“I was born in a little town called Hope, Arkansas… I remember that old two-storey house where I lived with my grandparents.” So begins the voiceover for an ad for Bill Clinton’s campaign for the presidency in 1992. Although the advert only lasts for exactly a minute, Clinton packs in the death of a parent, meeting JFK as a teenager, his ascent to law school, and his return to Arkansas as a politician. The camera cuts from clips of his house, the Capitol and his career back to Bill in his armchair, all starry-eyed and folksy. “Now it’s exhilarating to me to think that as President,” he concludes, “I could help to change all our people’s lives for the better and bring hope back to the American dream.”
Expect a far harsher Israeli response to Iran than in April
Tehran will be thinking through how far it wants to take this, even as the ground moves beneath its feet.