Sunday Discussion Group

July 23, 2006

Matt Stoller noted the other day that [tag]Bill Clinton[/tag], like most of the Dem establishment, has agreed to campaign on Joe Lieberman’s behalf. (It’s also worth remembering, however, that the former president has also said he’d support the winner of the Dem primary, whether it’s Lieberman or not). But Stoller added an interesting observation:

Clinton is a loveable character in [tag]Democratic[/tag] [tag]politics[/tag], like Barack Obama. He’s perceived as a winner, as a good President, and as a strong Democrat who set a good tone for the party and the country. The Democratic party in DC largely grew around his personality and politics, and since no other leadership center has really arisen, Clintonian candidate-centric politics still looms large.

I’m not surprised or even disappointed that Bill Clinton is out for Lieberman. He was an exceptional politician, but he’s also part of the past.

It got me thinking: as far as the [tag]Democratic Party[/tag] and its activists are concerned, what is the Clinton legacy?

In the interests of full disclosure, I’m not exactly neutral on the question. I am now, and have always been, a Clinton supporter. I campaigned for him; I interned in his White House; and I remain an admirer. But the Discussion Group isn’t necessarily about what I think.

At the risk of oversimplifying things a bit, there are two Democratic camps when it comes to how (or whether) the party should venerate the former [tag]president[/tag].

One side says Clinton was not a genuine champion of progressive causes; his “triangulating” ended up hurting the party; he was impeached; and Dems were weaker when he left office than when he started. This side believes it’s probably best to leave his presidency in the past.

The other side says Clinton was a popular and successful president; his policies produced peace and prosperity; and his unique political skills, which helped him win 10 now-red states in ’96, should be emulated as often as possible. Besides, they say, Clinton is probably the most popular person on earth right now, and he looks even better in hindsight thanks to his successor’s embarrassing failures.

So, how should Democrats consider Clinton now? Should Dems canonize Clinton the way Republicans honor Reagan?

Should Dems canonize Clinton the way Republicans honor Reagan?

I may post latter in more depth on the first question, but to this one the answer a resolute and absolute NO!. We should let history be the judge. Politics ain’t religion we don’t need officially recognized saints.

  • I would think that future Dems would be marginalized by speaking of Clinton with the same sort of giddy admiration that today’s Republicans display for Reagan.
    I do believe it’s a simple fact that Clinton’s presidency was highly successful, in spite of the right’s pursuit of the trivial problems he brought to the office. But, at least for me, when I debate a Republican who holds Reagan to be a saint, I find myself discounting everything coming from his/her mouth.
    Clinton will be remembered as a great president by some and a dirty blue dress by others. To cannonize him publicly will either be preaching to the choir or to the deaf.

  • “So, how should Democrats consider Clinton now?”

    As proof that the Republican’ts are an entirely negative force.

    Clinton came into office as a DLC democrat. Other than Hillary trying to rationalize Health Care in this country, Clinton ruled through triangulation, especially after 1994, and in doing so ‘solved’ many of the problems that the Republican’ts used to run against. Not that the Republican’ts tried to solve, just that they ran against. In doing so, he cut the policy ground out from under their feet. They were left with only three policy positions to work from: 1) a disdain for governance, 2) a hatred of taxes, and 3) a mismash of ‘values’ policies that sometimes even conflict with each other.

    In 2000, the Republican’ts couldn’t collect a majority of Americans to support them, but they could motivate members of their party to believe that they had to do anything, anything at all, to stop the Democratic machine. And with Job Bush and Kathleen Harris in charge in Florida, between illegally detaining black voters and producing deceptive butterfly ballots, then litigating the recount all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision that “was to have no precedence setting value”, they got Boy George II into office.

    And it’s all been downhill since, and mostly because the Republican’ts still stand on the policy grounds that Clinton left them, disdain of governance, hatred of taxation, and ‘values’ implementation which attempt to undercut a 200 year constitutional order.

    Clinton and Gore were (are) policy wonks. After six years of Bushite “we don’t do policy” governance, America is beginning to miss the wonks. America may ask the nerds to do their history homework for them, but they still stuff the nerds into lockers at the first opportunity. 1992 we asked for help on our history homework, in 2000, we stuffed them back into the locker. Is 2008 starting to look like we need help on our history again?

    Progressives get it wrong when they blame Clinton for our years out of power. The Progressive wing of the Democratic party has to stop worrying about winning primaries and caucases and focus on winning back America. We have all the righteous, Christian positions on issues; helping the poor, caring for the orphans, visiting the widows. Whey you ask WPWJB (what party would Jesus be), the answer is Democrat. We just have to make that case.

    As well as the case that Frat Boys should not get to run things over Policy Wonks. America should be won over from ‘Animal House’ to ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ 😉

  • When Reagan was president, I was a registered Republican. I remember Reagan as a great president for his first 2-3 years, a good president for the next 2, and I think he slept through the last 3 years.

