To: Neocon who wrote (30570 ) 1/28/1999 3:20:00 PM From: Daniel Schuh Read Replies (2) | Respond to
This particular argument was well covered in nytimes.com , Neocon. After reading that article, I gained some respect for Clinton. It made me recall what I liked most about his initial candidacy in '92, amorphous though it was. After watching Mondale and Dukakis do the best possible imitation of punching bags in the '84 and '88 campaigns, I was happy to see a Democrat with some down-and-dirty political skills. It's not like the Republicans have been Boy Scouts in that department. But the culture-war argument doesn't do justice to an antipathy that goes back to Clinton's candidacy. I think there are three separate psychological profiles of Clinton-hating, which have blurred together at times. The first type of Clinton-hater is liberal, and he does derive his hatred from the 60's. His is the view that Clinton is a fundamentally disingenuous and inauthentic person who uses public interest as a cover for private ambition. This opinion, which is manifest in much of Clinton's press coverage, does not draw a line between the personal and the political. The problem isn't that Clinton committed adultery or that he lied about adultery. Indeed, these lapses have inclined liberal critics to support him. What they object to is that Clinton cares about winning more than he cares about principles; that he has thrown overboard such worthy causes as civil liberties, intervention in Bosnia, human rights in China and campaign finance reform.
