In search of a legacy

I thought that Bill Clinton would wreck the country. I was wrong. Other than diddling the help, Clinton’s method of governing by the poll ensured he would not engage in anything risky or great. He just plodded along splitting the difference between people on the left and the right with big ideas. All the while he complained about how unfairly he was being treated by that mean Ken Starr. And after serving eight years as the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, his name will be forever and foremost linked with a 20 something intern whose last name is now used as a verb for a sex act.

Even after Lewinsky (The girl not the sex act.) Bill Clinton’s legacy will hinge on the former president playing fast and lose with the truth. When George W. Bush was informed that he was running well behind John Kerry in exit polling he replied, “It is what it is.” Contrast that response with Bill Clinton’s tortured sworn testimony, “It depends on what the meaning of is, is.” Even respectable people in his party knew that Bill Clinton was an extremely smooth liar. Democrat Senator Bob Kerry noted early in Bill Clinton’s presidency that Clinton was “a remarkably good liar.”

After using the Oval Office as a brothel and being a “remarkably good liar,” Clinton will next be known as the one who passed the buck. When U.S. “forces” stormed a compound in Wako, TX killing more than 80 U.S. citizens many of them children, President Clinton effortlessly passed the buck to Attorney General Janet Reno – who to her credit stepped up and accepted responsibility. When the Chinese got U.S. missile technology that allowed them to target U.S. cities – and Clinton/Gore got Chinese campaign cash - it was Commerce Secretary Brown’s fault. When a Sudanese aspirin factory was mistakenly bombed – oddly during Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony – it was the CIA’s fault.

So what is an under performing and/or disgraced former president to do? Nixon showed his superior intellect by writing books and speaking out on foreign affairs. Gerald Ford faded away and played a lot of golf. Jimmy Carter traveled around certifying crooked elections and building houses for the poor. George H.W. Bush, perhaps the classiest among former presidents, just went home and minded his own business.

Bill Clinton is in the process of trying to build a post presidential legacy that will somehow over shadow the pathetic legacy he achieved while he was in office. As a means to this end Bill Clinton has taken to holding “world” conferences on this and that. Yesterday he tried to just re-write history with Stephanopolis and Russert.

An AFP story notes, “Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq ‘virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction.’" This is absurd. Breaking with tradition? Clinton and fellow Democrat failure Jimmy Carter broke with tradition five years ago five minutes after George Bush was sworn in the first time. It’s also absurd in that ignores 18 failed UN resolutions. It’s also absurd because ignores tens of thousands of dead Kurds and Iranians killed by Saddam with chemical weapons. Last it is absurd because it ignores French, German and Russian treachery in the UN Security Council.

The AFP went on, “The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support ‘I think is the best strategy. The problem is we not have, in the short run, enough troops to that,’ said Clinton.” So what is the slick one advocating? That we should turn it over to the Iraqis by doing more for them? More troops equals more targets. More troops equals more work by US troops and less by the Iraqis. More troops equals more cost to the US. So what’s the answer slick one? More US or more Iraqi?

Then in a couple of truly dopey comments on Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted FEMA for not getting the poor out of New Orleans via buses. I guess the slick one has not seen the photo of the municipal and school bus fleets parked in neat rows…underwater. Clinton also made a goofy comment that his FEMA director James Lee Witt was “always in there early.” Well first, where was Witt during the Chicago heat wave of July 1995 that killed 525, mostly poor and elderly people a figure that for now exceeds the death toll in New Orleans? Next I guess the slickster missed the Michael Kelly piece that documents that FEMA’s response to Katrina was faster than FEMA’s average. Last, I suppose that the oily one didn’t know that James Lee Witt has been brought on to help the hapless LA Governor Blanko and still hasn’t been able to get a handle on the total incompetence of state and local leadership.

Bill Clinton’s latest bid at a legacy is much easier than holding some world conference. He just sits around and criticizes the other guy. Sort of a "the worst you look the better I look" legacy. The problem is that nobody will ever look as bad as Clinton. He was the worst kind of failure. He didn’t fail because he lacked intellect. He is by all accounts brilliant. He didn’t fail because the projects he tried were just too big and just out of reach. He tried nothing big. He didn’t fail because he couldn’t bring America along with him. America supported him through his darkest moments. He didn’t fail because America was weak or broke. Thanks to Reagan Bush, we were at the height of our strength and wealth. He failed because he was and remains obsessed with himself. Listen when speaks to the number of times the pronouns I and me come up. That just about says it all.