The Comeback Kid Comes Back

Commentary By CBS News Senior Political Editor Dotty Lynch

(CBS)  In her latest Political Points commentary, CBS News Senior Political Editor Dotty Lynch covers Bill Clinton's return to Washington.

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"Not only that, we grow the biggest watermelons in the world."

Those were the first words Hillary Rodham heard Bill Clinton speak at Yale Law School in 1970. And that same tone of wonder, excitement and braggadocio were in his voice Thursday in his first speech in Washington since the long goodbye in January.

"I'm so excited about the future that I'd almost be willing to give up my presidency to get a chance to live to see what's going to happen," said Mr. Clinton. He went on to talk about technology's ability to find cancer cells so early that "the whole idea of cancer will probably go away," and digital chips which could be inserted to disabled people's spines like heart pacemakers which will enable them "to just get up and walk."

Mr. Clinton was supposed to address the luncheon crowd of media executives and students attending a conference on "Race and the Press" by Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center, but his remarks went far afield. They were an amalgam of his accomplishments on race relations, the downside and promise of globalization, and the good work of an AIDS clinic "in my neighborhood in Harlem." He rambled a bit, but the optimism, complexity and calculation were all still there.

"I'm glad, I think, to be back," he began. He looked slimmer and more rested, and seemed determined not to make any news as he dipped a toe back into the Washington cesspool. Brother Roger is the most recent Clinton to be investigated by Rep. Dan Burton and the former president sidestepped the inevitable questions. After the speech he went to lunch with Steven Spielberg and then to a DNC Gala where he received a big ovation and upstaged the original guest of honor, Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Burned by the tidal wave of venom that followed the Marc Rich pardon, Mr. Clinton went underground from Washington and the news media. However, he has been extremely active over the last five months. In conjunction with a series of $100,000-plus speeches (which could earn him about $4 million this year), he has done a significant amount of traveling, spending as many as 25 days a month on the road. The groups have ranged from the Hotel Owners Association in Atlantic City to a literary festival in east Wales, with the most lucrative gigs apparently being outside the U.S. And while some snooty Westchester clubs have resisted his membership, he has played golf everywhere else, including St. Andrews in Scotland and Ballybunion in Ireland.

His office is eager, however, to stress the trips he made in April and May as illustrative of his real priorities. They include visits to India to raise money for earthquake victims, to South Africa to address a Civil Society conference with Nelson Mandela and to Nigeria to put the spotlight on AIDS. In May he opened the Rothermere Institte of Politics at Oxford (which will work with the Clinton Foundation down the road) and took a trip through Northern Ireland to help stimulate the peace process.

An outline of a plan for his future is starting to emerge. He plans to move into the $354,000 a year office in Harlem at the end of July and there are discussions among his kitchen cabinet about doing an interview to "get the pardon issue" behind him. His paid staff is tiny – about five people now, including a chief of staff and press secretary. The yearly budget from the government for staff is only $150,000, thus Mr. Clinton and his foundation will have to pay the lion's share of the salaries. The presidential library in Little Rock is almost back on track and they hope to raise a whopping $200 million in private funds for the library and its programs. City Year, an offshoot of AmeriCorps, is one of his pet projects and this fall it will sponsor and train international fellows in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and the Balkans.

Mr. Clinton hopes to have a book deal set "sometime in the next few months" according to his agent Bob Barnett. Barnett said there are a "multitude of offers, both foreign and domestic," and claims no publisher has asked whether the book will go into the former president's personal life. They just want a book that is "full, fascinating and candid," said Barnett, who would not comment on the price. Others have reported that they expect him to get even more than the $8 million advance that Hillary landed.

The tabloids have been screaming that the marriage is kaput and that Hillary "has thrown him out." But Clinton press secretary Julia Payne says he has gotten a big kick out of being a Senate spouse and even subbed for Hillary in Rochester this spring when she was running late for an event. They attended the graduation of daughter Chelsea from Stanford in June and presented the cup to the winner of the Belmont Stakes.

Betsey Wright, a former Clinton aide, once said that Bill Clinton and his mother "shared a unique ability to view the world with rose-colored glasses and wake up each day as if it's a brand new world." Listening to him Thursday as he started to weave the highlights of his past into some big ideas and excitement for the future, it seemed like he was starting to convince himself that his second act could be even more interesting than the first.