It was July 1988, and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton suddenly found himself the laughingstock of the country.

Respected in gubernatorial circles but not really known on the national stage, he landed the sweet, career-enhancing opportunity of making the nominating speech for fellow Gov. Michael Dukakis (Mass.) at the Democratic convention in Atlanta. But things didn’t work out quite the way Clinton expected.

He rambled on and on into the Atlanta night, and a speech that once promised to be a career-propelling rocket highlighting his brilliance and eloquence became instead a dud and transformed Clinton into a national punch line.

I expect the ambitious Southern speechifier realized he had a problem that night when the crowd erupted in applause after he started a sentence with the words “In conclusion.”

By the next morning, the Boy Wonder who everyone said had nowhere to go but up suddenly found his trajectory going the opposite direction. He became the butt of jokes from coast to coast — no small feat given that this was before YouTube, text messaging, cell phones and the Internet itself.

I have been thinking of that speech a lot lately because of the kerfuffle over Sarah Palin’s wardrobe and her knowledge of world geography. In case you have been in a padded room, curled up in the fetal position and slobbering over your recent 401(k) statements, Palin has been everywhere lately.

Apparently happy to have shaken off the restrictive shackles of her McCain handlers, Palin has been bonding with Greta Van Susteren on Fox, Matt Lauer on “The Today Show,” and late last week was a bona fide center ring attraction when the Republican governors met in Miami.

The Alaskan governor has been doing so much reconstructive media nipping and tucking, I wouldn’t be shocked to see her in a spring TV spin-off called “Dancing with the Political Stars.”

There is no small amount of controversy surrounding Palin, with reports having an unnamed McCain operative labeling her a “whack job.” History will sort out whether that description fits, but I suspect the governor just might be a little crazy — crazy like a fox, crazy like Bill Clinton was crazy following that disastrous documentary-length nominating speech.

One week after that career-ender in Atlanta, Clinton decided it was time to do something bold, even risky. He agreed to appear on my generation’s equivalent of YouTube — “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” Carson, the quintessential late-night host who paved the way for Leno, Letterman, Stewart, Colbert and all the rest, was the place to go if you needed national absolution.

But before Clinton got his blessed shot at redemption on the Thursday night show, just one week after his convention speech freefall, Carson decided to dish out just a bit more penance.

He mocked Clinton by taking nearly four full minutes to introduce him to the late-night audience.

In the end, Clinton not only took it head-on but also won Carson over, and even got to play his saxophone. Four years before the sunglassed and quite cool Bill Clinton played his sax on “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 1992, he was playing the blues and paying his dues on Carson.

Watching that 1988 face-the-music appearance, I distinctly remember thinking, “This guy is going to be president someday.”

Not only did Clinton become president, he knocked off an incumbent who owned a 90 percent approval rating just one year before the election.

Given the once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon of a Barack Obama, only a certified fool would predict anything right now about 2012, or even the viability of a successful re-introduction on the national stage of Sarah Palin. But, whether she simply has a new set of handlers or is just tapping into an instinct that earned her the governorship of an important state, Palin is demonstrating that she may well have another act in her.

It is an act first choreographed and performed by another obscure governor who got plopped onto the national stage and proceeded to have his reputation mangled.

That national joke went on to become a two-term president with a well-stocked presidential library in Little Rock. I sure hope the curator down there has that July 1988 Clinton appearance on Johnny Carson playing continually on a prominently displayed, oversized flat-screen where everyone can see it. Without that first successful “comeback” appearance on Carson, Bill Clinton probably would never have become president.

You can reach Jim Mills at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it