Captain Royale Ajit Wadekar

Raju Korti

In many ways the onset of 70s was responsible for the renaissance of Indian cricket. The man who brought about this resurgence was Ajit Wadekar who passed into eternity yesterday late night after a protracted illness.
Captaincy came to him in quite an unusual manner. In the clamor for change of guard, Wadekar pipped his predecessor Nawab of Pataudi to the post through the casting vote of then Chairman of Selectors Vijay Merchant.
There were quite a few eyebrows raised at the way he was elevated but Wadekar took the new responsibility with stoicism and composure. He was well aware that it was going to be baptism by fire since he was to lead the Indian side against the mighty West Indies led by the super mighty Gary Sobers.As expected a barrage of questions were thrown at him during his first press conference as the skipper. Asked how his team with a known weakness against the short-pitched stuff was going to face the prospect of negotiating Windies pace battery, an unruffled Wadekar said "good batsmen are never afraid of good bowlers." Wadekar was not letting off verbal steam. He made it happen through newbie Sunil Gavaskar who amassed 774 in his first series, veteran Dilip Sardesai making 642 runs at the fag end of his career and another rookie Eknath Solkar excelling in all departments of the game. Wadekar moulded the team into a fighting outfit as it unfolded later in that series.
Somewhat reticent, Wadekar opened up after I met him thrice at his residence. Unspooling memories of that epoch-making series, Wadekar recalled how there was a hushed silence in the West Indian dressing room when India asked the host team to follow on. "Winning was not on my mind then but there was enough gratification in asking them to follow on. Imagine asking West Indies to follow on with Sobers, Kanhai, Fredericks, Llyod in their team".
Wadekar led from the front and India won that series. That was no flash in the pan. Wadekar crowned himself with glory by winning the next series against the much stronger Englishmen who had the likes of Boycott, Edrich, Luckhurst and Illingworth. His main weapon was polio-affected Chandrashekhar, who if I remember correctly, was practically turning the ball at right angles at a pace that a traditional spinner rarely bowls. Wadekar brought in a revolution of sorts by throwing the ball at spinners to open the bowling with an occasional over to Solkar or Abid Ali merely as formality. That tactics worked wonders and the Englishmen didn't know what had hit them. Wadekar's popularity had reached such dizzy heights then that people believed he was Ajit (invincible) in the real sense of the word.
In 1972, Wadekar toyed with the Tony Lewis-led England team. Not only did he score heavily, he led the team exceptionally well. His record as a Test batsman belies the grandeur he brought on to the field. Stylish and elegant, his cover drives were sheer caresses and a sight for sore eyes. I think there were few fielders who were as good as he was in the slips. For someone whose body language was so languid Wadekar made slip catching look ridiculously easy. The only other slip catcher I can think of of that caliber at the time was Phil Sharpe of England.
He had this strange style of speaking through clenched teeth. So at times his team-mates did not quite get what he wanted to say. He remembered his contemporary, wicket-keeper Farrokh Engineer as a garrulous cricketer. "He would chat continuously behind the stumps and that would disturb me. At times I opted to field elsewhere just to escape his banter."
There was however other side to his serious personality that I discovered. Perhaps the only time he chuckled heartily was when he told me how in 1971 he had make a mickey out of English commentator Brian Johnston. "Brian was doing live on-field interviews for TV and as I got out and walked back to the pavilion, he came to me and asked me 'Wadders (as he called me while I called him Johnners) what went wrong?"
"Sorry Johnners, me no speak. I no give interview you." Brian's face turned red at this and the camera quickly panned on elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Later, I told him it was a leg pull returned in kind since Brian himself was notorious for pulling leg.
Wadekar chose not to mince words at his rather unceremonious retirement. After that whistewash in England during the 1974 series, the same people who idolized him sky high, blackened the bat the Indian cricket Board had erected in honor of his achievements. "It was sad. It was proof that public memory is short. After that ignominious series dubbed as Summer of 42, I realized it was time to go. (In the last of the three Test series, India capitulated with mere 42. The previous two tests were also lost by a huge margin.) There was another blot on the team of which he was part against the New Zealanders led by Graham Dowling in 1969. Pataudi was the captain them and in the Nagpur Test, almost the entire team took to the field in a sozzled state. Wadekar himself dropped a skier from Dowling and the entire crowd saw his hands shaking while trying to catch. He dropped it and there was a big boo from the crowd. "We were not as fiercely competitive those days. We played more for the fun of the game because the money was peanuts compared to what cricketers get today," he told me. This was the same Wadekar who also told me that cricket should be made professional in India like it is in England. No one took him seriously including the BCCI always flush with funds.

