Clintons join pimps in the old routines

Life isn't quite back to normal in the Big Apple. But New York correspondent ROGER FRANKLIN finds reassurance that politicians and hookers are doing what they have always done.

Almost three weeks ago, while what was left of the World Trade Center smouldered, people who don't really know New York were inclined to the view that this city could never be the same again. They are still saying it, those columnists and commentators who take comfort in cliches, but in the meantime, daily existence for the rest of us has regained much of its former routine.

Office buildings have reopened, albeit with squads of minimum-wage security guards pawing through purses and packages in the lobbies of the larger ones.

Wall Street's players are again placing their bets, although these days they are wagering on the anxious propositions of a declining market. Even the sirens, which are seldom quiet on this accident-prone island, have fallen into an irregular silence - a welcome change from the sustained crescendo of shrieks and screams that was the soundtrack to those first few terrible days.

True, life isn't normal. Like the gaping holes in the downtown skyline, lampposts all over town remain plastered with the fading, hopeless pictures of the thousands still missing - reminders of how much, and how many, the Apple has lost. But in little and reassuring ways, like small green shoots peeking through the cold soot of a bush fire that has come and gone, certain things are returning to their old selves.

From Washington, now that politicians are done with singing the Star Spangled Banner on the Capitol steps, we hear the same old cries being taken up again. Even when they defy logic, there is comfort in them. Take Attorney-General John Ashcroft, for example, who has become a daily fixture at the witness tables in congressional hearing rooms, where he is demanding the right to deport suspect aliens, bug more phones and issue identity cards to one and all.

None of those measures would have done anything to stop the band of hijackers who wrought this misery, but no matter: it is a politician's job to posture and Ashcroft has embraced that task with reassuring passion. The last time such ideas were proposed, they came from the Clinton White House and were roundly rejected. Now - change partners, please - it is the Republicans' turn to lead the assault on individual privacy and civil liberties. American politics, though still subdued, is returning to normal.

At a local level, Al Sharpton has been making persistent efforts to reclaim his share of the spotlight, again promoting his preposterous bid to run for the presidency in 2004. Like him or not, you have to give the rotund reverend credit for not allowing a tragedy to steal his thunder. So, too, the Rev Jesse Jackson, who was last week attempting to arrange an emergency "peace mission" to Kabul, where he proposed to extend the hand of friendship and understanding to the Taleban. When O. J. Simpson's Harvard lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, agrees to defend Osama bin Laden, all the usual suspects will have resumed their rightful places on the public stage.

On TV, talk-show producers are once again finding critics of US foreign policy to take the opposing seats on the nightly celebrations of shouting.

And whenever ratings need another boost, at those moments when simple screaming doesn't satisfy, the stations can always rebroadcast their clips of the Twin Towers. Nothing improves ratings like an outrage against humanity, particularly when it is repeated in slow-mo.

And then there are the Clintons, always the Clintons.

Late last week, for example, as Mayor Giuliani led a tour party of reporters and Washington politicians to Ground Zero, former President Bill materialised in full lip-biting mode, hijacked the party and talked about his own triumphs over international terror. After 10 minutes, when Giuliani's apoplectic press secretary began screaming that no more questions would be allowed, Clinton slipped back into his limo and returned to his Harlem roost. His parting words were a promise to return and do whatever he could to help.

By that stage, wife Hillary was ready for her own close-up - as was their daughter, Chelsea, whose survival appears to have been nothing short of a miracle. At least that was the way New York's newly elected senator described it to the press, explaining that her child had been planning to jog in the area when the planes struck home.

"She was going to go around the towers," Hillary said. "She went to get a cup of coffee and that's when the plane hit.

"Bill was in Australia and he was so upset by what he was seeing on television that I didn't want to tell him that I couldn't find her until I found her. I told him, 'everything's fine, don't worry'."

Seasoned New Yorkers could not help but raise a sceptical eyebrow. Nobody in their right mind would even consider jogging in the twisted, crowded streets of lower Manhattan at rush hour, not when there are two riverside parks no more than a few minutes away. And why couldn't Chelsea be found? As the child of a former President, she goes nowhere without a Secret Service detail to keep her safe from harm. Did the G-men neglect to bring their mobile phones?

Be that as it may, the world can count on a full explanation when Chelsea pens her harrowing recollections of the disaster for an upcoming issue of Talk, the magazine edited by Tina Brown, her mother's particular friend.

Even criminals and crackheads are doing their part to get New York back to the way it was. In the first week after the attacks, the crime rate plunged by better than 30 per cent (if you don't count 7000-odd murders, that is).

Last week, it was down by only half that amount as muggers, hookers and car thieves returned to the streets.

That's the thing about New York. From Bill Clinton to the West Side's pimps, everyone is pulling their weight.

Full coverage: Terror in America

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The fatal flights

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