Filed under: Glory, glory, glory
So I landed on a random “brushes with celebrity” page while stalking my favorite American actress, and found this charming vignette about our Prez– :
In the fall of 2004, right before his bypass surgery I was sitting around the parking lot of Central Park’s ‘Tavern on the Green’, and out walks this handsome looking guy with white hair and a suit, casually leaving the place like he was Joe Schmo.I looked at this guy long and hard and realised that it was Bill Clinton.
Apparently, so did dozens of other people. Someone (who was apparently a Republican) heckled him about raising taxes. Now, normally when a former president encounters a loser like this, he smiles waves and gets whisked away in his limousine.
But, Bill Clinton started debating him! The secret service guys were going nuts as an entire crowd of blue-staters formed to watch the former president and this dude with a stroller arguing over economic policies.
Then he took questions from the normal people off the street that gathered around him. NYC parks officials were called down to patrol the scene. He also took pictures with tourists, mostly young and female.
There’s something to the willingness to debate anyone sane, to defend one’s ideas against all comers, that helps define a certain kind of philospher and speaker. It has its own strengths and weaknesses, but definitely inspires a certain confidence….