Wadekar, however, owed much more to the Indian cricket. As coach he instilled confidence in each player. His very presence commanded respect. The first time I met him was in Mahabaleshwar in 1988 where he had come with his family for an outing. "Aala ki mala phone kar aani bhet (Call me once you come back), he told me and kept his promise. We met three times after that and each time he got nostalgic after a couple of pegs. While helping himself, he would also insist I accompany him which of course, I never did.
As Probationary Officer with the State Bank of India, the Ruia College alumni went out of the way to get new accounts. He would personally accept application forms and gift them plastic bats with his signature on them. He was a huge draw.
Essentially a front foot player, my enduring memory of his is the way he just tapped the ball to the cover boundary and taking blinders in the slip before anyone realized he had caught the ball. That was the signature grace he left on Indian cricket. Tall and handsome, he truly epitomized handsome is what the handsome does.

Assam and its discord over NRC

Raju Korti
Looking back in time can be of great academic interest especially when they have their roots in the present. The much trumpeted Assam accord is another in the line of festering political issues that has traveled 33 years with no tangible result in sight. The country has a history of issues that have opened a bigger Pandora's box after they were believed to have been amicably resolved.

Rajiv Gandhi signing the Assam accord

On 14th August, 1985, I was Shift In-charge of Page One of the Indian Express. The air was thick with anticipation not for the customary and regulation speeches of the prime minister and the president but for the much awaited holiday from the routine skulduggery that journalists are condemned to every day. Even in that glee, all my colleagues with me were having an animated discussion about the possible accord that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was likely to sign with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) on the issue of illegal migrants infiltrating Assam. Hailed as a great visionary who held the promise of transforming the political ethos of the country, Rajiv was actually cornered by outfits to shoo out the infiltrators back to Bangladesh and Myanmar. The agitation was spearheaded by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta of Assam Gana Parishad , a 35 plus youth leader who became the chief minister on that plank.
The accord was signed the next day to a rousing welcome across all political parties, but some of us were not fooled given Congress' ecosystem of keeping sensitive political issues alive in public memory. The story was carried as a banner by the print media and it didn't occur to many to assess the ramifications of the agreement before letting their verdicts out. In all the glee, Kashmir, Punjab and Sri Lanka faded out of scene for a while.
The parties to the accord had agreed on 1st January 1966 as the cut off date for detecting and deleting foreigners coming to Assam from a "specified territory" (read Bangladesh and Myanmar) who had been staying in India without legal citizenship. The Assamese anguish stemmed from their rights being eaten up by the infiltrators. The Foreigners Act, 1946 was invoked to carry out the process which among other things sought to delete those whose names had made it to the electoral rolls.
For all the credit he got, Rajiv had actually carried forward Indira's style of handling internal conflicts like Kashmir, Khalistan and Tamils. Rajiv signed the accord but never chose to implement it. This was a no brainer in a country where political expediencies are guided by vote bank politics. His successors P V Narasinha Rao was too busy with his pet theme of liberalization and Manmohan Singh didn't have the gumption to defy the Gandhis. For reasons that are not far to seek, the Left-centric Congress never broached the issue with Bangladesh. The problem was compounded by the Assamese tribals who felt slighted because they were convinced they were the original inhabitants and didn't want to be even considered in the exercise.
On the gas for long, the issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) has now come to a boil. Mamata Banerjee is understandably peeved at losing a potential vote bank and is opposing tooth and nail. The perception that the NRC aims at driving Bengalis out is misplaced since there are also Assamese who do not figure in it. If the draft list is causing such heart-burn, one can only imagine what will happen when the NRC goes on the hammer. Little wonder, the threat of bloodshed and civil war.
What needs to be understood is these foreigners are stateless people who have no right to use the resources and opportunities that belong to the indigenous Assamese. The remarkable rise in the population of that state is testimony to the degree of infiltration. Very few countries are receptive to the idea of accepting refugees and illegal population for obvious reasons but India has a heart of gold. In 1971, India welcomed with open arms refugees from the strife-torn Bangladesh. There is no clear word how many went back and how many made India their permanent abode. The country was magnanimous enough to pay Refugee Tax for their sake.
There is also an issue beyond the NRC. Even if the population of Assam cuts to size, what happens to the filtered 20 lakh people. New Delhi should engage with Bangladesh government to ensure that Assam does not take a leaf out of Kashmir with illegal migrants becoming majority population. It suits Bangladesh to see their population dwindling when that country is grappling with problems of plenty.
The resource-deficit Assam does not have economies of scale to match and its extremely porous borders is adding insult to injury, but successive governments have never shown the spunk to tackle the problem head on. The country could well be sitting on another Nellie-type massacre.

