"No One Died When Clinton Lied" -- Except The Democrats

This is a rather long (but hopefully provocative) posting so make yourself comfortable.

As the media frenzy around Bill Clinton’s biography cranks into high gear I’m reminded just how much I despise the man. And, more importantly, how much you should as well, especially if you (like me) find yourself disgusted with the Bush administration.

A non sequitur? Hardly. Indeed, Bill Clinton (and those who defended him) should be held directly responsible for the election of George W. Bush in November 2000. A quick refresher course:

Back in the summer of 1998, as Clinton was to testify before the Grand Jury, Monicagate was coming to a boil. The Republicans were howling for impeachment. The Democrats (and even “pwogessive” voices like The Nation) were claiming he was a victim of “sexual McCarthyism.”

Both were wrong. Clinton’s transgressions didn’t rise to a crime against the state. But he was nevertheless a moral and political embarrassment. A born trimmer, his personal behavior was a perfect match with his feckless public opportunism. He lied (not as a witness) but as a defendant in a sexual harassment case; he plotted to obstruct justice; he clearly suborned perjury; and he was porking an intern less than half his age in the Oval Office.

Simply, Bill Clinton should have resigned. And if not, then the Democratic congressional leadership should have publicly demanded his stepping down. I’m proud to say that – allotted by The Nation in October 1998 a scant 700 word island in a months-wide sea of otherwise Clinton apologia-- Micah Sifry, Doug Ireland and I (none of us Democrats) jointly editorialized for Clinton to hand in his resignation.

No way. The Democrats rallied to Slick Willie and the rest is history. If Clinton, however, had stepped down and Al Gore had become President in the fall of 1998, I’d bet the farm that he’d won two years later in a landslide.

No one better than former Republican-strategist-turned-populist Kevin Phillips in his new book on the Bush Dynasty details how widespread voter repulsion with Clinton allowed a pipsqueak like Dubya to even have a shot at winning.

But in that crucial last half of 1998 Democrats whipped themselves into a lather demonizing Kenneth Starr instead of questioning the viability of their own leader and the future of their own party. A few Democrats, however, got it. Very few. One of them was Henry Ruth, a former Watergate prosecutor who voted for Clinton both times. Writing in the Wall Street Journal on December 10, 1998 (not available online), Ruth as much as predicted the coming Democratic defeat in November 2000:

“This shameless dust campaign demeans us," Ruth wrote. "Mr. Clinton's defenders tell us that our national heroes have always lied about sex. They trash seriatim a new hero-offender every week: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK and LBJ. None of these men committed perjury or obstruction of justice. All trumpeted noble ideals and called on citizens to sacrifice for the sake of freedom. Can the same be said of Mr. Clinton?"

Ruth then quoted a quip from Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, who asked, "What did the president touch and when did he touch it?" Ruth answered the question this way:

"Mr. Clinton has touched all us Democrats in ways that, although we may not realize it now, we most certainly will in November 2000 if we continue to denigrate the presidency and ignore presidential perjury and obstruction. When the 'game' is over and competition makes way for contemplation, and if the Republicans choose a candidate who is thoughtful and ethical, Democrats and independents will rebel against a presidency that rejects individual responsibility and has no ideal higher than the lowest common denominator."

Ruth got it right. Dubya had little to campaign on except a promise to “restore integrity to the White House.” It turned out to be just enough—give or take a few thousand votes in Florida. Democrats still didn’t learn the lesson. Instead of accepting responsibility for their own failures –and those of Bill Clinton and Al Gore—they scapegoated the rather insignicant Ralph Nader.

Frankly, I never fully understood the liberal ass-kissing of Clinton. But, oh, how they went in the tank for him! Just like they will in the coming weeks when they scoop up his book and wax nostalgic about the glory days in the era before Bush.

Allow me, then, also a few minutes of nostalgia. A few weeks after Henry Ruth’s piece appeared, I teamed up with former Democratic strategist Pat Caddell and in the Wall Street Journal we wrote of our dismay over the lack of liberal outrage against Clinton. Here is an extended excerpt:

“In the past six years, liberals have continued their defense of the Clinton presidency, paying a staggering price: unconditional surrender of their ideals.

