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The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton ::
After reading this book, I’ve now internalized three very specific characteristics of the Clinton Administration. First, there was Clinton’s personal issues -- such as his libido, seen in his propensity for getting involved in extramarital affairs, and his emotionally-driven possessiveness, which resulted in such awful policy decisions as the last-minute pardon of Marc Rich. Second, as a so-called “New Democrat” there was his constant struggle to balance his desire to push policies that promoted free trade and globalized economics with his need to keep ties to the more traditional (if ineffective) democrats in Congress. But finally, there was the point in history in which he was in office; Bill Clinton served his two terms as President during a time of peace and prosperity for the United States, but that time was also characterized by voter apathy and by a lack of any true political or military crisis. All three of these characteristics hurt Clinton’s ability to become the type of historically significant President he was hoping to become. At best, during this time he had to fight against becoming as irrelevant as his colleagues in the legislative branch; at worst, he had to lawyer himself out of a grand jury hearing and fight against being removed from office. But interspersed with all the crises that marred those eight years of the Clinton Administration, I can also see a President who was simultaneously a free market capitalist and an idealist, who believed that a strong economy, if it worked correctly, could do more than any government-sponsored program to raise people out of poverty and effectively save the world. His was a risky, unpopular political position to take, but more than any other, I believe it is the only one that will have any sort of lasting effect on the current state of affairs. And unfortunately, I’ve yet to see any politician stand behind that political position with any amount of vehemence since Clinton left office last year. After seeing what could have happened (were it not for the Clinton’s weaknesses), I truly hope that we do not lose sight of the possibilities such politics engenders, simply because such stances are unpopular or challenging; or, for that matter, that we give up on them simply because of the flaws of the last man President who really believed in them.
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