    Regarding politics, Republicans today have two religions – Christianity and Republican. They seem to literally worship their leaders. That worship means that anything they hear that doesn’t fit their notion of “truth” is just biased information. Therefore, they can argue that Clinton ruined the economy so that Bush had to fix it while ignoring that the exact same logic must apply to Reagan and Bush Sr. and the much bigger recession that he faced.

    I don’t want to see the Dems fall into that stupidity.

    History will be on Clinton’s side. The historians will be looking at the big picture, and the trivia of a “blue dress” will be presented in the proper light – blown out of proportion by hate-mongers who wanted the reigns of power on their side, and would do anything to get there!

  • Responding to Lance, Republicans also retained control of the national security issue, as Clinton was never able to project himself as the decisive leader and pursuer of true United States military interests (especially when you add in the massive cutbacks to the military in the 1990s). That may not have factored much in the 2000 election, but its had a lot to do with W’s reelection in 2004.

    In terms of the Lieberman-Lamont race, however, I think the most important facet of Clinton’s legacy is the relative strength and effectiveness of the Democratic Party, top to bottom, after his Presidency. As we have found out, there are places where the party is incredibly weak, especially in traditionally “red” states, and that has contributed directly to Republican electoral success. Clinton seems to have pursued a ‘national’ strategy, of which triangulation of traditionally-Republican issues was only a part. Clinton also raised most of his money by courting big donors, while neglecting the infrastructure of the party.

    That’s why I tend to agree with Eric Faulkner above about the dangers of canonizing Clinton. Especially compared to W., he was a more than adequate President, especially because he proved to be effective operating in a hostile political climate. But FDR he was not. If your goal is moderate policies and/or national appeal Clinton’s policies may prove to be an effective model. However, if not combined with something like Dean’s plan for rebuilding the party, then we continue to weaken the party at our own peril.

    (As a final caveat, let me suggest that Clinton’s triangulation policy also contributed to moving the Republican party farther to the right, and thus contributing to the current political climate. Perhaps you can’t “blame” Clinton for this development, but remember that the weak national party and cadre of political strategists he left behind couldn’t defeat an incumbent whose domestic and international agendas and policies increasingly looked mismanaged and ill-conceived even to sympathetic voters. Even with this, the Democrats barely lost that election. And it is my belief that we did more to lose it than Bush and the GOP did to win it, as evidenced by Bush’s total lack of political capital within months of the election.)

  • There are hints, particularly from academic historians and political analysts, that the Blessed Reagan’s halo is becoming somewhat tarnished and moth-eaten. He “faced” a Soviet Union which demographers had predicted years before was about to come apart (due to below replacement birth rates in the non-Moslem part and explosive rates among the USSR’s Moslems). He bankrupted them through recklessly indebting the US. He began the kind of “voodoo economics” which has come back to bite us in our children and grandchildren’s butt. Reagan began trashing college education. He thoroughly trashed Johnson’s “War on Poverty”. Having wasted hundreds of Marines through inadequate defenses in Lebanon, Reagan “conquered” (can anyone remember?) Grenada. Reagan went behind the State Department’s back in arranging the Iran hostage release to embarrass Carter. Reagan gave credence to snake-handling nuts who hadn’t been listened to outside of Elmer Gantry country. There’s more; suffice to say that Reagan presaged everything wrong that we are now doing.

    I worked for Clinton’s election. My lapel pin said “Elect Hillary’s Husband”. I wasn’t aware of his “triangulating” then … just the opposite: he promised repeatedly in public forums that his first act as president would be to open the military to gays (shades of Harry Truman’s integrating the Army). In fact, his first presidential act was to retreat and let Nunn and the Pentagon dictate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Yes, we had peace and prosperity, but how much of it was really Clinton’s doing? Tarnishing the White House and Democratic Party was all Clinton’s doing (Monica too). It remains the club with which the yahoots continue to bash him … and us. We recount here all of Shrub’s iniquities, week after week after sorry week; all “they” (the GOP and hate radio) see, still, is Clinton’s blowjob.

    Under Clinton we blew our opportunity to reverse what Eisenhower called the drift toward a military-industrial complex by reigning in the Pentagon and the Defense industry. Under Clinton we blew our opportunity to at last provide universal health care and college education for everyone who qualified. Under Clinton, we began the process of out-sourcing jobs and even whole industries. Under Clinton we continued the process of looking the other way when corporations hired “illegals” to do our poorly paid dirty work, to the extent that we now have 12 million in the limbo between criminality and a form of citizenship denied all other would-be citizens. Under Clinton the labor movement all but disappeared.

    Clinton may find it easy to support Lieberman, the man who built his reputation as a moralist in the Democratic Party by trashing Clinton, ignoring Matthew 6, and offering himself as Gore’s “religious values” man. Politics does make strange bedfellows. But why should Clinton get in bed with the most vocal Democratic proponent of the Iraq Quagmire? with the man who trashed him during Monica Affair? I think supporting Lieberman is the height of hypocrisy, and it serves no useful purpose.

