Washington

I shall be honest with you. Let me be frank. I am worried about the Clintons.

They are that magical couple about whom most of Washington’s commentariat have been in agreement ever since John F. Harris wrote his definitive book, The Survivor. In that 2005 book he wrote that the Clintons have been “the two most important political figures of their generation.” The pundits believed this throughout the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was impeached and both Clintons were linked to one scandal after another. The pundits believed it too throughout the 2000s, when the Clintons were making millions in dubious undertakings. And they even believed it in recent years: in the months leading up to the 2008 nomination, when Hillary lost to a community organizer; and in the years 2015 and 2016, when she lost again, this time to a man who never held political office. Yet now I am really worried about the Clintons, and I have never been what you might call a big fan.

Start with Bill. He is losing his hair and possibly his teeth. He looks like mere skin and bones. He has not been seen at his old haunts for a long time — my agents have been on the lookout. At first I thought Bill might be patching things up with Monica. One never knows. I always thought they made a cute couple, or rather I imagined them to make a cute couple. I really never saw them together except on a rope line, she wearing a chic beret, he, a tie that later became property of the Independent Counsel, if memory serves. Now she is the CEO of an anti-bullying camorra, which might serve as a front for Bill if his foundation ever runs aground. Would Hillary object if Bill were to raise money for Monica’s group? I cannot imagine it, especially if Hillary were to get a cut of the take.

Yet this is mere speculation on my part. What we do know is that Bill has been out of the headlines for months, and when an energetic paparazzo does snap a picture of him he is no longer wearing those snazzy gym shorts of his White House days or munching on a greasy Big Mac. When we see him now he looks like he could use a walker. Obviously recreational sex is not as salubrious as the therapist Hugh Hefner told us in the 1960s. Think of today’s woebegone Bill Cosby, disporting in yesteryear at the Playboy mansion.

As for Hillary Clinton, she is not holding up well at all. I thought she would have been a gracious loser. After all, as I have alluded to, she is not unfamiliar with losing and losing to a relative political newcomer to boot. Why could she not say, “Well done, Donald?” Or, “Serve the country well.” Or, “Call on me anytime.” Or, “Perhaps in 2020 we will nominate a younger candidate, say Elizabeth Warren, or why not Chelsea?”

There are a lot of possibilities out there among the Democrats and many, like Hillary, come from the misandry wing of the party. Dear reader, you do not know what misandry means? Well, if you know what misogyny means — a person who hates women — you ought to know what its opposite is. Its opposite is misandry — a person who hates men. Anyone familiar with Hillary’s top ten reasons why she lost to Donald Trump has heard her use the word “misogyny.”

Recently speaking to a credulous gathering of distraught supporters, Hillary explained that along with such enormities as the Russians, James Comey, “voter suppression,” and “unaccountable money flowing in against me,” there was “misogyny.” The misandry wing of the Democratic Party is increasingly making its voice heard, and in the last election Hillary spoke for all of them.

Of course, I guess, that Hillary has good reason to hate men. Yet not every woman in America comes with a Bill Clinton problem or an Anthony Weiner problem, a John Edwards problem, or an Eliot Spitzer problem, or a Gary Hart problem and, forget not, Teddy Kennedy, a VERY big problem. There is adultery in both parties, but in Hillary’s party it is rampant, and with it comes a lot of misandry.

Yet, as I say, now I am concerned for both Clintons and even Chelsea. Chelsea seems to think that she has, in her genetic endowment, Bill’s gene for politics. Chelsea, if I may call you Chelsea, ignore this temptation. You are your mother’s child. You have her charm, her gift for couture, and so forth and so on. Also you are fantasizing along with your parents that American politics has not changed. It has. When Donald Trump beat Hillary he opened up a whole new chapter in American political life. Bill and Hillary, your time has come and gone. Retire to a health spa. To lift a line from the Meyer Lansky stand-in used in The Godfather Part II, “good health is the most important thing… more important than money… more important than power.”

All along, Lansky would have been an appropriate mentor for the Clintons.