Saturday, August 29, 1998

No shield to tawdry story for Chelsea

By Rheta Grimsley Johnson

Without any trouble, I can remember every item on top of the ugly metal chest of drawers in the dormitory room my freshman year at Auburn. There was a jewelry box with no jewels, a photograph of my boyfriend, a spray bottle of Heaven Scent perfume and a tall, milky vase holding crepe paper roses with pipe cleaner stems.

I can remember every detail of that dorm stall because my college freshman year was the best year of my life to that point; it meant freedom, romance, adventure. The accommodations were utilitarian, the steam radiators hissed all night long, but it might as well have been the Ritz.

I've been thinking about Chelsea Clinton's freshman year. None of us knows her. We know more about Socks the cat, than we do about Chelsea, the first kid.

Her parents rigorously and successfully sheltered her from prying eyes, desperately trying to give their teen-ager privacy. There have been precious few photo opportunities, no in-depth stories. The long-standing plan to insulate Chelsea may have been the Clintons' most successful and worthy joint venture.

As a result, we don't know if Chelsea is athletic or bookish, outgoing or shy. We don't know if she likes old movies or take-out Chinese. But if Chelsea's near normal, we can assume her freshman year has been hell.

Her father's sex life has been discussed in detail, not only on the nightly news, but by comedians all young people adore. His paramour is plastered on magazine covers and tabloid TV shows. Jokes about stains and cocktail dresses are on the radio, the computer, in advertising for popular clothing.

Her mother's motives have been debated. The first family, Chelsea's family, has been ridiculed, scorned, sometimes pitied.

The child who for so long was hidden now has no place to hide.

At college age, there's nothing worse than having to consider your parents' sexuality; you are far too preoccupied with your own. In my day, it was bad enough when a classmate's parents divorced, in private, with nobody knowing or caring but immediate family.

The Clintons have endured the most extraordinary, not to mention malicious scrutiny of any political family ever. This has been the Ally McBeal presidency; if Ken Starr could follow Clinton into the restroom, he would.

American Heritage magazine recently ran an excerpt from Carl Sferrazza Anthony's book about Warren G. Harding, Florence Harding: The First Lady, The Jazz Age and The Death of America's Most Scandalous President. Anthony writes about how the love of Harding's life for 15 years, his wife's former best friend, blackmailed him. During the 1920 campaign, Republican supporters collected $20,000 to pay her off and send her out of the country until after the election. A secret bank account was kept that served as a blackmail fund to buy the silence of still other Harding mistresses.

Political womanizing is the only bipartisan constant in Washington.

But nothing interests the American public less than history. We learn none of it, thus nothing from it. The fact that nothing's new under the sexual sun would mean little to Chelsea Clinton, anyhow, as she spends her vacation under the hot lights of unceasing publicity.

A lot's been said about the president's track record -- of lying, of sexual escapades. He has established another pattern too, of protecting his daughter. Starr set the perjury trap with Hillary and Chelsea as bait. Clinton, caught, could lie and spare his family or tell all to politically driven people salivating for a tawdry moment.

Clinton cheated; he lied about it. And still he looks far more decent than that voyeur-for-hire Ken Starr.

King Features Syndicate