Who says Bill Clinton isn’t still making history?
Bill Nalty
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
June 23, 2002
He-e-e-e’s back!
Who says Bill Clinton isn’t still making history?
By Paul Greenberg
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
There may be hope for the Clinton Library here in Little Rock after all.
It could turn out to be more than the usual presidential shrine if it
follows the lead of a seminar just held at Fayetteville, Ark., home of
the University of Arkansas.
Despite its typically soporific academic title ("Vantage Points:
Perspectives on the Clinton Presidency") the two-day meeting turned out
to be a serious, if early, exploration of the weird decade we've just
gone through. The seminar brought together an assemblage of experts on
the Age of Clinton and, glory be, most of them didn't come across as
experts at all. They made sense.
As usual, the almost geological divide over any subject connected with
Bill Clinton soon divided this panel, too. Despite his constant talk
about wanting to unite Americans, it's hard to think of another recent
American president — except Richard Nixon — who proved so constantly
divisive.
Bill Clinton's bigger-than-life persona overwhelmed his politics,
whatever they happened to be at any given time. In that, too, he was a
Nixonian figure. If Tricky Dick was a conservative who adopted liberal
policies, whether he was ordering wage-and-price controls or courting
Chairman Mao, it was never clear what policies Slick Willie was adopting
or surrendering at the moment.
A professor of history from Purdue, Randy Roberts, predicted the former
president will continue to be a celebrity. "He's way beyond a
politician," Roberts noted. And always has been, he might have added.
Even in office, Bill Clinton was less a commander-in-chief than a
celebrity-in-chief, flitting from one crisis to the next, none of them
very relevant now, but each of them riveting at the time. It was a
little like living with an adolescent: a combination of the harrowing
and hilarious. Bill Clinton's great contribution to the presidency was
to trivialize it, to turn it into a Hollywood production.
Even his impeachment and trial, for all their theatrics, lacked any real
drama or suspense. It was as if the country had decided to take a
decade-long break from history and go for entertainment instead. There
were times when it felt as if the Roaring '20s were back.
The surreal Clinton Years had the phony feel of a docudrama even as they
were taking place in so-called reality.
Veteran reporter Ken Bode predicted that, in the end, the judgment of
the historians may mirror that of the people — that the personal
failures of this president were so integral a part of his presidency, it
is the scandals people will remember. What a pity. For here was a
president with political talent to burn, which he proceeded to do.
Bill Clinton's presidential years now seem as ephemeral as the dot-com
bubble. Bode's sad conclusion: "He wasted too much of his presidency on
trivia." So did the country.
Bill Clinton didn't just set the tone of the '90s, he reflected it. He
wasn't an aberration, he was the pattern. Much like one of his speeches,
the whole decade seemed to go on forever without reaching any clear
conclusion.
The '90s added up to a strange combination: sentimentality without
emotion, leadership without direction, idealism without sacrifice,
ambition to no clear purpose. Perhaps the best description of the spirit
of the '90s is spiritless.
It was a decade marked by a self-absorption remarkable even for this
remarkably self-absorbed society. Looking back, the most mystifying
thing about the '90s is how little there is to see — despite all the
sound and fury.
When judging the Clinton Legacy, the best parallel may not be Richard
Nixon, who dealt with great issues and dark forces, including those
within himself. Much like Shakespeare's misbegotten King Richard, he
seemed born to the villainy that his every awkward movement telegraphed.
Whatever criticisms one might make of Richard Nixon, he was serious,
terribly serious.
But I've never been able to think of The Hon. William J. Clinton as
wicked; he lacks the character for it.
Bill Clinton, ever smooth, was more like the series of hapless
Republican presidents during the '20s who never saw the '30s coming.
Warren G. Harding comes most readily to mind. And as Alice Roosevelt
Longworth, who always had something memorable to say, summed him up:
"Harding wasn't a bad man; he was just a slob."
If Richard Nixon's presidency was the stuff of tragedy, Bill Clinton's
was closer to farce.
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Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 121
E. Capitol Ave., Little Rock, AR 72201. Distributed by the Los Angeles
Times Syndicate.