BILL CLINTON, THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT HAS A SNOW-WHITE SOUL?

He is not called slick Willy for no reason, he has the ability to chew you up and spit you whilst laughing with you. He is a living example of smooth, sleek and sleazy personified and had rode series of roughshod with people, friends and enemies alike; each of which were deceived as to their true relationship with the man who left his human gnome on a blue dress. And so it is, that former President William Jefferson Clinton is once again in the news, a remark he made to Late Senator Ted Kennedy, which has been brought to the fore courtesy of a just published book titled "GAME CHANGER", has again proved that the little boy from Hope Arkansas who grew up to become America's 42nd president, still has some 'good-ole-boy' blood running in his veins.

Like the popular saying goes, you can take a person out of the hood but you cannot take the hood out of the person; so will a good ole boy always remain a good ole boy? And it does not matter the fact that that one is a former president and married to a current Secretary of State? According to the published book, while trying to snag up Late Senator Ted Kennedy's endorsement for his wife's presidential candidacy, Bill Clinton was quoted as saying to Ted, 'few years ago, Obama would have been making and serving them coffee" and by necessary implication not qualified as a fit and proper person, being a person of color, to be president of the United States? Unbelievable one may say; but that is for only those who have allowed the magic of Bill to becloud their vision or sense of understanding of the man Bill, who has the tenacity to sell sand to desert dwellers, in their desert hell-holes. But for close understudies, including Icheoku, Bill Clinton's mesmerising charm beguiles the real man behind the facade and we have reasonable bases for our argument.

Former President Bill Clinton politically, cares and likes black people as long as they remained in "their place" and not try to disturb the locomotion. It is just like telling your domestic servant or guardsman that you love him as long as he remained in the guardhouse and not venture within the main building. It is akin to the love a farmer has for his prized oxen, as long as it tills his soil, it is all well and dandy but as soon as it is aged or wounded and cannot provide the labor of love, it is time to put it to sleep or down below? It is the unspoken 'moss-code' of getting along or being tolerated by the society, of black people in America; who must 'know their place' and not venture out of a pre-determined circle or in any way disturb the groove? But then of course, a black man named Senator Barack Obama would not take any of that and was determined to pull the rug underneath the good ole boys' feet and it was all systems go?

Initially none of the good ole boys led by Bill Clinton himself, gave him any fighting chance until the miracle of Iowa smacked them right on their lips and it became a run to the hills emergency alarm? Bill started prizing endorsements from old faithfuls' hands, people who owed him one favor or another; and he was bagging such endorsements easily until he arrived at the doors of the Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy. According to the narrative, Ted had then not made up his mind on who he was going to endorse and had elected to hear from both candidates pitch to him before he would finally make up his mind. Unfortunately for Hillary, Bill towed the line of the 'good ole boys,' and made allusion to the other candidate being good enough to make and serve them coffee just few years prior? The same good ole boy thinking which nearly derailed Ted's elder brother, JFK's candidacy in the 60's. Being Irish in those days did not fit the template of what an American president ought to be; but the family put up a good fight and eventually a Kennedy was sworn in as America's 35th president. So what Bill said was a shocking reminder of what 1950 America represented and Kennedy would have none of that. He immediately made up his mind and off he went to Washington and endorsed Barack Obama in one of his most memorable and very passionate speech of his political life. This took place despite a debilitating cancer which was mercilessly working over time on his brain. The rest is now history as his endorsement helped in no small way to propel, with the active and ever loyal Kennedy clan's political train, then Senator Barack Obama to the presidency.

That President Bill Clinton was dubbed a black president was rather surprising in itself, since there is really no basis for that, judging from what historians recorded of his presidency and his private life relationships with people of color. Which black-man or person served in his cabinet; after the alleged murder of Ron Brown, the former commerce secretary who died in a mysterious plane accident on the mountains of Bosnia Herzegovina? That Bill Clinton was captured on camera laughing prior to announcing the death of Ron Brown is also a fact; admitted he later realised that he was on camera and faked a sorrowful frown? Icheoku asks, which black-man was in the highest ranking position during his eight years presidency, none; since he considered blacks only good enough for under-Secretary positions as well as other junior positions. Even President GW Bush empowered two black people, Colin Powell and Condolezza Rice, and appointed them into very senior positions in his government.

Anyway, this piece is not to beat up on the blue-dress tainted, Monica-gate soiled Bill Clinton; no, it is just to point out that a leopard always will spot its trademark patterns. A good ole white boy he is, and that he will remain till the end of times; it runs in the body gnome and sometimes is acted out involuntarily. So, be that as it may, Icheoku says it does not matter how the sausage was made or the stumbling blocks put along the way; what is important is that the 'would be coffee maker' is today, seating in the White House as 44th American President. And for the next four years and most likely eight, President Barack Obama will remain the president of all Americans, including Bill and Hillary Clinton; and no amount of nostalgic feeling of the good ole days, when blacks had a separate drinking fountain will change the new day in America. Luckily enough those white folks who still have Bill Clinton's thinking are now greatly diminished, and the only choice they have is to either fall in tow or stay out in the cold. Only in America can the story be told of a "former would be coffee maker" who became president; and not as a folk-lore but a true life inspirational story and President Barack Obama is it. Our dear Bill Clinton, Icheoku wishes you a safe journey as you travel to Haiti, as United Nations ambassador extra-ordinary thereto, to assess the damage wrought by the 7.3 earthquake that just struck the Island! But always remember that it is a new day in America!