    I say a plague on both their houses. I’m referring to Reagan and to Clinton. Someday a future Shakespeare may be able to turn their tragic flaws into great tragedy or comedy. For now I think the Democratic Party must turn the page and move on. We have Gore and we have Edwards, Clark, several others. Don’t burden whomever we pick by tying Clinton around his neck.

  • bill clinton is the muhammed ali of modern democratic party politics.

    what else is there to say

  • “Canonizing” Clinton in the Reagan manner would be a mistake. Leave hero-worship to the mental midgets in the Republican Party.

    What should be canonized are the Democratic Party’s goals – liberty, equality, quality of life, and progress.

    And where Clinton exemplified those “can do” qualities, he can serve as a positive example when compared to the fact-hating, negative Nellies like Gingrich, Bush, and the Rapture Right.

    The Republicans I know are sick and bloody tired of the constant stream of negativism that their party has become. But they have been brainwashed into believing that the Democrats aren’t a viable alternative, and to be honest the Democrats have reinforced that view many times over the past 6 years. It’s up to the Democratic Party to show that it is.

    Painting Clinton himself as a saint won’t advance that goal. Holding up his accomplishments will.

  • I would say that overall, Clinton will be remembered as a good but not great president. He’ll also be remembered as a guy who blew a lot of opportunities. To me, the major mistake was putting his wife in charge of health care reform, inasmuch as she had no clue how to organize the politics of doing that (hint: you do what Johnson did with Medicare, develop it in public, and involve as many Dem leaders as possible, so they feel they have “ownership” responsibility in getting it done) – to me, Hillary’s ignorant failure on this is still my major reason why I would never vote for her for dogcatcher, let alone President. I don’t see she’s learned a thing from her failure. Hillary then reminded me of some of the early “women’s movement” leaders I had known 20 years before, who I also would never have trusted with anything important, due to their lack of knowledge and experience. Like them, she is “all show and no go.”

    Personally, I only voted for the draft-dodging little con artist in 1992 and 1996 because he wasn’t the Republican candidate – he reminded me of every little professional pissant I’d met during the antiwar movement, attending rallies and standing at the back of the crowd, whispering their opposition to the war with their fingers crossed behind their backs. I never ever saw him as something admirable, but merely evidence of how far we had fallen as a party in getting any worthwhile national leadership.

    Clinton mostly looks very good nowadays because he’s being compared to the Worst. President. Ever. He looked good in 1992 because he was compared to Michael Doo-Doo-Ca-Ca, the Worst. Democratic. Candidate. Ever.

    And yes, I know he’s personally charming. Reagan – who I met in California politics in the 1970s – was also a charming guy who was fun to be around. That didn’t make him a good Governor then or a good President later, and I’ll say the same thing about The Slickster. Clinton, being about my age, reminds me very much of a couple guys I knew in High School and didn’t like then. 40 years later they were worse.

    I think the Clinton Era only delayed us having to make the kinds of decisions we are trying to make today about what kind of party the Democrats will be, and I think the Clinton delay was close to fatal.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am always amazed he’s as tall as he is, because I didn’t think you could stack bullshit that high without it toppling over.

  • If a historical comparison can be made, then Clinton was to the United States as Mikhail Gorbachev was to the old USSR.

    Terms such as “perestroika” and “glasnost” meant something for a while in Russia. The Wall came down. The Soviet “curtain” rusted through, and they lost their acquired Eastern Frontier. Germany began its reunification. Russia moved in a progressive direction. Gorbachev, to some extent, adopted a “triangulative” approach to several issues.

    Here, we had a President who, although a Democrat wasn’t afraid to embrace Republican causes that would help the nation, and he wasn’t afraid to reject Democratic causes that were harmful to the nation. He looked at things from within the bubble, from beyond the bubble, and he spent some time examining the bubble from its exterior—not just from the comfort of its interior.

    Contemporarily, one can now compare the disaster that is the Bush presidency to the disaster that is the Putin presidency. Both are leaning toward an ultra-conservativism that is, to a pretty fair extent, almost Stalinist in nature. Putin’s closer friends are profiteers, as are Bush’s. Putin’s governance-style—both in concept and construct—are eerily similar to the SOP of the Oval Office. Both are dangerously dependent upon the “past” of their selective regimes; neither possess the courage, foresight, and fortitude to move forward; to advance; to “progress.”

    Clinton “was” a very good President, and he’s still a very good elder statesman. But by supporting Lieberman, he’s falling into the “old-guard” trap that has relegated Bush’s “legacy” to the political scrapheap, and which threatens Putinism with a return to “the glorious days of the Big Red Machine.”

    Democracy, in the end, cannot merely rest upon its laurels; it must continually grow, expand, and experience the metamorphosis that comes with having such “a dangerous piece of paper” as the Constitution in place as the cornerstone of its foundation. To cling to the past is not a hallmark of Progressivism—it is, to the contrary, a symptom of philosophical rot that can—and will, if left unchecked—bring about the collapse of Democracy itself. Such a vacuum, as with many similar vacuums on the planet found in recent years, are a direct invitation to the horrors of authoritarian, theocratic rule….

