Give me two reasons.

• Author: Jordan, June
• Position: To continue supporting Bill Clinton - Column

Dear Bill Clinton:

If you think about what can happen in less than thirty seconds, then a year seems like a real long time. That's about as long as you've been holding title to more power than any other individual on the planet. I know you're a man and not a natural resource or a natural disaster. But you're President of these United States, and that should mean something about safety for those of us who put you in the Oval Office.

Whether earthquake or fire or hurricane or corporate "downsizing" or juries arriving at idiot-incendiary conclusions or affluent and fanatical hatemongers standing tall, the big guy in the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue is supposed to protect us, the people, from harm or, failing that, deliver us from desperation. You're the big guy. That's your job. That's what national security requires: our domestic safety from harm and desperation.

If I remember correctly, most women who voted cast their ballots for you, as did most elderly Americans, most young Americans, most African-Americans, most Mexican-Americans, most Asian-Americans, most Chicanos, and most gay and lesbian Americans. Our de facto coalition of choice gave you the major-league boost you needed to move out of Little Rock, Arkansas. And so, the way I see things, you owe us, the new majority of American citizens, a whole lot - as a matter of reciprocity, if nothing else.

Can you give me two reasons why any one of the original Clinton supporters should vote for you again? Or even speak to you? Can you give me two reasons why I should not call you Spineless Sam or confuse you with George Bush?

Given your track record of equivocation, cowardice, and retreat on one hand, plus active humiliation, appeasement, betrayal, and blustery inertia on the other, why should we - folks who celebrated November 3, 1992 - believe anything good can come of you, except, perhaps, by accident?

Your failure begins and continues with your willing coexistence with genocide: Your refusal to stop so-called ethnic cleansing and the concomitant mass rape of Muslim women in Bosnia.

Then there are your broken promises - to the Haitian refugees, to pro-choice Americans, to gay and lesbian Americans, and to city dwellers ("inner" or "outer" be damned).

Then there is your eating of the defeat of your anyway heavily diluted proposal for jobs.

There is your silence on American poverty except to blame the victims of Federal and state neglect and abandonment.

There is your acquiescence to...