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Edited on Sun Apr-06-08 05:21 PM by BeyondGeography
I thought it was a miracle of sorts when Bill Clinton managed to win the presidency in 1992. After 12 years of Republican victory laps, they were even more shocked. I spent eight years defending Bill with all of my might, and, believe me, that took some doing as he wasn't all that popular in the business circles I travelled in during his presidency.
The Republicans, as we know, were guilty of the most obscene, excessive and unpatriotic behavior this country has ever seen in their efforts to take him down. I scoffed at the impeachment, the prurience of Starr and everyone else in the echo chamber, the utter flimsiness of the charges against him and even, at the end, the uproar over the Marc Rich pardon. At the end of the day, it all had to be balanced against the unacceptable political alternative of a conservative (in the unappetizing Reaganite sense of the word) Republican in the White House. Bill Clinton took his job seriously, often outsmarted the Republicans, was quick on his feet intellectually and with the media and represented us well overseas.
I'm a New Yorker and I voted for Hillary Clinton twice. I loved the way she outworked and embarrassed Rick Lazio, I hated the war vote, and I will never forgive her for it, but never thought twice about voting for her in 2006. Most New York Republicans are just as appalling as Republicans around the country. The people who root against her here are people I could never side with. If she runs again, I'll support her.
Bill's defensive behavior regarding Hillary's war vote in the form of his non-resistance to the war and to George W. Bush in particular in 2003 and 2004 was the beginning of my disenchantment with him, but this race has put other things in perspective for me as well.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have always had to play defense as long as they've been on the national stage. In 1992, Americans were angry about the economy, the deficit and the seeming domestic cluelessness of George H.W. Bush, but they were also still in thrall to the central principle of Reaganism, which is that government is more likely the cause of our problems than its solution. Al Gore was put on government downsizing task force, trade agreements were effusively embraced, the Democrats competed for corporate support alongside Republicans and the most memorable line of Bill Clinton's presidency, at the end of the day, was "the era of big government is over."
Bill's excessive embrace of corporations continued into his post-presidency, as we've seen most recently with the release of the Clinton's tax returns. At this point, I view the Clintons as damaged goods. It's not that they have accumlated baggage, it's that their bags are packed with relics of an era that needs to end. The Republicans are a weakened force now; we need to respect their ability to make mischief and distract us, but we must not fear them any longer. Corporations have overplayed their hand; people actually see the need for more government when it comes to big issues like health care and energy, not less. We can't send a couple back to the White House that owes them on a personal and political level and expect things to change.
To sum up, even if my rhetoric about the Clintons is often heated these days, my present opinion of them doesn't come without a measure of sympathy for what they've been through and an understanding of their place in history. Looking to 2008, I wanted an alternative, someone who could argue the issue of Iraq from the position of having always opposed it, someone who would represent a plausible break with corporate-dominated politics and someone whose past wouldn't get in the way of his ability to communicate with the American people. The Clintons were never an option for me this time around. Hatred was never the issue.
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