  • Eric Faulkner sums it up perfectly, as I see it: To canonize him publicly will either be preaching to the choir or to the deaf.
    Unlike the Retalibans, Dems aren’t much on the cult of personality. Reagan wasn’t ‘canonized’ for any spectacular achievement or accomplishment. He is on a pedestal because that’s how conservatives view their leaders. He was a likable guy who didn’t make too much of a mess. In wingnut circles, (and if you’re a repub) that’s a one way ticket to Mt Rushmore. Until Katrina hit, the repubs were angling to cast Chimpy The Deciderer in a similar light. It’s SOP with them.

    That said, Dems should not run away from Clinton. As a fifty year old, I can say without reservation that he was the best President of my lifetime. Could he have been more progressive? In theory, yes – and part of me wishes he was. In reality, I doubt it.

    While ‘triangulation’ has become a dirty word, part of Clinton’s legacy was simple pragmatism. With all that needed to be done, he focused on what he could reasonably hope to accomplish. Inch by inch, the country moved forward.

    He can also be credited for giving the Dems religion on fiscal discipline. Not as some philosophy of what’s ‘right’, but rather, how it allows government to function more effectively. Again, pragmatism.

    One side says Clinton was not a genuine champion of progressive causes; his “triangulating” ended up hurting the party; he was impeached; and Dems were weaker when he left office than when he started. This side believes it’s probably best to leave his presidency in the past.

    These are the people I blame for weakening the Dems. These are the people who gave the public the notion that the Dems are indecisive, unorganized panderers. I think a lot of people were left scratching their heads as to why so many of his own party wouldn’t vigorously defend such a popular leader. I still wonder about that to this day. To use a sports analogy, the Dems were a team that refused to protect thier quarterback. As any football fan knows, such teams never win, and are generally laughing stocks. After the Lewinsky melodrama, all that the Dems had managed to accomplished was to paint themselves as laughing stocks.
    Clinton’s legacy? I’d sum it up as good government through competence and common sense. As a party, we should be very proud of his tenure. There’s no need to canonize him, but any Dem who would demonize him should be thrown under the bus, post haste,

  • Clinton was a good, not great president who seemed to be at his best when the political environment around him was at its worst. The policy accomplishments of 1995-98–welfare reform, deficit reduction, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, etc–make a pretty compelling argument for divided government; the absolute disaster that has been Republican rule from 2003 to the current time provides the other half of the argument.

    In past periods of U.S. history, you didn’t need divided partisan government, because the institutional differences between the executive and the legislature were still compelling enough that Congress generally refused to be a rubber stamp. But once the Republicans went to a “cult of personality” model, and the executive gained something like a money veto over the careers of legislators (“vote with the president or we’ll finance a primary challenger”), that was no longer the case.

    Beyond those considerations, there’s no need, and little point, to canonize Clinton. The difference between him and Reagan is that you can at least make an argument that “Reaganism” embraced a few big ideas: huge and endless military buildup, “deficits don’t matter,” and so on. They happen to be bad ideas, but at least it’s a semi-coherent ideology. “Clintonism” is meaningless from an agenda-setting standpoint, because his successes in the presidency mostly had to do with pushing back against the Republicans, with a dash of fiscal prudence (the 1993 budget) thrown in. But that gesture, while heroic and greatly helpful to the country, helped cost the Democrats Congress the following year–not a great political legacy.

  • The other half of the Billary team is weighing in for Lieberman because he was paid to. There is one common link betweent the two halves of the Billary team and Lieberman, it’s AIPAC funding. Where do people think Hillary got her enormous war chest of money to run for president(which will put a Republiskunk in office). Impartial observers?

  • Steve:

    This is frickin’ great!!!!!! One of those “couldn’t have said it better myself after spending a day thinking about it” comments:

    “Democracy, in the end, cannot merely rest upon its laurels; it must continually grow, expand, and experience the metamorphosis that comes with having such “a dangerous piece of paper” as the Constitution in place as the cornerstone of its foundation. To cling to the past is not a hallmark of Progressivism—it is, to the contrary, a symptom of philosophical rot that can—and will, if left unchecked—bring about the collapse of Democracy itself. Such a vacuum, as with many similar vacuums on the planet found in recent years, are a direct invitation to the horrors of authoritarian, theocratic rule…. ”

    What he said!!

  • Monday morning quarter-backing is always problematic, but I loved and adored the man while he was in office. As a skirt-chaser his energies I did feel were not spent in the service of the country, but in his own personal gratification. But, at the time, I identified with his failings and forgave him and admired Hillary for the way they handled what I perceived as a Republican Coup. Then, after 911 I came to understand how important it was that he spent his seed and our security in a careless manner.

    Now, he and she both come across as brash opportunists, set upon their own personal goals and objectives. They want to still control the Democratic party and will step on anyone or anything to impose their will. Whom does that remind you of?

