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The reason I'm going to miss Bill Clinton is that watching him these past eight years has given me the same unbridled, childlike joy as watching a cartoon. Clinton was our first cartoon president. He ran off cliffs, was crushed by anvils and flattened by turn-of-the-century trains. Yet moments later, we always saw him, just like Wile E. Coyote or Daffy Duck, completely reassembled and eagerly pursuing his next crazy scheme. Essentially, people love cartoon characters because they cannot be hurt. They defy the rules of Greek tragedy. Clinton, unlike Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson, was not undone by his flaws. Whenever the smoke cleared, Clinton remained standing, covered in soot and looking at us slightly chagrined. ... [T]he irony of Bill Clinton is that he may have felt our pain, but we didn't feel his. We just listened joyously for which funny sound he'd make as he bounced happily off the canyon floor.
-- Conan O'Brien ('What I'll Miss About Bill Clinton,'' in the 08 Jan 2001 "Time" magazine.)