IJMC - Deconstructing Clinton

Last night I technically succeeded...three operating systems, Windows 98, 
Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, and RedHat Linux 6.1 all bootable and 
functioning on the same individual hard drive. Ssoooooo close. You see, I 
can boot and run each operating system...but Windows 98 is unhappy about 
the two remaining partitions, you know, where all the stuff was supposed 
to go, and runs really slow accessing them. NT cannot even format the 
remaining two partitions. Linux probably could, but Linux already has 
enough space...I want that 7gig for space hogging Microsoft basted 
applications. So, another day, another try...ssssooooooo close...   -dave


i know hat this is kind of long but give it a read. ms. irvins annoys the
piss out of pat beall and that makes me giggle, personally i think she may
not be that bad, based on what i have read of hers. anyway take a gander at
this piece and talk about it with a friend.
--zak
 "Technique is no substitute for power."
   -Ben Moon

Deconstructing Clinton: Whatever his flaws, he still has his talents


Don't know how many of you heard President Clinton's speech at the World
Trade Organization. Except for C-SPAN junkies, I doubt anyone was
watching. But it is high time somebody said the obvious out loud: The son
of a gun is good. 

How long has it been since you heard Clinton make a whole speech? I've
been catching him on the tube in snippets for so long that I'd forgotten
just how effortlessly persuasive he actually is. There he stood, the No. 1
Free-Trader in the Whole World, facing all the opposition. By the time he
finished, he was on their side and they were on his side. He is a superb
politician. 

Anyone volunteering a kind word for Clinton nowadays has to issue the
obligatory disclaimer. In my case, it's easy, since I barely agree with
him 50 percent of the time. 

He's not my kind of Democrat and never has been. But at least I have the
sense to recognize the man's merits, whatever his failings. 

He is an amazingly skilled pol at the top of his game. I know -- everybody
hates politicians so much that to say someone is a great one is a form of
cussin' him out. Nevertheless, I do admire real political skill, and
Clinton has it in spades. 

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone better. Maybe Lyndon Johnson on a roll,
or Bob Bullock in good health. Too bad that Clinton's had to spend most of
his presidency on defense. I would have liked to see him quarterback a
Democratic Congress for the sheer interest of the exercise. 

Don't ask me to explain what went wrong between Clinton and the Washington
press corps. I've never understood it. I don't want to drag anyone through
the Late Unpleasantness again, but as near as I can tell, about half the
D.C. press corps is totally wiggy on the subject of Clinton. Otherwise
rational people -- like Chris Matthews, Chris Hitchens, George Will,
there's an army of them -- are so obsessed by Clinton's moral failings
that they cannot see his performance, what he actually does with the job. 

I'm sorry that Clinton is so flawed. That's truly a shame. As Mr.
Shakespeare said, ". . . and the elements/So mixed in him." But I still
don't see why that prevents people who presume to have some grasp of
objectivity from seeing what's right in front of them. 

Clinton is such a master that he has played a Republican Congress to a
dead standstill for six years now -- and often with no cards at all in his
hand (mostly due to his own stupidity during the Late Unpleasantness). 

And what a set of Republicans. It's not as though he's had to deal with
constructive citizens who happen to differ with him on the issues -- your
Robert Tafts, your Bob Doles, your Margaret Smiths or such as that. Newt
Gingrich and the Republican Revolution -- God save us. 

Lord knows, the Republicans have saved Bill Clinton. Time after time after
time, they are so blinded by their hatred of Clinton that they do
themselves in. I'm sure it's a mercy, but it's also a peculiar phenomenon. 

I've already said my piece on the Clinton-haters. I suspect it has
something to do with sex or sexual envy, which always makes people
irrational. But there has already been far too much parlor psychoanalysis
and idiot psychobabble about Clinton. When the content-analysis mavens at
the schools of communication go through coverage of the Clinton
administration, my bet is that they find a lot more psychobabble than they
do actual reporting on what he's done: 

* A seven-year economic boom (and some of the credit for that should go to
George Bush the elder) marred by a terrible maldistribution of wealth,
mostly caused by stupid tax policies. If Clinton had had a better
Congress, it wouldn't be such a problem. 

* Some nice peace work here and there -- Northern Ireland, the Middle
East. 

* One bozo military adventure. Clinton's bombing of the drug factory in
Sudan ranks right up there with the time that Ronald Reagan invaded
Grenada to save us all from some Cuban construction workers. Kosovo is a
disaster, but Kosovo was going to be a disaster no matter what we did. 

* Almost certainly should have done better with Russia; there was an awful
lot of capitalist hubris in this country after the Cold War ended. 

* Some very graceful and deft diplomatic work. The Republicans keep
complaining that Clinton apologizes for our foreign policy mistakes when
he goes abroad. We had a lot of mistakes to apologize for. What, you
thought the Greek junta was a swell bunch? 

* A big failure on health-care reform, though I still think that lobby
money is what really killed that bill. But note the interesting way that
Clinton works as a pol. He really is an incrementalist. He got a full
children's health insurance program through a Republican Congress (much
credit to Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch). He signed a lousy welfare reform
bill and then quietly went back and fixed many of the worst provisions in
it. The guy just keeps chipping away. 

The best description of Clinton I ever heard was from an Arkansas state
senator who said: "He's like one of those broad-bottomed children's toys.
You tump him over, and he pops back up. You tump him over again, and he
pops back up again." 

Given the amount of personal abuse the man has taken, his resilience is
just extraordinary. Apparently he really does get up every day and start
over. 

We've never seen him get mad in public as the president, and I have often
wanted to congratulate his late mother on his manners. Would that Trent
Lott's momma had done half that well. Given the circumstances of his
presidency, Clinton deserves a medal just for being generally cheerful. 

On the sleaze factor, I don't know that one can blame Clinton so much as
the whole system of campaign financing. By 1996, the floodgates were wide
open; it was ally-ally-in free on the money. 

The Republicans didn't look any better. Who can forget the immortal
testimony of Haley Barbour that while sitting on the deck of a junk in
Hong Kong harbor, he had no idea he was being offered foreign money? 

This administration's indictment count is still well under the glorious
benchmarks set by Nixon and Reagan. (Although I think we're going to have
to put Nixon in a permanent separate category. Did you read the
transcripts of the tapes they just released? What a despicable human. In
the long history of rationalization, have you ever seen anything more
bizarre than someone as intelligent as William Safire carrying on about
the moral leprosy of Clinton while still defending Nixon?)

Whatever Clinton's mistakes, they don't seem to have stemmed from malice.
I may be wrong, but I don't see much mean in him. 

Whoever wins the election next year, I give him six weeks and one good
screw-up before someone in Washington has the simple honesty to say, "You
know, Clinton coulda handled that with his eyes shut." 

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the `Star-Telegram.' You can reach her at
1005 Congress Ave., Suite 920, Austin, TX 78701; (512) 476-8908; or
mollyivins@star-telegram.com. 

"have a nice day."
--mick foley