Bill Clinton’s coup in negotiating the freedom of the young journalists
captured in North Korea reminds how much I admire the man. I always have. He’s
a statesman. Some people respond to that with: “I don’t care. He cheated on his
wife.” Well, yeah, but Gandhi repeatedly subjected his wife to the bouts of
celibacy he attempted to impose on himself and when he couldn’t do it any
longer, he’d be back, expecting her to be “in the mood.” But nobody ever faults
the Mahatma’s shortcomings in the bedroom as a reason to denigrate his
accomplishments as a leader.

The point is: Bill Clinton knows how to communicate with
people – not a chosen few, just about anybody. During his administration, my
friends Linda and Allison went with their 90-year-old mother, Ruth, to a White
House celebration for the visiting President of Hungary. Ruth fainted during
the very hot outdoor ceremony. She was whisked into to the White House equivalent
of “the nurse’s office,” revived, and was resting when President Clinton came
in to see how she was. His charm was off the charts. A bit of his conversation with
her was actually in Hungarian, her parents’ native language. And he didn’t just
stop in for some kind of photo op: he stayed until it was obvious that she was
fine could walk out on her own steam. When he left, Ruth told her daughters:
“It’s no wonder women want to sleep with him.”

And in the past few days we’ve saw what his astute communication skills can
accomplish. When I read that Mr. Clinton had once sent Kim Jong-il a note of condolence
on the death of his father, and that that may well have been one reason that Kim agreed to
let the young women go, my heart skipped a beat. One thoughtfulness, one single
thoughtfulness from the past, was a key to freedom for these two women.

What I read about the Korean dictator is that he is evil. The word “madman” is often used to describe him, and mad he may
well be. Even so: a kindness that stretched across seas and ideologies touched
him and was remembered.

How different would the world be if the diplomatic policies
of all nations were based on genuine diplomacy, which has its roots in
understanding. How different would our individual lives be if we practiced
enlightened courtesy every day in every situation: a condolences letter to
someone we know and don’t even have to like; making time in our day when
someone needs us, even if they can be annoying or cloying or boring; trusting
that when we empathize with another person, no matter who he is, we’re
expressing both our humanity and our divinity.