Where was the Democratic outrage when in the first months of the Clinton administration 83 men, women and children were immolated by federal agents at Waco? The same Democrats now bleating about the violation of Mr. Clinton's rights were eerily silent when, as the 1996 re-election campaign was beginning, the president signed the Effective Death Penalty Act--a dastardly law that quashes nearly all legal appeals from death row.

Democrats denounce the violation of the president's right to privacy. But they have nothing to say when his administration proposes to legalize "roving" wiretaps. They are equally mum on the immigration bill signed by Mr. Clinton that virtually abolished due process and this year alone has resulted in more than 30,000 summary deportations, in many cases of long-term legal residents. And when Mr. Clinton signed the 1996 welfare bill, which requires unwed mothers to name their children's fathers on pain of prosecution, it was left to Jesse Jackson to snuff out the moral fires. When liberals pondered their options of protest at the 1996 Democratic Convention, Mr. Jackson loudly barked the stray dissenters back into the fold.

Likewise, in the current Monicagate fiasco, mainstream feminist organizations have shredded two decades of hard-earned gains in sexual harassment law. True, Paula Jones's case was exploited by Clinton haters. But that's no excuse for the White House to attack her as "trailer trash" or for Mr. Clinton, as a defendant in a sexual harassment case, to lie under oath. Since when is it the task of liberal feminists to intentionally confuse this repugnant act of perjury with what they disingenuously call "just lying about sex"?

But the most disturbing consequence of the surrender to Clinton has been the self-strangulation of the Democratic peace constituency. In August Mr. Clinton ordered missile attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan within days of his disastrous speech about Monicagate. When credible news reports surfaced that the plant demolished by U.S. rockets in the Sudan was a benign pharmaceuticals factory, former President Carter courageously called for an investigation. But Democratic officeholders ignored Mr. Carter's call.

The refusal to speak out on the possible Sudan deception led us directly to last week's tragedy of Operation Desert Fox. As the missiles exploded in Iraq, Democrats cheered. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and Minority Whip David Bonior--both of whom voted against the 1991 Gulf War and argued for the right to publicly challenge the wisdom of George Bush's decision--this time pontificated shamelessly about threats to national security. The low point came when Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.) on the House floor resurrected--nearly word for word-- the scurrilous language LBJ White House's used in 1966 when it questioned the patriotism of his uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, who had begun to speak out against the Vietnam War. Rep. Kennedy even suggested that Congress should ask the CIA for permission to go ahead with the impeachment debate.

As last week came to close, American liberals staged a bizarre televised pageant of moral suicide. On one channel you could view a third wave of a suspiciously timed American air attack rain down on Baghdad, cruise missiles exploding at a million dollars a pop. On another channel, at the same moment, there were the Rev. Mr. Jackson and the cream of liberalism rallying on the Capitol steps, joining hands and intoning "We Shall Overcome"--praying not for the victims of our ordnance, but for the prevaricating president who signed their death warrant.”

I take back not a word of the above, thank you very much. And now I can do little except brace for the festival of adoration that liberals are about to once again rain down on Clinton. I think few have learned the lesson. Just tonight, driving down I-10 near Palm Springs I came upon a sleek, black Lexus in front of me. It bore two bumperstickers. One was a simple “John Kerry for President” sticker. The other read: “No One Died When Clinton Lied.”

What a staggeringly stupid slogan: Our Liar Is Less Of A Liar than Your Liar. And then Democrats wonder where the outrage is over the many lies of George W. Bush!

In the meantime, if you happen to bump into Bill Clinton in a Borders bookstore somewhere over the next three or four weeks, make sure to thank him. Thank him for helping to elect President Bush.

Comments

[John F. Opie]

Hi -

Truly amazing: you've hit this nail directly on the head.

I remember telling my father (a 68er) that the Democrats were committing political suicide by not calling for Clinton's resignation. He put it down in the exact way you've described.

Until the Democrats realized that morality does play a role in getting elected, they won't win.

Even though I disagree with most of what you say, I'll keep on coming back, since you actually think about what you say.

:-)

Best regards,

John

[too many steves]

Never a rabid Clinton hater - though I didn't vote for him and didn't like him much - I believed then, and now, that he was a very bright guy and a skillful politician.

I was amazed that such a smart person could so foolishly load a gun, point it at his head, and hand it to his enemies. I was even more amazed that the rest of the party jumped so easily to defend such aberrant behavoir as Monicagate.

