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Interview with Mark Plotkin

Broadcast: 7/7/1998
Interviewer: George Negus

Negus: Mark, it's good to see you. What I think I have to put to you is a simple straightforward that I'm quite sure does not have a simple straightforward answer.

Plotkin: Right.

Negus: Is the American president an incorrigible sexual predator, a liar - or is the whole thing a beat-up?

Plotkin: I saw the president when he was the candidate in Austin Texas, ..or all through Texas on these bus trips, where sometimes women were not brought to him for his recreational purposes, but for him to meet - and I remember one particular episode where he went to the... met the woman and he went to the top of the bus...and he went (licks lips) this with his lips. Now maybe it was very hot in Texas during the day, but I thought that was kind of reckless behaviour. He's had a long reputation as something really beyond a womaniser... as an adventurous lothario. I think that probably about 85% of the stories are true!

Negus: You're saying that from your knowledge of Bill Clinton, you'd reckon it's a fair chance that what these women are saying is true, and what the president is saying is not?

Plotkin: Yes. It used to be that something like ths...allegations like this...the president would not only... he would resign the next day... he would be out of the White House. I grew up during the Eisenhower era, and this would have blown the president out of office...

Negus: So why not now, Mark?

Plotkin: Well, I don't know... I guess they kind of knew this about him - they factored it in in 1992... they voted for him anyway.. Yes, it's salacious... yes, it's almost even embarrassing... but they've sort of said "well, that's our guy". And right now people are more concerned with the Dow Jones which you know measures the stock market... than Paula Jones. I mean, that's the line of the day. Until Hilary Clinton leaves the White House, goes in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with her luggage and hails a cab, the thought is as long as it's all right with her it's all right with us.

Negus: How should we respond when we see Bill Clinton, as we did last week when the Kathleen Willey thing happened... looking straight down the barrel of every television camera in the country, not batting an eye and saying "I did not do what this woman says I did"?

Plotkin: Well, he did it also with Monica Lewinsky, you know, he pointed in the camera... he's a wonderful actor as well.. and said, you know, "I did not have this affair". Right now, we can't make sense of it, but if you're saying does Bill Clinton fool around?.. Yeah, I think Bill Clinton fools around. Has he always fooled around? Yeah! And are we having trouble accepting that the President of the United States is not a model of moral rectitude? Yeah, we don't know what to do with it! And it's also his second term. He doesn't have to run for re-election - he's over with. Now, I'll tell you when the Democrats start getting worried - when his own party looks like they're going to lose seats in either house of congress. But Bill Clinton, George, can go out to any gathering of people, and he's mobbed and there's affection. He's not shunned yet.

Negus: Is it possible that because the religious right in America seem to hold the moral sway over the country's politics, that people are actually becoming less hypocritical and more realistic about the imperfections of their politicians, including the President?

Plotkin: Well, that's very perceptive. I think the great number of American voters who determine elections, don't want people talking about people's private lives - and even though he's the President, and the most public of figure, they have made a demarcation. There's sort of a revulsion toward this overwhelming morality or sanitisation of politics, and the movie Primary Colors is sort of a challenge to the American psyche to say, All right, you're going to have to have an American president who's not the combination of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delanor Roosevelt - can you deal with it?
I mean, I thought that was the message of the movie - that presidents are imperfect human beings.

Negus: What if it's found out, or what if it's proved that Bill Clinton did lie under oath? Now if we can't see him thrown out of office as a result of his sexual philandering, would lying under oath mean the beginning of the end of Bill Clinton?

Plotkin: No, I don't think lying... I'm not a lawyer, but lying in itself...perjury, yes, it's not something you're proud of... but obstruction of justice is what would bring him down. That's what brought Nixon down - where you tell others to lie. That word obstruction of justice - that phrase - really.. then it's over... then it's really over.

Negus: Mark, finally - and this is finally - if the Democrats had Watergate, and now the Republicans have got, dare I say it, Zippergate - where will it all end? Is it going to go on or is there an end to all of this?

Plotkin: Well, um... this is a different sort of... are these high crimes and misdemeanours? Mr. Clinton is lucky to have a guy named Henry Hyde, who is the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, who is a reasonable, rational guy who doesn't really feel that somebody's problem with their zipper is really grounds for impeachment... and the President will try to hold them off.
This is his essence as a politician - he's been battered down before - he will survive.

Negus: Mark Plotkin, good to talk to you, and we'll do it again.

Plotkin: Good to talk to you. Thank you.

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