Bill Clinton’s fans and Bill Clinton’s critics sometimes forget that he did not govern in a particularly liberal way. He was a moderate, the king of triangulation. Yet he was widely hated by conservatives and loved by liberals. He was chiefly a symbol, and his damage to the presidency was symbolic, not failures of policy so much as a day-to-day degradation of the dignity of the office.
As president, Clinton lacked grace, respect for protocol, and concern for the nation. The omnipresent trump principle always remained Bill Clinton himself. A normal person–even a deeply flawed normal person like Richard Nixon–throws in the towel when he’s embarrassed himself and undermined his putative cause. But Clinton and his allies fought and fought and fought against Republican critics when he was caught screwing young girls in the Oval Office and then lied about his misbehavior under oath.
Democrats, eager to stay in power after years of exile, acquiesced and cheerfully bought into his self-serving account of runaway prosecutors and Vast Right Wing Conspiracies. Now these same Democrats are learning what was obvious to decent Americans ten years ago: this is a vulgar man with no respect for anything. His undignified campaigning for his wife during the Democratic Primary stands in stark contrast to George H.W. Bush’s aloofness in 2000. But the idea that an ex-President should move beyond party politics into the role of elder statesman is impossible for Clinton. And it’s impossible for the same reason he could not restrain his sexual desires as President, nor resign when busted: he does not respect any principle that might restrain him. He’s a criminal narcissist. He is the cause, the goal, the summum bonum.
The Democratic Party and its operatives disgraced themselves in their unwavering support for Clinton during his presidency. Barack Obama, whatever else he might do, could restore some normalcy to the presidency after Clinton’s narcissism and Bush’s utter incompetence. If nothing else, it would be nice to return to a lower-stakes politics, where the President’s sins would be confined to policy and not threaten the turbo-charged destruction of basic cultural standards.
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Then again, policy ain’t peanuts, and Obama’s stated policies, as relatively decent as he is (and he does seem both decent AND personable to me), seem to me comparatively disastrous.
[...] though I was pleased to see Illinois’ junior Senator win South Carolina [and not just for these reasons, or even partisan tactical ones - to whit, better to keep the other side fighting itself just like [...]
Lest we forget, the most important piece of policy that the Clinton administration passed was none other than the successful welfare reform that was actually authored by a Republican Congress. It’s fascinating that there is such nostalgia for a Clinton Redux among Democrats, but maybe Obama’s surge is an indication that it’s fading. I’d prefer to see you reference more articles that deal with what the implications of a potential McCain nomination would have for the Republican party. When you have bombasts like Limbaugh calling for its dissolution if he was nominated, it’s cause for concern.
In what way did Bush destroy cultural standards? Yes, he’s incompetent, but on the other hand, he wasn’t sleeping around or lying under oath, etc, etc.
I guess you could argue that he damaged our national culture by fueling so much hatred from the Left, thus lessening our ability to conduct civic debates without a thorough drenching of venom and accusations of lies and conspiracy. But this is a little unfair, because it is not necessarily Bush’s fault that the Left has reacted this way to his Presidency. Of course he compounded the effect by speaking like an ignorant jackass incapable of completing a sentence without adding an ugly smirk.
But in the end, Bush didn’t drive or directly cause a decline in cultural standards. I don’t think the same could be said of Clinton.
I don’t think Bush destroyed cultural standards and didn’t mean to imply that. I do think, though, his policies have been abysmal and his “joshing around” style has ruined certain standards about what we expect from leaders. But, it’s true, Bush ran as a person with a better character and, at least in his private life, he has held true to this.
On the other hand, his deception, promiscuous accusations of racism, extreme views of executive power, failures of rhetoric, hyper-nationalism, big spending, and obsession with abstract moralizing in foreing policy have been a disaster of public morality.
I don’t know how deceptive Bush is, but as far as the rest of it goes, that’s true. And aside from his failures of rhetoric, those are all examples of policy decisions and ideology that affected public morality.
And I am sure that Obama’s policies and ideology, despite his personal decency, will also have a negative effect on public morality.
The short, but intense, pleasure of seeing Hillary defeated is not worth the awful prospect of an obambi presidency.
Bush’s “utter incompetence” – McCain’s threat to destroy the party, c’mon Chris and commentariat.
You’re sounding like monkish types overapplying abstract templates to the world around them.
“Utter incompetnence”. Whatever happened to “did damage”, or “failures in style”? Must we read people out of the party or condemn them totally? Even Clinton was more than just a narcissist. He’s a narcissicist, not a sociopath, certainly not one who “destroyed” cultura standards. Cheapened surely, but not destroyed. If those values had been destroyed, why on earth would his own party’s elites be so solidly repudiating him now for his “anything it takes” behavior now?
Get grounded and empirical again. You sound like a trial lawyer saying every potential juror who dislikes attorneys is a “dupe” of a “conspiracy”.
As for the two Dems, Obama is worse than Clinton in intent, but probably less able to deliver. Leftist hearts seem to go for Obama, and leftist heads for Hillary, which explains why Obama is getting the youth and intellectual votes and Hillary is getting older blue collar and bureacrat votes.
Overrated as crippling the office, instead Clinton defied the traditions as the office of Presidency as more kinglike, and less human – by bringing human frailty to the forefront, something which had never been done. It could have been done during the administration of FDR because of his disability, but was ignored by media because of the premise that Presidents must/should be strong. Showing weaknesses therefore was frowned upon.
Reality suggests that there is no reason to place upon a President unrealistic expectations of privacy under the prsumption that the American people are inadequate to handle those flaws emotionally, or intellectually, or that such flaws are absolute departures from expectations in performance. Millions of Americans are flawed personally but manage to do adequate jobs despite those weaknesses. Although one may not elect such a President if one knew, or should have known; unfairly, disparaging a President because of those flaws is something that is usually left to revisionist historians, not current debate. Clinton broke through that artificial barrier to bring reality front and center – ultimately, a maverick, and progressive transition for the American people and for media to evaluate the effect of dealing with that reality in real time, a first for the American Presidency.
Permanent branding, therefore, is inadequate to summarize his Presidential nature or character, and may not even influence his wife adversely by virtue of the fact that they are two separate people, and need not carry forward the presumption of her as an extension of him, by tradition.
Features and facets of the American Presidency were expanded under his tutelage, for good or for bad, as people interpret it, but growth of the dimensions of contemplating the Presidency was much a feature of his character and personality as well as the circumstances of his terms.