  • I remember sitting around with a bunch of friends at a restaurant in in 1999 — all Dems or otherwise liberal — and we were arguing about Clinton. Half were saying that he had betrayed the liberal cause with his welfare reform, his pandering to the military and the Republicans, etc. The other half (including me) were arguing that, despite his faults, Clinton was “probably the best we’re going to get.”

    I agree with the posters above who say that Clinton was a good (not great) President — extremely well-read on the issues, a great persuader (like Reagan, a perfect television President), clever, chameleonlike, and more than a little lucky (his Bosnia campaign, which produced NO American casualties, could have blown up in his face). He was the only bulwark protecting key government programs and policies from the shrieks of the right-wing opposition (a group that since 2001 has wrecked more than we can imagine). As President he was capable of highly intelligent political and policy decisions, particularly in the realm of economics and the budget — but he also lacked common sense: with the “Contract with America” folks in charge of Congress (and hating the fact that Bush Sr. had lost to him), Ken Starr out for blood, Rush Limbaugh feeling his oats, and the cable TV networks on 24/7 hunting for the next OJ, how could Clinton possibly have thought he could get away with his dalliance with Monica?

    I still feel that in this dumbed-down, TV-fed mass culture of ours, where most people are simply concerned with feeling comfortable, and prefer simple black-and-white answers to complex questions, Clinton may indeed be the best we can hope for. But that doesn’t make him worthy of adulation or imitation. It doesn’t make his wife worthy of a (media-fed) dynastic coronation any more than anyone in the Bush family is worthy. (The Reagan sanctification is a whole ‘nother issue, which I can’t get into here.) Looking to Reagan, ANY Clinton, or ANY Bush (or anyone else) for “guidance” only contributes to the authoritarian tendencies that our country continues to drift into. As Steve and Tom say above, it’s time to move on. Always question authority — and always use your head!

  • Clinton is an exceptional politician. He’s able to rally the base like no other, and was able to claim victory and success for causes his opponents championed (deficit reduction, welfare “reform,” etc.) Domestically, he was an average president. On the foreign policy front, he looks brilliant, but that’s only in comparison to the current abject failure. I’m sure Bush Sr. looks equally brilliant in that respect.

    Dems should point to Clinton as a “success” story. He’s brought eight years of peace and prosperity to the country AND he’s a Democrat. They can boast about his record of deficit reduction, budget surpluses, and “ending” welfare, without getting bogged down in a debate over whether it was helpful or not. Any Democratic candidate should certainly welcome Bill Clinton campaigning for them.

    But in terms of “canonizing” Clinton, we need to ask “What grand ideas were embodied in his presidency?” I’m thinking in terms of FDR and LBJ’s domestic programs and civil rights initiatives. I can’t think of anything similar for Clinton.

  • No canonization of anyone, please. However those who feel that it is possible to betray the progressive cause by working within the system to get something done in a largely conservative nation are delusional. There is a phrase for their failure, letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Sorry, folks but the Democratic Party will never get anywhere if they are influenced by those who fall into that trap.

  • “Responding to Lance, Republicans also retained control of the national security issue, as Clinton was never able to project himself as the decisive leader and pursuer of true United States military interests (especially when you add in the massive cutbacks to the military in the 1990s)” – Chris

    That’s a particularly interesting example you choose, as the Republican’ts were as much interested in collecting the “Peace Dividend” as Bill Clinton was. King George I (GHWB) started the reduction of the U.S. Military, and Newt Gingrich talked about reducing the Pentagon to a Triangle.

    I think Clinton was actually pretty decisive, settling Kosovo and Bosnia in a region that was the cause of one World War, and generally keeping the U.S. Military strong during a time when it could easily have been hollowed out, as it was during the late 1970’s.

    “[National security] may not have factored much in the 2000 election, but its had a lot to do with W’s reelection in 2004.” – Chris

    So after his failing to protect us from a massive terrorist attack and involing us in two wars that were clearly quagmires, it’s some how Bill Clinton’s fault that the Democrats couldn’t take National Security away from Boy George II? Sorry, don’t buy that for a minute, not even if he did leave a “cadre of political strategists … behind”. In 2004, the Democratic party and it’s nominee were responsible for losing, not Bill Clinton.

  • The only thing attractive about “canonizing” Clinton is the way it would yank the chain of the Reagan canonizers who hate The Man From Hope with every fiber of their being.

    Clinton was not perfect – even in the primaries he was a bit to the right of my tastes – but I think many commenters are being too hard on him. You cannot blame Clinton for the loss of the D’s political standing in the years since. Contrary to Gore’s view, Clinton in fact left him a perfect set up to extend Democratic control of the White House. The Clinton years will, in historical retrospect, be viewed with near amazement as one looks at a graph of US Budget Deficits — and sees his tenure as the only black ink in miles of red ink in either direction.

    Clinton was perfect for the moment: Reagan had made the Presidency seem dumbed-down; King George 41, he of the amazement at supermarket scanners and the Kennebunkport elitism, had made the presidency seem imperial and impersonal. Clinton cured both at once, with the rare combination of total policy geek plus amazing interpersonal charisma.

