Like the proverbial bad penny, Bill Clinton just keeps turning up. I want him to go away and let us alone for awhile. But the combination of his unfailing ability to walk a tightrope between legal and illegal activities and his monumental ego need for the spotlight seems to make this an impossiBILLity. This last fiasco with the Marc Rich pardon seems to have at least reduced the number of Clinton apologists, but there are still far too many willing to step up to the plate for this man who thinks no rules apply to him. My biggest bafflement is with the black community, whose unflagging loyalty to this consummate con artist is simply beyond my comprehension. Will some of our black friends in the Delta please write in and try to explain to me why they still love him so? The very people who fought so hard to have the United States impose an embargo on South Africa when it was struggling to break the bonds of apartheid, now are holding out welcoming arms to the man who pardoned one who flagrantly broke this embargo for personal material gain. The very people who argue eloquently that many of their brothers are in prison because our legal system is skewed toward those who can "buy" justice (or the flagrant abuse thereof), now are praising the man as "one of us" who pardoned a man who not only could afford to flee in obscene luxury, but renounced his American citizenship. (This brings up another question entirely. How can the American President pardon a non-citizen? But that is another matter). The very people who have hundreds, possibly thousands, of their own languishing in prison on relatively minor drug offenses Ñfor reasons simply beyond my comprehensionÑare simply not turning a hair over the pardon of a major cocaine dealer whose father happens to be a big contributor to the Clintons. Instead of the righteous indignation, the sense of betrayal, the realization that they have been duped by the best "duper" in the history of American politics, these very people are prepared to once again help Bill Clinton "save face" by declaring him the Harlem Hero. P.T. Barnum made several fortunes by his consummate understanding of his stated opinion that "There's a sucker born every minute." We have seen Bill Clinton take this manipulation to its stratospheric extremes. The feminists loved him while he was literally jabbing them in the eye with behavior that women had fought against in the workforce for two generations. People in politics, business, and the man on the street lost their personal integrity in their attempts to justify an unjustifiable man because they "liked his message." What has happened to the mindset of Americans? Have we sat in front of television and computer screens until our brains are as green as those spots that we see when we finally glance away from the screen? Can we no longer discern the difference between a pleasing demeanor and the man behind it? When I was a child, my mother was trying to define the word "charm" to me. She finally gave up and said, "Charm is that characteristic that if you have it, you don't need anything else, and if you don't have it, nothing else matters." I've never forgotten that. Yes, Bill Clinton has charm but not to me. He never has had. I've had too many experiences with charming cads to be hoodwinked, but I could see that he had it for hundreds of millions of others. Is it really true what Mama said, that nothing else matters? Obviously a lot of people think so. I think a lot of other things matter, and I want to know from people why, in Bill Clinton's case, nothing else matters to them Someone please explain this to me. DBJ