I suspect this defense was an unprincipled and short-sighted reaction to the vitriolic and constant attacks on Clinton. Perhaps the fawning over him that will happen over the next few (several?) weeks is also a reaction - to that of last week's fawning rememberance of Ronald Reagan?

[steve]

I remember telling my father (a 68er) that the Democrats were committing political suicide by not calling for Clinton's resignation. He put it down in the exact way you've described.

--hyperbole? as i recall it Gore won the election 1), Gore would have done better if he hadn't run away from Clinton during the campaign 2) and 3) throughout the *entire* monicagate Clinton's popularity ratings remained high, a clear indication of popular resentment of the hypocritical attacks on Clinton's bedroom issues.

On the other hand, a positive side effect of Clinton's shenanigans was that it made it difficult for Dems and Repubs alike to go on and on about African Americans' 'cultural pathologies' as the cause of their poverty in the inner cities. Bush's life and his family have roughly the same effect. Until Clinton's shenanigans exposed the unscientific basis of both sides of the aisles in making the poverty-morality link, that 'link' was gaining more and more traction in the media and academic circles. For that we can be very grateful to messers Clinton, Gingrich, and Hyde.

The Dem slogan on lying seems to me to be more than 'our guy can lie if yours can lie'. it seems to me they're pointing the finger at the repubs' hypocrisy, which isn't a terrible thing to do during a campaign. If Kerry would aggressively refute each and every one of the Bush campaign's daily distortions of the truth [how in the world to explain Kerry not making political hay of Cheney's latest lie that AQ and Saddam were close], Bush would be easily defeated. Dems are so damned timid.

[Pug]

Pat Caddell? Isn't he the "Democrat" conservatives love to get on TV because he will so reliably start trashing Democrats?

Insignificant Ralph Nader? Surely, you can't be serious.

As for all the squealing about the Sudan "aspirin factory" bombing, I've always wondered: Do you think Clinton personally picked out the target, or was this another example of our brilliant intelligence operations?

Was the answer really to join the lynch mob and string up our guy because of a bunch of phony, ginned-up charges that started with Whitewater and Paula Jones and, over the course of seven years and $70 million, wound up with as an inquisition of sexual antics?

How do you think the Bush/Cheney guys would stand up to a seven year investigation with subpoena power and unlimited funding?

[Marc Cooper]

Pug.. Clinton was not "my" guy, thanks. One of the great under-reported aspects of the whole Monca case was this: Clinton was forced to testify about Monica (in the Paula Jones case) because of a law he had supported and signed..more specifically it was a provision he had added to the law. If u are worried about uninhibited subpoeana powewr, u should address that concern to Bill. I was pleased he was getting strung up.. it was just desserts for a career based on political opportunism. If the focus of the 1996 campaign had been Clinton's charcter, I suppose a President who starts banging barely legal interns in his office kinda deserves what he got. Too bad he wasn't man enough to step down as anyone more decent would have.. or anyone who cared more about his own party and the country than about himself.

[steve]

If the focus of the 1996 campaign had been Clinton's charcter, I suppose a President who starts banging barely legal interns in his office kinda deserves what he got.

--Clinton was small time compared to the much revered Kennedy, no? but really the impeachment hearings had about as much to do with character issues as the invasion of Iraq had to do with bringing democracy or liberating the people of Iraq. and barely legal? she was plenty legal and plenty consensual.
--------------------------
or anyone who cared more about his own party and the country than about himself.

--Clinton is hated by those that matter most during elections far more for his temerity to propose raising the taxes for the wealthiest among us than for his amateurish shenanigans in the 'sacred' office/bedroom. and i don't see how you can deny that Gore's running away from Clinton hurt him, even though he won the election anyhow in 2000.

And none of this changes the fact that Clinton was the best Republican president in over 3 decades.

[Michael J. Totten]

I basically agree. But I also feel like I should put up at least a semi-defense of Clinton's defenders.

The GOP wanted him railroaded out of office before he was even sworn in. The pitched level of loony hatred toward Bill Clinton from the right was so over-the-top and was sustained for so long I felt like I had to stick up for him even though I, like you, preferred Nader.

It's happening all over again, too. I didn't vote for Bush, didn't want him in office, but I don't think he's even a fraction as bad as his more hysterical critics claim he is. You know what I mean, comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of being a Zionist sock puppet, and all the rest of it.

