Is America ready to hug Slick Willie?

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Tennessee Republicans found to their delight that there was a billboard available to them at the edge of and overlooking the Al Gore for President national headquarters in Nashville.

So they put up a giant photograph of Bill Clinton being hugged by Al Gore on impeachment night – above a hugely lettered quote from Al: "ONE OF OUR GREATEST PRESIDENTS." George W. Bush eventually carried Gore's home state, as well as Clinton's.

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Has the heartland of the United States really changed its opinion of Slick Willie?

The Baltimore Sun's columnist Jules Witcover would like you to think so.

Reporting from Sen. Tom Harkin's annual steak fry in Indianola, Iowa, Witcover quoted the following political hurrahs for Bill Clinton – with which columnist Witcover took no issue:

CANDIDATE DICK GEPHARDT: "Bill Clinton is now seen as a president who brought jobs to this country. He got the economy moving again. He's seen as a great success. When I'm the nominee, I'm going to have Bill Clinton out on the road with me."

CANDIDATE JOHN EDWARDS: "I'm tired of Democrats walking away from Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who led us to the greatest period of economic growth in our nation's history."

CANDIDATE BOB GRAHAM: "Aren't we proud to have Bill Clinton as an American and as a Democrat?"

The reaction to that absolutely astounding question was, reported Witcover: "thunderous." And Witcover added:

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In the 2000 race, however, the strategy of Vice President Al Gore was to hold Mr. Clinton at arm's length for most of the campaign, declaring he wanted to win as his "own man." The strategy reflected the view of key advisers and campaign leaders in critical states that the controversial president would be a mixed blessing, at best, at the polls.

The concern was that Mr. Clinton's sexual misbehavior, and subsequent dishonesty about it, would [hurt] Mr. Gore's chances. But that opinion was widely challenged among other Democrats both before and after the election, which Mr. Gore narrowly lost to Mr. Bush.

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Is it possible the columnist Witcover's euphemism of "sexual misbehavior and subsequent dishonesty" means that Witcover has forgotten that this made President Clinton a felon? Federal Judge Susan Weber Wright found Clinton guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice, for which she fined him $90,000 – while the Arkansas Bar Association fined Clinton an additional $25,000, as they voted to disbar him.

Is this felon who is the only elected president who has ever been impeached really going to be the chief inspiration of the Democratic campaign for the presidency?

In Los Angeles' First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mr. Clinton was cheered loudly at Sunday morning worship services.

Among the reactions, Washington Times' cartoonist Bill Garner showed Clinton in the pulpit – with a brassiere dangling from his pocket – as he says: "And another thing I'd like to say on behalf of Brother Gray Davis is: Let he among you who is without sin, cast the first stone!"

Cartoonist Garner employs a small chicken for special comment – in this case telling an abashed Clinton: "Your fly is open!"

Then, WorldNetDaily reported to its 5 million readers on the Internet that Los Angeles' Rev. Jesse Peterson, head of the non-profit organization BOND (Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny) and author of WND Book's new title "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America" described the church service hosting of Clinton as:

... highlighting left-wing hypocrisy. Liberals are big on separation of church and state, so where's the outcry from the [American Civil Liberties Union], the Rev. Barry Lynn [Americans United for Separation of Church and State] and others about this obvious violation? It appears the same rules don't apply to liberal black churches and Democratic Party officials. This is a blatant double standard, and the silence from the left is deafening.