Inside the mind of a bandh agitator

Pic for representational purpose.

Raju Korti
As I retraced my steps to back home this morning stymied by the agitators seeking reservation for the Marathas, I exercised my mind on what goes into the minds of agent provocateurs during a bandh.
A bandh and the violence that follows are not a new phenomenon in this country. They are forced on people who do not subscribe to it, whatever the justification.
This blog is not about bandh per se, nor is it meant to sit in judgement on the politics of bandh. Enough has been written about bandhs and the way they paralyze public life. That is discounting the loss to life and property. I have done a bit of research on the agitator's psychology and these are the highest common factors that emerge out of it.
The bandhs usually get going after 9 in the morning. That is because agitators prefer to treat themselves to a sumptuous brunch before they set out for their purported objective. Sloganeering, throwing stones, looting, violence and arson require energy. The agitators cannot do that on an empty stomach.
The agitator satiates his hunger on two other fronts. One, violence being an effective way of ventilating grievance and two, the free run to vandalize and loot. Both are facilitated by the absence of law and order machinery because it is hopelessly outclassed by the sheer number of hooligans. The Police know that discretion is better than valor and prefer to be bystanders. The uniform is just no match and deterrent to mob fury.
Bigger the city, better the scope for the agitator's to showcase their histrionics. There are innovative ways of playing the "Victim Card". Tonsuring heads, standing in knee-deep waters, carrying earthen pots on heads, throwing away essential supplies like milk and vegetables, cornering officials in their cabins and abusing whoever comes in their path are some of these. I am inclined to believe the agitators hold brain-storming sessions on coming out with off beat ideas in disruption.
It is not just about coercing people to shut shops and close schools and colleges. Morning time is the best to stop people from commuting. So first target trains, buses, autos and cabs. The names are as potent as they can get: Rail Roko, Raasta Roko, Bus Roko and what have you. Once office-goers and students are prevented with all means of rampaging, half the battle is won. The other half can be used to proclaim that it was a peaceful bandh.
If you wonder why life limps back to normalcy by 4 pm, that's a no-brainer. The purpose of the bandh has been met with. Inadvertent blessings come from people allowed the pleasure of a holiday. They cannot be faulted if the situation was forced on them. Most important, the agitators are tired after a hard day's work. They need to go home, rest and exult over a job well done. No fear of being caught or punished. Better still if you are supported by a political party. So don't call it bandh. Say "Show of Strength" instead. For an agitator, it is a win-win situation.
What the bandh pirates conveniently ignore is if people owe allegiance to their point of view, they (the people) will consensually abide by that call. For the bandh protagonist, the argument that extra-constitutional and illegal methods are necessary in democracy for pressure groups and political parties to achieve political rights stand no ground.
Ask any agitator and he will give you this skewed and specious argument about bandh being a spontaneous expression of protest based on the fundamental freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. That's fine but what about the  freedom and fundamental rights of the people who don't sign up to it?

