<<The attitude was well summed- up by Bill Kristol, who said that we should mostly wait for him to fail on his own.>>
May be, but if you are Rush Limbaugh, Oliver "The Truth and Nothing But the Truth" North, Gordon Liddy, Chris Mathews, et al, how do you fill up an hour or two a day with waiting for him to fail on his own? Personally, I think it would be kind of fun to elect a Republican pres. in 2000, and give Hillary Clinton, James Carville, Monica Lewinsky, Sid Blumenthal and Vernon Jordan each political talk shows.
Whatever attitude Bill Kristol might have "summed-up" for you at the time, I believe that a pretty strong case can be made that Bill Clinton doomed his presidency almost immediately with his incredibly ill-timed gays in the military initiative. As the very 1st initiative of the newly elected it's-the-economy-stupid "centrist" Democrat, this probably ranks high on the all-time stupid list. Ironically, they probably thought it would be no big deal at the time.
Also, I think I recall that there was some controversy about health care reform back then. Something about the Clinton administration wanting to address what had become routine double digit annual increases in health care costs; I vaguely recall that this health care reform thing seemed to galvanize political opposition to Clinton.
Anyway, I think it is a bit of an exaggeration to say that President Clinton has never been important enough politically to generate opposition from the coalition of political forces in this country known collectively as the "right-wing". But, then again, maybe you're right. Interesting post, thanks. |
