Just a noteworthy piece on character:
reporternews.com
Thursday, November 5, 1998
Books indict Clinton as 'sad waste'
By Morton Kondracke
In the past few weeks, President Clinton has demonstrated again what a genius he is at compartmentalization - and what a waste he's made of his presidency.
Facing an impeachment inquiry might immobilize some people, but it seems to have stimulated him to more activity: politically successful negotiations with Congress, tireless and fruitful Mideast diplomacy and energetic campaign fundraising.
Clinton's ability to perform disparate tasks under stress - plus a lot of luck - is the reason his approval ratings remain high even though the public and his political colleagues don't trust his word.
The sad, possibly tragic, side of this is the legacy Clinton could have left had he ever gained control of his character flaws and concentrated on his job. He might have forged a national consensus on education, health care reform or race, but he's lost his moral authority with the country.
He gets some credit for helping to balance the budget and reforming welfare, but these accomplishments were forced on him by a GOP Congress installed as a check on his excesses.
Next year, Clinton hopes to make himself the president who saved Social Security and Medicare, but his ability to do so could be hindered by scandal-related political weakness.
He has had some success in diplomacy, but his attention to foreign policy is intermittent, allowing massive evil to take place in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Iraq.
In fact, whatever he accomplishes, his legacy is likely to be dominated by the scandals. He is the first president ever to be forced to testify before a federal grand jury, the first to discuss his sex life on national television, the third to face an impeachment inquiry.
These are the likely effects of a duality in Clinton's character - dark side versus light - explained in two excellent books, David Maraniss' The Clinton Enigma (Simon & Schuster) and Robert Shogan's The Double-Edged Sword (Westview Press). Shogan, the veteran Los Angeles Times political correspondent, is mainly critical of Clinton for being two-faced in his use of "character" as a political tool.
On occasion, Clinton has invited attention to his private life, making a virtue of his rise from poverty. At other times, however, he's declared his life off-limits and has even said those who want to make "character" an issue are trying to "divide the country we love."
Shogan reminds us what political skill Clinton has - seeing centrism as the Democratic Party's path to power in the 1980s, overcoming his 1988 "Gary Hart problem" to win the presidency despite sexual scandal in 1992 and recovering from political defeat in 1980 and 1994. But Maraniss, Clinton's foremost biographer, exposes the character weaknesses that undercut Clinton's success.
Maraniss uses Clinton's Aug. 17 TV speech regarding the Monica Lewinsky scandal to retrace Clinton's character patterns, and the words that practically yell out to the reader are "neurotic" and "irresponsible." A neurotic can't help repeating the behavior that got him in trouble in the past, and there's every evidence Clinton is one.
As Maraniss shows, Clinton's life is strewn with lies and truth-shading, broken promises, cover-ups, reckless sexual exploits, blame-casting - and narrow (but repeated) escapes from the consequences.
Clinton preaches a gospel of "personal responsibility" and "working hard and playing by the rules," but in big ways and small, he behaves irresponsibly and walks away.
Maraniss recounts the pressure put on Betsey Wright, Clinton's former top aide in Arkansas, to deny Maraniss' account of a 1987 meeting in which she produced a list of Clinton lovers who would torpedo a 1988 Clinton run for the presidency. Maraniss writes that as his first major book about Clinton, First in His Class, was coming out in 1995, Wright left him a voice-mail message assuring him the account he quoted from her was correct but saying the White House was calling her a traitor and demanding she discredit Maraniss.
She did say in public he had misinterpreted her. Later, he writes, she called to apologize and say, "It was something she had to do."
Pressuring witnesses, of course, is what Wright did for Clinton between 1988 and 1992 - controlling "bimbo eruptions," as she so candidly called it.
If this pattern reaches the level of intimidation or witness tampering, it should be the end of Clinton's presidency. Likely as not, though, Clinton will escape again and spend two more years staggering to achieve a net-positive legacy.
Right now, though, Shogan reminds readers Clinton's major impact has been to foster cynicism about politics and politicians and to lower the standard of what Americans expect in a President.
"They all do it" - lie, philander, conceal evidence - is part of the public's justification for tolerating Clinton's behavior, and it is part of Clinton's defense.
The fact is, Clinton's predecessors didn't all do it. Nor do all contemporary politicians. The defense itself is another example of Clinton's irresponsibility.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. |