    I do, however, agree with those who say we shouldn’t try to emulate the Clinton “formula.” We can disagree as to the extent he did or didn’t have a “Clintonian Agenda,” but the real reason we cannot use him as a template is that much of what made him successful was less about policy and more about personality — something our candidates have badly lacked most years. The one thing we can learn from him, however (even though he was inconsistent about it) was how to fight. When the R’s perceived him weakened, he stared them down in the government shutdown and kicked their asses. There is not a single politician with a D after his or her name on the hill right now with the intestinal fortitude to do that. For that moment alone (ok, ok – along with 8 years or peace, prosperity, dropping crime rates, and being beloved in most of the world), I will always consider him an exceptional president.

  • I never trusted Clinton, but I liked him a lot better than the Repubs he was up against.

    As for Clinton and his cutbacks on defense, one should remember that Reagan’s Pentagon repeatedly ignored complaints from their OWN accountants that the US could not afford Reagan’s expanded build up including the B-2, MX and the 600 ship US Navy which cost ONE TRILLION dollars in 1990 bucks. Both Bush I and Clinton had no choice but reduce the size of the military (although many military and Repubs curse Clinton for it.)

    Republicons can say they’re strong on defense but they can’t pay the bills. I still don’t understand where this idea came about that Reps are good with money.

  • Should Dems canonize Clinton the way Republicans honor Reagan?

    Do Dems canonize anyone the way Republicans honor Reagan? Given that the way the GOP canonizes Reagan is reflexively, uncritically, and with a total disregard to the considerable damage he did to this country, I would say the answer is no.

    How about thinking of Clinton this way: He believed in the power of government to transform the lives of its citizens for the better. More than that, he believed in the DUTY of government to do so. He believed that there was such a thing as the common good, he acted on that belief however imperfectly. He went a long way toward cleaning up the mess made by his immediate predecessors. He left a morally and economically stronger America than the one he found. And if it hadn’t been for a concerted effort (if not outright conspiracy) to keep him from governing at all, he might have accomplished a great deal more.

    And in so considering him, we take some substantial steps toward highlighting the most fundamental differences between us and the GOP. Let’s not underestimate the importance of a simple statement like “I feel your pain”, which at the time served as a simple and visceral reinforcement for ordinary Americans that it wasn’t just them, things really weren’t as rosy as the GOP noise machine claimed. Clinton does have some things to teach us.

  • bill clinton is the muhammed ali of modern democratic party politics…. what else is there to say

    Well how about…

    True Big Dog floats like a butterfly,
    But he stings like a toothless flea…

    Big Dog was always greater and more Christian than the opposition that was, and forever is, nipping and sniping at his ankles.

    I’ve always been of mixed mind about Big Dog’s largeness towards his political enemies.

    How could he tolerate these obnoxious ankle bitters?
    How could he tolerate these republican remoras that sought to destroy his character?

    How could he simply shrug off their vile hate?

    Quite frankly, I wanted Bill to reach out and bite their ugly yipping right wing heads off. I wanted him to smash their faces…

    But not Bill…
    He was above their venom…

    He still is.

    To me… that is the absolutely remarkable quality about this man.

    Ergo I would argue:

    Bill Clinton really is saint-like.
    He trandscends hate politics.

    That’s a very rare thing in the world today…

    And because of it: He derserves hagiography.

  • I extol Roddy McCorley (#22) and other’s eulogies of Clinton. I won’t repeat them though they express most of what I felt about him too, and believe to be true. There was great rejoicing at his election outside the USA and that also says something.

    But something Zeitgeist (#20) said —You cannot blame Clinton for the loss of the D’s political standing in the years since. Contrary to Gore’s view, Clinton in fact left him a perfect set up to extend Democratic control of the White House. — unfortunately cannot be sustained. Though every progressive would absolutely wish it and even believe it to be otherwise, and however trivial in human terms we consider it to be, that dalliance with Monica finished him and Dems for decades.

    Though it seems perversely cruel beyond reason, political office at such an exalted level with such huge power and responsibility, does not come without a cost — and that cost is perfection of conduct tantamount to sainthood. While in an ordinary person in an ordinary situation such indulgence (as Bill’s with Monica) would hardly raise an eyebrow, in the term of a presidency it simply doesn’t fit. Even with the best will in the world, virtually no one can truly claim to have expunged that image from their mind in association with that epoch and Mr Clinton’s name.

    It is a tragedy, and it seems unfair: but sainthood is sainthood beyond all ifs and butts. Clinton could have left Gore a perfect set up to extend Democratic control of the White House, as was obviously the intention from the beginning, and he could have legitimately received great acclaim, but he didn’t.

    And that, my dear friends, is nasty old Real politik. — Better luck in a future life.

  • DLC’er Bill Clinton did MORE to destroy “FDR style liberalism “than ALL the Republicans up until Bush 2

  • Bill Cinton was far from perfect, but I sure miss him. His fundamental loyalties were for the weaker and the poorer, not to the wealthy and entitled as Reagan’s were. I’m not about to call him a saint, but we really do need to get these deficits under control and it woulld be nice if someone in power would try to do as he did.

