, full of great i People, we all love Bill, we all believe in Bill. Even though there aren't enough phones and things, everyone gets along, no one gets angry, it's really . . . great.' The Young man, working for the Inauguration, and just graduated from an ivy-covered university, had run out of adjectives. 'This is my first job, it's really . . . great.' Down the hall, an older, slicker Texan
things, an Alaskan whalebone carver, a Hawaiian
Sioux lei-maker, dancers, Linda Ronstadt, Wisconsin
cheese and Cajun cat- fish. 'We think it's the largest heated-tent event In history'i said the Texan, slightly awe- struck by the thought.
The Clinton inaugura-
tion will include other firsts: the first Elvis Impersonators to march in the inaugural Parade, the first inaugural invitations to be printed on recycled paper, the first national simultaneous bell-ringing. For this event, Nasa has promised to ring an electronic be!' aboard the Space Shuttle. Cable-car drivers have agreed to ring the bells on the San Francisco cable-cars. Every ethnic group and every religious group will also have its own bell, the 'Bells for Hope' spokeswoman told me. I asked how far diversity went. Would there be a gay bell, for example? 'Probably,' she said stiffly,
and fell silent. These days, diversity jokes are out in Washington. Indeed, jokes in general are out: Mr Clinton's ascent to power is definitely not funny. The winds of change are blowing, people tell you with straight faces, every- thing will be different now, better and more earnest and more serious. Mr Clinton is not just going to be president, he is going to be a man of the people: he is coming to Washington on a bus (probably the last time he will ride on one for at least four years). And he is not just going to be presi- dent and a man of the people, he is also going to be a gentleman and a scholar: he is coming by bus via Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.
Washington journalists, Democrats all,
are falling over backwards to promote this new Bill Clinton, populist and patrician, so different from the man they vilified as Slick Willie just a few short months ago. Time magazine chose Mr Clinton as their Man of the Year, and ran an implausibly unctuous interview with him. 'It is tempting,' the interviewer said, `to compare this moment in history to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 or John F. Kennedy in 1960 or even Ronald Reagan in 1980 . . . Which of these comparisons seem most appropri- ate?' Modestly, Mr Clinton chose only Roosevelt and Kennedy. The tone brought to mind Robert Maxwell's famous inter- view with Rumania's former dictator: `Mr
Ceausescu, could you explain why you are so popular with the Rumanian people?' True, a new regime in Washington is always received with an over-elaborate inauguration, a throbbing media love affair with the president, a rhetorical insistence on 'Hope' and 'New Beginnings'. In the beginning, reporters even fawned over Mil- lie, Barbara Bush's pet dog. Later, when the president fell out of favour, they com- plained that Millie was chasing squirrels and threatened to call the Animal Rescue League. But this inauguration is different from the previous three. When the change of leader coincides with a change of ruling party, the outpouring of happiness soars well beyond the merely political.
But the feeling runs deeper than that. It is not just about jobs, it is about People like Us: people who look and talk like us, who engage in the same mating rituals and like the same kinds of parties, who wear blue
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