ROCK STAR BILL LACKS HUMILITY IN DNC SPEECH FAREWELL FALLS SHORT ON MODESTY.

Byline: JANE ROBISON

THE lights dimmed. The music swelled. The excitement level rose inside Staples Center.

Necks strained to see the president emerge on stage, but the cheers were from delegates and admirers watching the prez walk down a long corridor by himself.

A rock star entrance for a ``Blue Suede Shoes'' president.

What a perfect message to send to supporters and the nation.

Bill Clinton did it all - balanced the budget, grew the economy, created 22 million new jobs, saved Social Security, ended the Cold War, invented the Internet, presided over world peace, stopped world hunger, left no child behind, put a laptop in the hands of every child in America going to college, sent every child in America to college, stopped crime, stopped hate, stopped hate crimes except those committed by Republicans against him, and was the real author of ``Red Badge of Courage.''

And he did all by himself, he did it his way. No one helped him out.

No one was at his side through thick and thin.

No one walked as far alone as Bill Clinton has in his 54 years upon this Earth.

Bill Clinton - the only person ever born in Hope.

But enough about Bill.

The president really came to praise Al Gore on Monday. Too bad he buried Gore in an avalanche of charisma and chutzpah.

Can Gore the Bore ever make voters forget about Wild Bill Clinton, the sexiest man in America? The bad, bad boy of American politics? The politician women love to love and Republicans love to hate? The Paul Bunyon of oratory?

The rebel without a cause left to conquer?

The only way Gore can emerge from Clinton's oversize shadow is if the vice president's new best friend, actor/director Rob Reiner, makes ``This Is Spinal Tap, The Clinton Tour.''

Clinton's victory tour around the country could use a little pinprick - like Reiner's psuedo-documentary that made fun of the pompous world of rockers - before the November election.

Granted, his speech was amazing to watch for its showmanship, substance and artful delivery.

But where was the humility? That part of the program when greats at their game, like retiring Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Steffi Graf and John Elway, all bowed their heads, overtaken by emotion, humbled by the knowledge that greatness is never achieved alone.

Clinton made the obligatory thanks to the country for letting him be president for eight years. But he couldn't overcome his cockiness at surviving all his selnflicted wounds to look genuinely humble.

That role falls to Al Gore, who does seem genuinely humble.

Too bad the country likes its presidents cocky and swaggering like rock stars.

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Photo:

President Clinton gives the thumbs up to the convention Monday. David J. Phillip/Associated Press