Clinton Nostalgia
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President Obama’s policy intransigence allows the country to debate the degree of government in our lives; Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” merely deferred the matter for the ignoble cause of prolonging his career
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Of all of the mind-melds that President Obama and his policies have put on this country, from class warfare to promoting national self-doubt, perhaps the most notable consequence from them has been a blossoming nostalgia for the days of Bill Clinton.
Predictably, stalwart Democrats look back wistfully at the 1990s and see an America that was set right after what they see as the disastrous Reagan years. But what to make of conservative precincts who also share a desire for a president with the governing style like Mssr. Clinton’s?
To refresh memories, Bill and Hillary Clinton (recall their “2 for the price of 1″ sales pitch in the 1992 campaign) rode to power thanks to a perfect electoral storm: a strong third-party candidate in Ross Perot who disproportionately sapped votes from the incumbent, George H.W. Bush, who was lackluster and befuddled as a candidate for his re-election. Ever the opportunists, the Clintons saw that the country might have tired of the tapped-out incumbent, so they beat the campaign slogan drum of “change” and won the White House.
What followed was a heavy-handed governing style by them that resulted in 8 years of internecine warfare predominantly with congressional Republicans but even with his fellow Democrats in the House and Senate.
As President, Bill Clinton was a political chameleon who cared first and foremost about his own fortunes; Barack Obama is the opposite
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When Mr. Clinton entered the White House, his focus was on health care and he dispatched his co-president/wife to formulate a sweeping health care bill on their terms, for congress to rubber-stamp. The proposed plan that they had was very similar to ObamaCare’s command-and-control program. When Democratic Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper came up with a more free-market based approach that attracted wide bipartisan support which still would have achieved the Clinton’s ostensible goal of bringing more people health care coverage, it was summarily rejected by Team Clinton and brought Hillary Clinton’s wrath; Mr. Cooper was lucky he was not fished out of the Potomac (or found in a park like Vince Foster). Any chance of a health care law died by late summer of 1994 and given the fallout, Democrats lost both houses of congress in a historic defeat and the Clintons holed up in the White House plotting their political survival.
In came the policy-smart but politically tone-deaf Newt Gingrich leading the House majority Republicans along with the honorable but equally tin-eared Bob Dole in charge of the Senate. Probably not believing their luck, the Clinton’s proceeded to play rope-a-dope with them on everything from delaying welfare reform until right before the election in 1996 to the government shutdown and culminating in the ill-advised impeachment of President Clinton (given the slippery nature of Mr. Clinton, Mssrs. Dole and Gingrich should probably be happy that they did not wind up being convicted instead of Clinton).
And though long forgotten, the 500 or so FBI files, many on political adversaries of the Clintons, which the White House inappropriately requested (“Filegate”, as opposed to “Travelgate”, “Whitewater,” and the other imbroglios too numerous to list) were a not so subtle reminder that the Clintons knew how to play hardball, and not the lucidity-lacking brand of Chris Matthews. Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman of the Nixon White House could’ve been students, and not teachers, of the Clintons.
All the while this was happening, President Clinton claimed to be governing under the guise of bi-partisanship via “triangulation”: that Nirvanac ground that placed him between what he characterized as partisan congressional Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, such was not the case. Mr. Clinton clung to high tax rates (39.6% for ordinary income and 20% for capital gains) as well as balancing the budget through steep defense cuts, justified by the end of the Cold War (“the peace dividend”). And when it came to military matters overseas, he oversaw the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa and the bombing of the USS Cole, with little but symbolic responses. At a moment when he could have had Osama bin Laden liquidated in the late 1990s, he swung into his U.N. mode and called in the lawyers for debate while bin Laden got away only to be heard from a few years later on 9/11. These were all Liberal machinations, albeit costumed in post-partisanship. So the assertion that Bill Clinton somehow learned from his mistakes is, to adapt a phrase from George W. Bush, fuzzy history. The Clintons merely went sub rosa with their Liberal predilections. In short, an appropriate synonym for “triangulation” is “duplicity.”
All of which contrasts with President Obama.
For anyone who doubts Mr. Obama’s convictions (clearly Liberal), his statement a few years ago that “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president” says it all. This is a man who believes what he believes in and does not make major policy changes for political expediency, let alone survival.
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While President Obama’s inflexibility may cause discomfort for many, it has achieved, for Conservatives in particular and the country in general, what Bill Clinton’s ballroom dancing never did: bringing the debate of the size and degree of government front and center.
If nothing else, at least voters will be able to say they had a clear and important choice to make this election. And with some luck, more thought will be given than in 2008 before the lever is pulled in the ballot box.
-I.M. Windee
