The Clinton legacy

The going has been so good the last eight years that the current slower rate of economic growth seems like a recession. In January 1993 there were about 50 Web sites worldwide, now the number is beyond counting. The Dow was 3,200 back then, today it flirts with 11,000. No other nation has adapted to the global economy as effectively and profitably as has the United States, nowhere has the technological future become such a reality.

Sweeping health care reform failed, but small changes have brought incremental improvement and no one continues to deny the need for more, substantive if not sweeping. The budget is balanced, surpluses mount, welfare has gone to work. Abroad, Russia, though hardly a model of democracy and free enterprise, has not backslid into tyranny. The slaughter in the Balkans has ended. Iraq remains troublesome but contained. Northern Ireland is committed to peace. Israel and the Palestinians, though bloodied, are at least committed to making a commitment.

By the broad measures that make it into history books, the future will have to judge the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton a rather rousing success – it is, after all, hard to argue against unprecedented peace, prosperity and progress. Those who lived through it know there’s much more to the story.

The flip side of this president’s legacy, the Bill Clinton side, is the one stained by scandal, by dreadful behavior, infidelity and lying. This is the side that is substantially to blame for a poisonous political atmosphere that clouds government from Capitol Hill to the town hall, that has made cynicism commonplace and civil public discourse rare. It has been said that Mr. Clinton survived the relentless attacks and even impeachment because, despite his flaws, he always seemed better than his enemies. That may be, but it’s partly his fault he had so many of them.

Of course, no one president or one administration ever can claim credit, or should be granted credit, for such things as a long-term economic boom. Wall Street and Silicon Valley had a lot to do with this one, but so, most impartial experts agree, did Mr. Clinton – the 1993 budget package he passed began to cut deficits and lower interest rates as it signaled fiscal discipline and America’s readiness to face the global economy head-on.

The same goes for blame. There have been foreign policy missteps and outright disasters – Somalia, for one – but there also is the undeniable truth that the missteps, disasters, ignorance and neglect of previous administrations have a way of piling up. Even domestic disasters had a way of revealing the errors of predecessors. The Waco debacle, for example, was part Clinton administration misjudgment, part the FBI and ATF unaccountability and intransigence it inherited.

On one point future historians and current observers can agree – Mr. Clinton redefined, even redesigned, the successful politician. In the same way that the rarest artists create a style and at the same time perfect it, Bill Clinton created the “third way” politician and took it to a level others can only hope to attain. It was his particular genius to blend liberal leanings with conservative policies to produce a political position that, depending upon the light, looks either slightly left-of-center or tilted a bit to the right. By usurping traditional conservative issues such as a balanced budget and welfare reform, Mr. Clinton irritated political opponents in a way no die-hard liberal ever could. Britain’s Blair, Mexico’s Fox, Germany’s Schroeder all have followed this “third way” to the top and it was Bill Clinton who blazed the trail.

The public has embraced these politics of practicality over ideology. Despite knowing – and disapproving – of his character flaws, Americans twice elected Bill Clinton president and have given him consistently high performance ratings. One aspect of the Clinton legacy may be an acknowledgment that the public understands the drive and ego high office requires often comes with a downside.

Take away the downside, the flaws and the scandal and this waning presidency leave behind a wistful tinge of unfulfilled promise. Up from poverty in one of the poorest and most backward of states, with no advantages and against all odds to high educational achievement, to election as attorney general, governor and, finally, president – it could have been the quintessential inspiring American success story but it didn’t end quite right.

In fact, the most compelling, the most touching, part of the legacy of William Jefferson Clinton may be the part that’s missing.