For all we know, four or eight years from now, his vanity may decree that the country yearns for him yet again. Nothing so perfectly captures the man as the interview he gave to Esquire magazine, scheduled for publication in mid-November but leaked in late October. His facial expression is an unflattering mixture of preening and leering. Altogether, it is a picture of a man in full. And what he is mostly full of is himself.
Narcissism here acquires a whole new dimension.
The unkindest cut of all is that his enemies have yet to apologize to him. This from a man who disgraced his family, dishonored his office, lied under oath, and became the second president in history to be impeached by the House. Yet for all his narcissistic bravado, there lurks beneath the surface of his words a gnawing fear that the people and, eventually, the historians may not see it his way. Whether history will bestow its absolution so easily is another question, which is why we can expect endless self-justifications from him in the future. On the foreign front, it is at best a thing of shreds and patches, mostly showy gestures, utterly lacking in theme, with little in the way of tangible success.