Introducing Clinton at UC Davis, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said, "He continues as a living hero. Hope—it's about giving people hope."

It certainly is. Bill Clinton gives hope to every one of us potato-nosed oafs from nowhere with our shiftless relatives and our marriages that are like being sewn up in a sack full of cats. If this knight of the manure shovel, this gas pudding, can become the leader of the free world, there's hope for us all. We observe his ragamuffin character stitched together from scraps of prevarication and ribbons of fantasy. We watch his hinge-heeled ethical contraption flap in the breeze of fundraising and personal finance. We cluck at the spectacle of a sad rip and his homely girlfriends. No annoying crick in the neck from looking up to this hero.

But Clinton succeeds. The rest of us do not. Various theories have been put forth to explain the somewhat surprising rise of Bill Clinton and his truly astonishing failure to fall. My friends who listen to AM talk radio say I am not the first to suggest that he made a pact with Satan. But I don't think Bill did that. A pact with Hillary, yes—but a modern presidential administration is a corporate pyramid in its delegation of powers. The selling of souls in the Clinton White House was conducted at a lower level on the organizational chart, by such as George Stephanopoulos, Sidney Blumenthal, and Erskine Bowles.

Speculations of a more likely nature credit Clinton's political skills, his charm, his brains, and his luck, although it's not the kind of luck that one would want to have. Clinton has been lucky most of all in his enemies. He has something by which right-wingers are driven crazy (not much of a journey in many cases). It isn't the policy Clinton pursued. Once comprehensive health care (where archaeologist Al Gore went digging) had been entombed, Clinton's policies were mostly too small or skittering to attract a maniacal response. Opposing his legislative initiatives was a varmint hunt, not a mad quixotic crusade. Some of those varmints even proved useful—for example, the big lab rat of welfare reform currently running through the sociological labyrinth. Sorry if conservatives ate the cheese at the end of the maze.

Something else lit the lichen on the mossbacks. Maybe it was seeing that loosey-goosey sixties generation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue eating peas off its knife on Dolley Madison's china. Or maybe it was the little smirk that Clinton has, or the much larger one that belongs to his wife.

Anyway, Clinton's enemies had a tendency to explode with anger, most notably during the impeachment. The walls of the House and Senate chambers were left covered in a goo of spit venom and slung mud. Red-faced, dirty Bill looked swell by comparison.

All cleaned up and calmed down, he certainly looked swell in comparison with the other dignitaries at the October 10, 2002, Boston Teachers Union rally for the gubernatorial candidate Shannon O'Brien. Mayor Tom Menino spoke, followed by the candidate for lieutenant governor Chris Gabrieli, and then O'Brien herself. Clinton put a finger to his temple in a pose of interest. Clinton cupped his chin in his fist in a gesture of concentration. Clinton rubbed the back of his head for a heedful effect, ran a thumb down the line of his jaw to mime a thought provoked, and, in short, made use of every theatrical trope to indicate rapt attention while failing to look unbored. Clinton is reputed to be a man who doesn't sleep much, but there seemed every likelihood of his getting forty winks at the Boston Teachers Union Hall.