Pakistan polls, another copy-paste story

Raju Korti
Elections and referendums in Pakistan are a watershed for traditionally wrong reasons. As India's estranged progeny goes to another election tomorrow, there are rising apprehensions whether power will be transferred from one civilian government to another. I say that because this is a freak scenario for the country in its 70 years of turbulent existence. Between and behind successive governments, the Army has played the ventriloquist with its proven flourish.
For a country with more than 200 million people, Pakistan continues to grapple with its animation in a land constantly trapped in war compass. Having sacrificed every bearing of national progress in a frenzy to acquire nuclear weapons out of its India-phobia, Pakistan seems mired in perennial confusion about safety at home or security from perceived external threats. There have been enough indications in the past that the country's incompatibility towards itself is much less than its antipathy towards the US and India.
The pro-democracy euphoria that precedes every election in Pakistan evaporates with suppression of information, maneuverings by the military and rise in religious fundamentalism. That is bizarre when you consider that it is a nation without any pluralism. I have been making out a case that Pakistan will get crushed under the weight of its own problems. The war drums that the country keeps beating periodically is a silly but time-tested rhetoric to divert its own attention from issues at home towards those that they claim from their perceived enemies. The killing of more than 150 civilians in the run up to tomorrow's elections is ample testimony.
Eking out a desperate subsistence from the mess it has created for itself in all these years, its politics has routinely toggled between elected governments and army dictatorships. It is not my case to tell you that none of the prime ministers has ever completed his or her tenure, but this time round the Army has bent backwards to nudge out the earlier party -- Nawaz Shari's Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and to pack its patriarch to political oblivion. For cricketer-turned politician and thrice married Imran Khan, it is now or never. Although his latest ex-wife has been using every possible brush to paint her husband as a compulsive philanderer, Khan's political fortunes have been rising steadily since he petitioned the country's supreme court to disqualify Sharif on corruption charges.
Some of the methods that Khan has used to promote himself are not exactly honorable even if you concede that politics is a game of scoundrels. He has been polarizing people with a poisoned-tongue campaign. In an earlier blog, I had written how Khan balances between religious dogma and liberal economy to pander to contrasting audiences. The Oxford-educated cricketer has transitioned from a compulsive playboy past when he partied with the likes of Mick Jagger to now denouncing the Westoxified Pakistani liberals. It is fairly evident that he has so far successfully manipulated the military in his ambitious quest to ascend the prime ministerial throne.
In political terms, Khan has a number of incentives to seek out shortcuts. The black out of supportive media and the defections engineered from PML with the help of the Army are a case in point. Sharif, who has had a roller coaster in Pakistan stands the risk of being eliminated the same way as some of his predecessors. Political turf in Pakistan was never prepared for fair matches.
It is amazing how hope springs up from the most desperate and hopeless situations in Pakistan. In all the manipulative politics, there seems to be a reasonable sense of optimism that the elections would serve as some kind of referendum on the most crucial issues facing the country. That optimism turns into a joke when you finger-count those crucial issues. Pakistan's economy faces the tricky predicament of which way it should be inclined: Western or Chinese. Will the so called democracy under Khan, presuming he become the PM, be robust enough to include or discard extremists, and can the military and the courts be trusted to be impartial and objective? Both have their pitfalls and the answers can be only guessed in a country where instability and conflagration are the only stable factors. So if Pakistan has served as a strategic base for the American forces in Afghanistan, it has also been an obstacle to the same troops  in secretly offering aid and safe harbor to militant groups like Taliban and Al Qaeda.
It would be naive to think that Pakistan's complications are just about regional security. They are more about misgovernance, corruption and environmental stress. The reluctant US ally has done little in curbing Afghan Taliban and other sundry militant groups. It may have turned to China for aid and support but it must realize this will happen with the Chinese extracting their pound of flesh. Already, Pakistan has debts that they look in no position to repay. And that makes both dangerous customers for India and US. All parties contesting the election have grandiose manifestos promising voters the moon but political bottom line is the running feud between PML and the Army. Sharif's future seems fairly predictable at this stage but Khan would be deluding himself that the field is clear for him. His problems will start when he is voted to power.
That Pakistan has always lent itself to status quo is loud and clear from its history. Either its politicians don't understand or love to play suicidal games.