    Someone said that one of the worst things Clinton did was allow the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and I agree, but to be fair, very few of us anticipated the extent of corporate greed in the 21st Century. Also in the Y2K few could have imagined the republican power grab that we have experienced in the last six years or that congress would allow it.

    Unlike some of the posts here I did not find the Monica affair particlarly shocking or surprising. Mostly I was disappointed. Bill Clinton was a very good and competent president, and perhaps some time in the future he may be referred to as great. In the meantime I really miss the competent part.

    That the Republicans have some sort of upper hand on the millitary is the most surprising because it in GWB’s handling of the millitary that we see the most evidence of incompetence. Go figure.

  • I agree that the canonization of Bill Clinton should be left to bona fide historians, and so far, they rate him as an average president. He looks better to a lot of people in retrospect because of what we have now. The greatest presidents–and I am taking my names from the Sean Wilentz article in a recent Rolling Stones–are Lincoln, FDR, and Washington (FDR has bumped George for second place). We are long due for another great president and in fact, are going to go down the toilet unless someone visionary gets elected in 2008. No more politics as usual but someone who sees what these wars are doing to our country and someone with a real program about serious issues, a Gore for global warming or an Edwards on the growing extreme class divide.

  • Goldilocks, I have to disagree. Remember, Gore essentially tied Bush; all he needed was a slight margin. Gore’s fear of the Lewinsky issue, not the issue itself, was the problem.

    Obviously I can never prove this, but I am pretty realistic about politics have been involved off and on for decades and I believe with every fiber of my being that had Gore simply run every day and every night on “are you better off now than you were the last time a Bush was in office?” and “eight years of peace and prosperity, why stop now?” — heck, throw in 100,000 additional cops on the street for good measure — rather than avoiding the mention of anything that happened under “Clinton/Gore” he would have won fairly easily.

    When Clinton left office, Lewinsky or no, he had higher approval ratings than Bush II has had at any time except for a brief window after 9-11. So I repeat: Clinton’s affair didn’t beat Gore; Gore’s over-reaction to Clinton’s affair beat Gore. (Leaving, for a moment, my loathing of Nader out of the equation).

  • Bill Clinton really is saint-like.
    He trandscends hate politics.

    That’s a very rare thing in the world today…

    And because of it: He derserves hagiography.

    Let’s not forget at least some of the damage done to St. Clinton was self-inflicted. Mostly due to the somewhat correct belief that he couldn’t keep his pants up. He wouldn’t have faced impeachment had he not conducted a rather stupid, but consensual, tryst during the height of partisan scrutiny and then lied about it.

  • Plus choosing Lieberman for Vice presidential candidate was a reaction to the Lewinski matter since Holy Joe was supposed to appeal to all those moralizers in the electorate.

    According to Why We Fight, Eisenhower’s first draft called it the “military-industrial-congressional complex”. How right on was that!

  • Zeitgeist, I take your points, I appreciate the dialectic, and I apologise for the time I’ve spent away on that massage post and its extraordinary links.

    Yes, you’re right: Gore was timid and bamboozled about the Lewinski affair. I saw and felt that too. I also felt that Clinton was too defensive in his own reaction to the Lewinski accusation which, of course, caused him eventually to lie (to all intents and purposes). Perhaps he could have adopted a “Yes. So what?” attitude. That’s what I would have done.

    I took exception to your statement partly to see how it would play out. Those of us who are passionate about this topic can never get it to sit still and stay in one place. I really wish I could because I’d sort of like to get it behind us one way or another. There is a tragedy in it for me, as well as brute anger at the witch-hunt. But, when all is said and done, we’re left with one truth which is that to do good in politics — real good for the citizens, humanity, the environment, the lot — you have to be more good than good. I don’t mean ‘squeaky clean’ and that kind of moralistic unnatural good, I mean good of heart, selfless, willing to make almost superhuman sacrifices. Clinton had that, is my impression, which makes the tragedy of the slip so gargantuan.

    Everything you say about all that was running in Gore’s favour is true. The what-might-have-been scenario if he could have kept his focus is also, probably, true. But the fact is the cookie didn’t crumble that way. And three factors seemed to have denied Gore his victory: 1) Nader; 2) Florida; 3) Lewinski. And finally, I have to agree with you somewhat, a forth factor: 4) Gore’s (understandable?) fear of the issue of Lewinski.

    Maybe it’s better to cry over spilt milk than try to put it back in the bottle. I don’t know how it will work out in the coming years, but it’s a very different situation from six years ago. Integrity and almost superhuman intelligence, decency and altruism with huge backing and coordination will be needed to turn this out-of-control behemoth around. IMHO.

    Quite a challenge.

  • If Bill Clinton were able to run today, I think he’d run very differently. But we badly needed somebody to find a way to win back then, and he did it. I think he’s flexible and smart enough to win at almost any time in history. I don’t think the same of Reagan, also a very talented politician, but not in Clinton’s league. How would Reagan run in 2008?