This all goes back to Jane's Law:

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004185.html

"The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane."

[steve]

You know what I mean, comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of being a Zionist sock puppet, and all the rest of it.

--You have this penchant for finding a small minority and turning them into the mainstream in your analysis. The criticism of Bush most commonly heard re: Israel is that he is a supporter of Sharon and has no plan for contributing to an end to the occupation. The Hitler analogies are rare and hardly accepted by most. Indeed, they are hardly seen at all in the mainstream media or even the left media. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that most of the "hitler' screeds come from the extreme right conspiracy theorists, be they in Bircher attire or Rense, Ruppert, et al. Oh yes, you can find it at Indymedia too and the Yahoo Message Boards, and we all know how deep an influence they have on American society.

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve: "You have this penchant for finding a small minority and turning them into the mainstream in your analysis."

(Big sigh.) I explicitly said such people are the "more hysterical" critics. Of course they aren't the mainstream! For God's sake, Steve.

Now that we've got that out of the way, a question...are you ever going to stop being a troll? Or should I just resign myself to being constantly misrepresented by you and just leave you alone to talk to yourself?

[steve]

(Big sigh.) I explicitly said such people are the "more hysterical" critics. Of course they aren't the mainstream! For God's sake, Steve.

--(big sigh) so then the point of harping on such people?
---------------------------------

[steve]

and michael, can you be serious about the 'misrepresenting'? Are you not the person who called me a 'conspiracy theorist'? not a little ironic given the positive book review I wrote about Jerry Lembcke's "CNN's Tailwind Tale"...

[Pat]

Clinton was a mirror to us boomers. All well and good in the best of times; waking up to that bloated visage after a big decade celebrating our stock options was a small price to pay. 9/11 smashed the self-delusion and some of us sobered up. I'll bet Clinton still hasn't. I worked on his campaign in '92 but now am a registered Independent. I wish only now that he and his wife, those two soulless, grasping careerists who embody the worst of my generation, would just go away.

[Steve Smith]

Had Clinton resigned, the Republican attack machine (and Vichy liberals like Caddell) would have just gone after Al Gore with the same intensity. His resignation would have vindicated the Starr Inquest, validated the use of smearing public figures through their private lives, and demoralized Democrats. Bush would have won the 2000 election legitimately, might have had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and Kerry would be spending half his time this year dealing with stories about who he's slept with in the past.

By fighting back, and defeating that coup attempt, Clinton probably performed a greater service to the nation, his party, and to the Left than any other substantive action of his Presidency. He proved that there was after thirty years, there was finally a Democrat out there who wouldn't curl into the fetal position when attacked by his political enemies.

[steve]

and Kerry would be spending half his time this year dealing with stories about who he's slept with in the past.

--Drudge, who seems to be the source of much of right wing paranoia, already tried that trick with Kerry earlier this year.
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He proved that there was after thirty years, there was finally a Democrat out there who wouldn't curl into the fetal position when attacked by his political enemies.

--well, yeah on that score, surely, and his defeat of gingrich was impressive. but the giving in completely to the Bush Sr. bogus reasons for permanent war with Iraq--as though there were no other options available, the surrender to the Repubs and insurance companies on health care reform, the NAFTA battle--fought with Repubs as main allies, still make him the most impressive Republican in 3 decades, since the last great one, Carter.

[Wes of the West]

Clinton is gone. Get over it. That's the problem with pundits -- they can't stop beating those dead horses.

The focus should now be entirely on getting rid of GWB.

[Wagner James Au]

It's a nice rant, Marc, but in my view
wrong by at least half (probably two-
thirds, actually.) You're forgetting
that throughout the impeachement and
leading up to it, public opinion polls
consistently supported Clinton on the
Lewinsky matter in overwhelming numbers,
generally by 60%. ("Support", in the sense
that they didn't want him impeached, as
repugnant and asinine as Clinton's behavior
was, which they also acknowledged.) So by
saying the Democrats should have called
for impeachment, you're saying they should
have ran counter to public opinion, and put
their weight behind an action that would
have turned the rest of the then-Gore
administration into a defanged, lame duck
presidency. (Or is that mixing metaphors?
OK, de-beaked, lame duck presidency.)
Instead, most Democratic leadership and
liberal groups called for Clinton to be
censured. (Indeed, Moveon.org got its start
when it called for Congress to "censure and
move on".) Nothing hypocritical or contradictory
with that; nothing that takes away their moral
high ground. Where you're right is that way
too many Democrats and liberals engaged
unnecessarily in dubious rhetorical flimflam
in defending Clinton, especially feminists.
But that isn't what really paved the way to
Gore's loss. Al Gore would be clippled by his
association with Clinton, impeachment or not--
and worse, crippled by being Al Gore.