Of hugs and winks

Raju Korti

If hug changes the metabolism of a person, I do not know what happened to Rahul Gandhi's when he walked up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give him one during the no-confidence motion on Friday. But for someone who should make it to the record books for hugging as a symbol of  international diplomacy, I am sure it did something to Modi, having been at the receiving end himself. Rahul took the craft to the next level by following it with a wink at his party men.
While that looked like running with the hare and hunting with the hound, I have always believed that a hugs and winks are double-edged weapons. Having lived in a city where people, especially youngsters, hug each other at the drop of a hat; whatever the provocation, I am inclined to believe that hugs and winks have been shafted in society and people either tend to under-estimate or over-estimate them. And that makes them dicey gestures because the chemical reaction that results from both can be unpredictable.
In my 62 years of nothing-to-rave-about existence, I have realized that for many, hugging is a mere figure of speech. People who claim to love being hugged are often found to squirm when they get one. Winking is even more unpredictable. It can invite a genuine chuckle or a tight slap. Since discretion is better part of valor, I prefer the old-fashioned "Namaste" which is as safe as it can get. That sense of wisdom dawned on me when I was barely 14. I had hugged my aunt and she gave me such a scandalized look that thereafter I never summoned the courage to hug even those of my own gender. The safest thing to do is to allow yourself to be hugged than taking the liberty of doing it yourself.
I have never winked at anyone even in jest. In my college days, I had once blinked because a pebble had hit my eye and a pretty young thing around thought I was winking at her. Mercifully, it just ended with the lady giving me a dirty look and walking away. Once bitten always shy. Since then, my world of winking has remained restricted to sleeping. I often wonder if people winked in real life as much as they do in text messages this world would be really a creepy place. But I am prepared to make concession for a hug being better than a message.
Rahul proved that peace is only available to those who want it, and only possible to those who will hug their enemy to enjoy it. Little wonder then that Modi was stumped by Rahul's googly and could respond with an embarrassed smile and a pat on the latter's back. The lesson for Modi here is hug others before they hug you and wrest a diplomatic initiative. To be fair to Modi, he has done well for himself with all those bear hugs. The winks should come for free. The debate about the propriety of what Rahul did in the august house therefore should become redundant.
With due apologies to my lyricist friend Amit Khanna's song from Dev Anand's 1978 film:
"Hug to har dum, khushiyan ya gham".
There was Raj Kapoor who made "Jaagte Raho" in 1956. Some day in future I propose to make "Hug-te Raho". If you think the word has been used in dirty sense, you have a soiled mind.

Some thoughts about the Trump-Kim summit

Raju Korti

The shape of the good byes to come?

While "neutral" Singapore hosts two of the most quixotic leaders of our times in what can be mildly described as facetious, the optimism exuded by US President Donald Trump and North Korean Kim Jong-un is a remarkable red herring.
That the high stakes one-on-one has been preceded by some tricky negotiations comes as no surprise. I am not too sure how the under-chandelier dinner Trump had with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong can contribute to the easing of stand off between the the two traditional foes.
Not just Trump and Kim, the world knows that entente is next to impossible. Both are not known to climb off their high horse.The issue of denuclearisation and security guarantee, and the measures to be taken by both the countries are in the realms of utopia given the insecurity they face from each other. A nuclear armament is both a safeguard and a threat depending on one's perception. There is little to be optimistic for both Trump and Kim since it is not clear -- at least at this stage -- whether the Americans can succeed in extracting a more comprehensive commitment to disarming than North Korea has already offered.
Note that the White House has chosen to speak the same couched Pyongyang language of "seeking complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula. The North Koreans are not fools to be taken in by those apparently pompous words. They know it as potentially requiring the US to scale back troop deployment there or to shrink its nuclear umbrella over two East Asian allies South Korea and Japan. Little wonder, the meet is so terse that Trump doesn't feel the need to stay around longer, although that is also being interpreted as the US dropping subtle hints of pressure on Kim. The fact is there is little for them to talk.
Make no mistake. Kim's move to announce moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and tear down some of the infrastructure related to those programmes may well turn out to be a hogwash. For those who think that this is a sign of goodwill, it must be told that this doesn't impact in any way the huge weapons complex the country has assembled in the last decades.
The American administration knows that debilitating Pyongyang's sprawling missile and nuclear arsenal will take one hell of an effort and years. There is simply no precedent in the history that any nation that has amassed such a huge stockpile of nukes has ever given it up. The logistics and economics just don't reconcile to the very idea of denuclearisation. Trump's avowed goal of a "verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation" is at best flimsy and fractured. The Americans got to live with North Korea's ability to target the US with nuclear weapons just as India has got to with Pakistan.
Any deal would most certainly call for inspection of nuke sites by international inspectors who may have to look at the herculean prospect of visiting an unspecified number if compliance is to be ensured. That is a tall order for any country with the honorable exception of Iraq. North Korea is a different league not just because of its dangerous acquisitions by an unpredictable and dangerous dictator but also because the country is so isolated from the rest of the mankind.
The Kim dispensation -- if it can be called that -- has relentlessly pursued its military goal to unleash a nuclear strike on US and its allies South Korea and Japan with an array of missiles and bombs. A series of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile programmes has had the Americans and its East Asian allies in jitters for, the threat perception is too high for even their capabilities.
The Americans would be making a cardinal error if they perceive the North Korean moratorium as a parameter of their optimism. Any attempt to legitimize the North Korean capability by accepting the status quo as a situation to proceed for normalization of relations, knowing the country's track record of pursuing nuclear weapons program, would be fatuous.
The only indication that Americans are aware of this reality is Trump booking his return ticket the same day.   