    With Clinton, it was an ability to find and deliver a message. Reagan had a very narrow range of messages that could work for him….and the times delivered the right opportunity.

    Clinton’s governance in the ’90s was a response to what was possible at the time for a Democrat. He sensed that space and went there. I think he was as liberal a President as we could possibly have had at that time, and for that I’m grateful. .

  • Are you all out of your minds, crab-stepping away from the Clinton legacy? Embrace it; it is the best the Democratic party has offered since Roosevelt.

    So what if Clinton doesn’t pass the progressive purity test. Neither did JFK. JFK was President for less than three years, yet his Administration is “Camelot” and the soccer moms of the era put portraits of JFK in their houses. I remember pictures of JFK right next to crucifixes in the den. They are probably there still. It wasn’t about the politics; it was about the hopefulness of the time, placed upon the man.

    In 1992 Clinton ran on a platform of “hope.” I still get chills when I see the video of Clinton and Gore accepting the nomination in Madison Square Garden with “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” firing up.

    Clinton gave us eight years of real peace and prosperity. If it wasn’t for the BJ, we would be building monuments to Clinton in public squares.

    No need to wait for the historians. When we look back at the Clinton era ourselves, in our lifetimes, compared to what we have now it was a golden age – our Camelot, surpassing the Camelot imagined by our parents.

  • ah….. I miss Clinton. And I don’t understand the GOP idealization of Reagan, who was a complete tool. Of course, there’s been a push to rehabilitate Nixon as well….

  • As I wrote the other day, I think opinions of Clinton have a generational dimension. Of the five Democratic Presidents in my lifetime, Clinton comes in a weak fifth, I’m afraid, which hardly makes him a candidate for hagiography.

    Still, for folks under thirty, even forty, I suppose, he’s doubtless the best President in their experience.

    I agree that it’s a question well left to future historians, who will hopefully have a few more Ds for the purpose of comparison.

  • “Plus choosing Lieberman for Vice presidential candidate was a reaction to the Lewinski matter since Holy Joe was supposed to appeal to all those moralizers in the electorate.”

    An accurate analysis, but that doesn’t halt the fact that it makes me want to vomit.

    “Let’s not forget at least some of the damage done to St. Clinton was self-inflicted.”

    Yes and no.

    Like you said: It was consensual.
    It was a private act between two consenting adults.
    It wasn’t my business, Starr business, or even… Holy Joe’s business. But the ankle biters insisted on making the private act public. And since EVERYBODY lies about sex… well… the rest is republican partisan politics history.

    No, I stand by what I wrote.

    Clinton is a better man than I will ever be.

    If I was him at the time… I’d have had the FBI digging up every piece of dirt I could on Starr and Company. I’d have used the office of president… much as Bush did against Mrs. Plame… to crush Starr underheel like a dung roach. I’d have ruined that evil cad’s career and had my mouth stuffed with dinner rolls at the same time…

    No really…

    Bill Clinton’s TEMPERANCE amazes me….
    It is truly astonishing…

  • He was stuck with an unusually hostile and organized Republican enemy in Congress, with only wishywashy Democratic support. But I can still remember how he spent his political capital buying votes in Congress — to get NAFTA passed. Hell, if Bush, Sr., had remained in office, it would also have been passed, so what was the point of having Clinton decide to make that the issue he was willing to work so hard for?

    I know that a Republican in office would have done a lot worse by the various department heads and cabinet members, etc., but if Bush, Sr., had had another term, is it likely his idiot son would have come to office only four years later?

  • “if Bush, Sr., had had another term, is it likely his idiot son would have come to office only four years later?” – Catherine

    Quayle in 1996? Or could you imagine the nomination fight? Talk about your scary alternate histories!

  • Quayle is almost exactly W’s age to the day. Maybe HW picked him as a way to soften-up America in preparation for his idiot son. Just a thought. Regarding WJC. I’ll always love him. Perhaps if he had had Ken Starr killed (or tortured then killed) Al Gore would be president today and many tens of thousands of other lives would be have been saved. It’s a shame this country blew its ‘impeachment wad’ (if you will) on Bill, when the illegitimate piece of crap in the White House now is so much more richly deserving. (Note- I’m speculating. I don’t condone torture or murder. I’m not a Republican.)

  • I like Bill Clinton, but when he signed “the Telecommunications Act of 1996” and allowed the media giants to conglomerate, he doomed us all to the present crisis. Remember who looked on smiling? Newt Gingrich.

    http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/28/telecom_dereg/index.html

    Bill probably didn’t realize it at the time, but he really, really let a huge genie out of a bottle. As a result, our national ignorance is now almost complete, and the genie won’t go back in because we will never hear on the national media about the way almost every single American is against the concept of a few hands controlling the major media outlets.

    Bill screwed the pooch on the big one. Big time. He should have used the bully pulpit to kill it, and vetoed it if necessary. But he didn’t. He championed the damn thing. And because he did, we have an electorate that is fed garbage, and makes decisions based on this garbage.

    Our media wasteland is Clinton’s legacy.

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