You are exactly right to point to the gays in the military initiative as a political bungle, after having run as a centrist. The health care initiative was handled badly, too, especially the flap over sunshine laws being violated (which they were found to be by a judge). In any case, opposition is not the same as conspiracy, and the shambles of his first two years led to the Republican Revolution, which put his very viability into question. It took all of his energy to fight his way back to some kind of significance, and to retain the Presidency. This is not Lyndon Johnson, who actually had a big agenda that he was capable of pushing with some success.
The central Clinton hater is a guy in Arkansas who was at Oxford with Clinton. Yes, he is a Republican, but the Washington Post did a profile of him a few years ago, and even they thought it was not ideological, but personal. He just thinks that Clinton is a glad-handing so-and-so who has gotten away with things his whole life long. I can't remember the guys name, but he was the one who fed the media most of its leads on bimbos and the like.
By the way, not only is Chris Matthews still a Democrat, he voted for Clinton both times. You guys think that there has to be a sinister reason for his being hard on Clinton, like pandering or being a secret neocon. There isn't. Did you ever see Brian DePalma's "The Untouchables"? It is like Andy Garcia's character, the Italian policeman who was so offended that Capone and his boys were bringing the Italians into disrepute that he was eager to sign on to the task force. Chris is trying to salvage the honor of the Democratic Party. |