Some musings about Bill Clinton and MeToo

Raju Korti

The "other woman" in his life.

It has been 23 years since former US President first unzipped his pants in what many voyeuristically describe as Sexgate. It is not altogether surprising that former US President Bill Clinton has gone on the defensive about his affair with the then 21-year-old White House intern in the wake of the MeToo movement. Clinton, then 49, escaped charges of perjury and was almost impeached, leaving behind an outraged nation and a wife who made light of her mental bruises.
I have little doubt that Harold Robbins would have delighted to author the Clinton-Lewinsky affair given its lurid and pulpy trappings. Such was the heat generated by the scandal that in 1998 I recall it had become a chewing gum for even school-going children. I am not sure between Clinton and Lewinsky who was hounded more at the time but after seeing the pictures of the chubby-ish intern, a lot many people were envious with Clinton than being offended by his sexual misdemeanors that lasted three years.
Clinton initially was all bravado, denying sexual relations with Lewinsky but his bluff was called by Linda Tripp, the whistle-blower civil servant who tripped him with all those damning audiotapes. Finding that kind of publicity too hot to handle, Lewinsky largely kept to herself until she wrote the tell-all story. She is now believed to be an ardent votary of cyberbullying and how to make the internet more compassionate. While Clinton has chosen not to make much of that sordid past, Lewinsky's response has been a terse MeToo after Tripp chose to describe her as one lacking the moral compass. When her husband broke her confidence, wife Hillary did what even Indian women with utmost orthodox conditioning would not have done -- she went into an overdrive discrediting all the women who came forward and calling the intern a loony narcissist. Her argument that her marriage with Bill had seen more happy days than sad ones euphemistically meant that she had taken her husband's flings in her stride but the pain in her eyes said everything.
That Clinton used the perks of his political office to lure women was evident. He was also involved with Paula Jones, a state worker who unsuccessfully sued him but the intriguing part of this chapter was the American President paid her a huge amount of money in an out-of-court settlement but never apologized as he did with Lewinsky. The White House intern took his pants off in every sense.
As the editor-in-charge of the Indian Express that night, I recall my colleagues breathing down my neck to know more about the scandal that involved the world's most powerful man. Analyses and conjectures flew thick and fast as the story broke but the full implications started sinking in when our (then) Washington correspondent Chidanand Rajghatta (earlier the resident editor of Mumbai edition of the Indian Express) sent in a series of stories in what could be described as consolation for Harold Robbins. It was a cud irresistible to chew. As expected the discussion centered more on voyeuristic than the political implications the issue entailed. People in the newsroom seemed more envious than being scandalized.
Imagine if the Clinton-Lewinsky affair had taken place, say thirty years before. His infidelity may have squired out anyhow but the case would have ended up differently. There would have been no internet or blogosphere to keep the topic raging, no forensic team in place to conduct a DNA test, maybe Tripp would not have had the access to then relatively new idea of using voice recordings as evidence and Saturday Night Live hadn't got around to making comedy out of political events.
History made it sure that the Bill Clinton scandal was poised at the perfect confluence of moments for technology, science, the press and popular culture to build a case against a bluffing politician that would change national precedents forever.
There is nothing wrong in America that cannot be cured with is right in America, Bill Clinton once said. Unwittingly, he became its own mascot.