[El Julandron]

Second the emotion of our friend Wes of the West above.

That Clinton was a wind-cum (pun intended)-sleaze bag was clear from the very moment we saw him biting his lip and faking an orgasm when the dreadful Angelou read "Morning in America" at the inauguration. Yet Marc's stablemates at The Nation were waiting on the wings with boxes of kleenex and trojans for this presumed reincarnation of Roosevelt who turned out to be a political Elmer Gantry. And basically stuck with him to the end.

[rosedog]

Oh, I dunno, Marc. Never liked the dude from the beginning. Wen Ho Lee. Blocking the UN from preventing 700,000 Rwandan deaths. Unwillingness to stand up for Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. "I never had sex with that woman," [Sick, sick, sick… the way he trashed that silly, little, impressionable girl.], disastrously conceived welfare reform, the horrid “Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act” of 1996…. It’s a long list. But, I like the 60 percent majority to whom James Wagner referred, I didn’t particular want him to resign. I think most Americans got it. The guy was an ass, and yeah, he suborned perjury, but that wasn’t reason enough to toss him out.

I agree, the "my liar is better than your liar" approach is unfortunate. On the other hand, some lies do a lot more damage than others. A lie that leaves a stain on the presidency, as Clinton's did, is one thing. A lie that results in deaths and catastrophic injuries of thousands of American kids and thousands of Iraqi civilians, as Bush's have, is quite another.

Speaking of Clinton, I just watched former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on the Daily Show plugging his new book: “Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America.” He seemed refreshingly unafraid of the “L” word and clear about how neither centrism nor wacko, conspiratorial fringes are a particularly good, practical or moral choice for Democrats, but that there are plenty of disenfranchised folks out there who will respond to (and vote for) sane, coherently thought out liberal ideas.

I don’t know that much about Reich except that he’s shorter than I am, but he did sound…..you know.......reasonable.

[Michael J. Totten]

There's a new movie out called "The Hunting of the President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill Clinton."

http://www.thehuntingofthepresident.com/

I will watch this movie with interest. I've said before I'm not a huge fan of Clinton, but I do find the idea of an extended campaign to destroy the President of the United States a dangerous thing whether I like the guy or voted for the guy or not.

[rosedog]

Yes. That too. What Michael said.

[ljs]

"why does a dog lick his balls..." Bill Clinton June,2004

[steve]

I still don't get the obsession, Clinton was a choirboy compared to Kennedy.
Though Kennedy wasn't nearly as good a Republican as Clinton.

[Robert Fiore]

To me Bill Clinton had a virtue that trumps all his vices -- he knew how to beat the sons of bitches. Unless you can demonstrate you know how to beat the sons of bitches your ethics don't mean squat. The left has enough virtuous failure to last the millennium. Before Clinton the Democrats were trying to stay afloat clinging to waterlogged bits of New Deal and Great Society deadwood. Because of Clinton they have eight years of successful stewardship of the economy to point to.

Did you see the title of this new book by Thomas Frank: "What's Wrong With Kansas?" My God, there's a title that tells you everything that's wrong with the left. Oh no, it's not our failure to convice the people, it's the people's failure to realize we know what's best for them.

[Max]

I'd sign off on 80% of it. Marc glosses over rational partisan reasons for supporting Clinton, whom I started disliking before he assumed office (after I'd voted for him). I'm getting an early start on disliking Kerry, for whom I'll be voting.

The impeachment campaign at the time seemed to be helping Clinton. A successful campaign might have helped the Repugs. So without the benefit of hindsight it was not irrational to be pragmatic and back our SOB over some other one.

[steve]

The impeachment campaign at the time seemed to be helping Clinton. A successful campaign might have helped the Repugs.

--I'd agree with that. as it is gore actually won the election in any event.