Who Were These People Waiting for Bill Clinton?

Never do anything impromptu whenever the Secret Service is involved. I learned that lesson when I decided at the last minute to cover President Clinton's book signing yesterday at the Barnes & Noble at Rockefeller Center. After I'd been waiting for over an hour on the press line, a bookstore employee came by checking press credentials against a special security list and since I wasn't on it, I was told I would not be allowed inside. No matter, I had no interest on being inside the store during the signing. I just wanted to get out of the pouring rain, which started around 11 a.m. The lines of fans waiting to have their favorite president sign his book for them had started forming the day before and many did not have umbrellas and were getting soaked. They were the ones I was interested in anyway. I can't recall this much interest in a book signing. The press was out in full force, as were the local TV news broadcasters. Gabe Pressman was asking a store employee why the press was being kept outside. A police officer told me the store had given out 1,500 wristbands to the book lovers and he wasn't sure if they were allowing anyone else on line. I caught Billy Bush, a co-anchor of Access Hollywood, interviewing someone who had received the last wristband. After he and the cameras had left, I still saw people getting on the line. Who were these people, I wondered? Were they Clinton lovers or Bush haters? I heard one Michael Moore look-alike being interviewed by a reporter. He was saying that Mr. Clinton seemed like a nice guy and we had eight good years under him. Then he said, "Our current president is a fascist." I had learned that Mr. Clinton would be entering the store on the 48th Street side, so I went there and stood under a canopy, eavesdropping on the waiting crowd. A young blonde woman was singing words to an old Marilyn McCoo song, "Bill, I love you still, I always will." One tall, balding man who never changed his expression told another that he was just waiting to sell the autographed book on eBay. He was lying. He was at the beginning of the line and people had been waiting there since dawn. No one in their right mind would do that unless they had a better motivation than an auction. He was a Clinton fan. Finally, after 1 p.m., two black SUV's pulled to the curb, a cheer went up from the crowd, and I glimpsed Mr. Clinton waving his hand in greeting. Within a matter of seconds, he was safely inside. The rain had stopped and I left his adoring public drying out in the slow-moving lines. Bill Clinton has an office in Harlem and is no stranger to New Yorkers, so why the heavy crowds? Is it the book? Can that many people be interested in learning the details about the Lewinsky affair? The book has received blistering reviews, with the worst charge being that it is dreadfully dull. I have never been much of a fan of the ex-president, but I must say he is a brilliant strategist. He has managed to change his impeachment trial into a valiant fight against the evil Ken Starr. When he insisted on being videotaped instead of going to the closed-door jury room, he knew that whenever anyone viewed this tape, they would think, "This is too much. This is all about sex." In his book, he reveals only what he wants to reveal but apparently not enough of what I want to know because what Mr. Clinton's impeachment always reminded me of was Al Capone. The feds finally nabbed him on income tax evasion because they never could get him on the hard stuff. The so-called vast right wing conspirators weren't interested in Mr. Clinton's sordid fumblings as much as they were worried about Chinagate. Is Johnny Huang mentioned in this memoir? Does Clinton explain why he was given top-secret clearance without a background check? After receiving classified briefings from the CIA on satellite encryption technology, Mr. Huang regularly sent packages to China and visited the Chinese Embassy. Does Mr. Clinton explain why the DNC received soft money from the communist Chinese government? How about Charlie Trie escorting several top Chinese officials into the White House? Why did Clinton make significant changes in government regulations applying to the sale of supercomputers to China and India without monitoring their usage? The Clinton administration released highly sensitive encryption technology that gave China the capability of decoding our spy transmissions. Thanks to the Clinton administration, most of China's ICBMs have the technology to reach America. Is that explained in his book? If not, then I'm not interested in reading the hefty 957-page hardcover book. Surprisingly, I wasn't the only observer unimpressed with the new author. Toni Rachiele of the Free Republic Network was walking back and forth with a hilarious sign offering the full book package: My Life by Bill Clinton, The Communist Manifesto, and Pinnochio.