Bill Clinton

I've found that as time goes by that you seem to remember the past perhaps a bit more fondly than it actually was. So it is with Bill Clinton. In retrospect Bill wasn't that bad. He presided over welfare reform and actually saw government grow more slowly on his watch than George W. Bush. But reading 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37) helped jog my memory.

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It made me remember how Clinton installed Sheldon Hackney -- the UPenn president revealed himself as an utter clown during the infamous "water buffalo" incident that took place at the campus -- as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. That led to other memories such as the attempted health care nationalization by Hillary and her team of lawyers. Or how the Clintons rented out the Lincoln bedroom. The "triangulation." The overall tawdriness.

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And then there was Bill himself. This is a man who had no idea how to lead. Who enjoyed power for its own sake. Whose every move was a political calculation. A man who appeared devoid of any core convictions. And who, although nominally the most powerful man in the world, was also given to wallowing in his own victimhood. I was reminded of all this and more when I read this profile of him in New York Magazine. To wit:

“I always thought,” he says, “that bin Laden was a bigger threat than the Bush administration did.”

So let me get this straight, Bill. You knew what a serious threat Bin Laden was and yet you did nothing more than fire a bunch of missiles at empty tents? That's mind-boggling. After all, can you make a serious case that you responded to the threat in any sort of effective fashion? At least the Bushies have the good sense to say that they simply didn't know better. You, on the other hand, say you were fully aware of the threat -- and did next to nothing about it.

Clinton may say he loves his new civilian life, loves his new house in Chappaqua. But that doesn’t mean he’s mentally decamped from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “I thought that if I had six more months,” he tells me, “I could make peace in the Middle East. I’d have figured out what was really keeping Arafat from saying yes.”

What was it?

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “But I think I would have. And I think I’d have gotten more help from the other Arabs, a couple of whom he told he was gonna take the deal."

You. Just. Don't. Get. It. This is why George W. Bush -- widely derided as the proverbial village idiot -- is smarter than Bill Clinton. Unlike Clinton, who was so arrogant and self-aggrandizing that he thought that his personal skills could cobble together a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians, Bush realized that Arafat was an untrustworthy scumbag. And you can't make deals with untrustworthy scumbags. This is a lesson that Clinton -- apparently even today -- has yet to realize.

“I also wish,” he continues, “I desperately wish, that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early. I don’t know if it would have prevented 9/11, but it certainly would have complicated it.”

Oh really? You see Bill, I don't believe you. After two U.S. embassies were bombed by Al Qaeda, leaving over 250 dead and thousands injured, you sent multi-million dollars missiles to pound sand. And yet somehow the bombing of a U.S. destroyer was going to result in the invasion of Afghanistan? You're a liar, or delusional, or both.

I ask Clinton why the Bush administration has gotten much softer press coverage than he did. He gives a variety of explanations, including September 11 and the rightward drift of the media. Then he gives an explanation that’s surprisingly tart: “The Bush people didn’t have anybody working for the White House who, as far as I could tell, had an inexplicable, craving need that a lot of the young people did who worked for me in that first year to talk to the press—even when they didn’t know what they were talking about.”

Here Bill reverts to his victim mentality, blaming others for the troubles that befall him. Well guess what, even assuming that this explanation is true, it's still your fault because you're the one who hired them!

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That's enough for now. I'll conclude with an excerpt of George W. Bush's 2000 nomination speech:

For eight years the Clinton-Gore administration has coasted through prosperity. The path of least resistance is always downhill. But America's way is the rising road. This nation is daring and decent and ready for change.

Our current president embodied the potential of a generation -- so many talents, so much charm, such great skill. But in the end, to what end? So much promise to no great purpose.

So true.