Paul Krugman, in yet another Obama-basher, tells us why Clinton's attempt at bi-partisanship failed in 1993:
Has everyone forgotten what happened after the 1992 election?
Let’s review the sad tale, starting with the politics.
Whatever
hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era
of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the
country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.
This
bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did.
Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives
determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic
president.
For those who are reaching for their smelling salts
because Democratic candidates are saying slightly critical things about
each other, it’s worth revisiting those years, simply to get a sense of
what dirty politics really looks like.
No accusation was
considered too outlandish: a group supported by Jerry Falwell put out a
film suggesting that the Clintons had arranged for the murder of an
associate, and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page repeatedly
hinted that Bill Clinton might have been in cahoots with a drug
smuggler.
So what good did Mr. Clinton’s message of inclusiveness do him?
Geez, Jerry Falwell and the Wall Street Journal editors were against him! How did Clinton contain his surprise and find the courage to go on?
Well. As to the seemingly rhetorical question of whether everyone has forgotten what happened after the 1992 election, it seems that Paul Krugman has. But I am here to help! Let's crack open the Times archives for some insight into Clinton's early travail's:
1. Zoe Baird. Oops, the nominee for Attorney General forgot to pay her nanny taxes. So did the follow-up nominee, Kimba Wood; eventually, Bil nominates the third most qualified Democratic woman, Janet Reno, who burns dozens of people to death at Waco. Let's hear from the bitter partisans at the NY Times about Ms. Baird:
Ms. Baird and the Clinton staff said there were mitigating
circumstances and an attempt to follow proper procedures that made Ms.
Baird's conduct acceptable. If so, now is the time to make that case,
convincingly and rigorously.
After 12 years of suffering with
attorneys general who were insensitive to civil rights and often to
legal ethics, this country needs the assurance that with a new
President who has pledged that his government will be better, the
Justice Department will be in the hands of someone with unimpeachable
standards.
2. Gays in the military. Tom Friedman, reporter, provided lots of background; here is coverage from Adam (Not Yet Big Time) Clymer:
Congressional resistance to President Clinton's promise to let
homosexuals serve in the military broke into open revolt today,
threatening to derail Democratic plans for quick passage of
family-leave and health legislation.
Senator Bob Dole of
Kansas, the minority leader, said Republicans would offer an amendment
to affirm the existing ban on homosexuals in the armed forces, which
has always been a matter of Pentagon directive rather than statute. He
said the amendment would be added to the first bill the Democrats
brought up.
Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine, the majority
leader, said the amendment was likely to pass if Democrats like Senator
Sam Nunn of Georgia remained opposed to changing the military's policy
against gay men and women in the service.
3. The Disappearing Middle Class Tax Cut: A spin classic:
In selling his economic plan, President Clinton is gambling that
voters never took seriously his campaign promise to lower the tax
burden of the middle class and will respond favorably to an aggressive
pitch based on equal measures of hope, fear and class revenge.
After
months of polling and research, Mr. Clinton's top political advisers
say they are convinced that middle-class voters will support higher
taxes. The advisers say the voters will see the new taxes as the price
of great improvements in Government service and as inflicting a just
punishment on the rich who profited during the Reagan and Bush
Administrations.
...
"Voters never believed in the middle-class tax cut, because they
have never seen anyone get a tax cut," said Mr. Clinton's chief poll
taker, Stanley Greenberg. "They always believed their taxes would go up
whether Bill Clinton became President or George Bush was President.
"They
voted for Bill Clinton because they believed he was going to submit a
program to change the direction of the country, to improve the economy
and to create jobs. They will be mad as hell if their taxes go up and
there's no genuine commitment to change. But if there is, they will be
willing to contribute."
"It is critical," Mr. Greenberg said, that the rich be seen as punished most by Mr. Clinton's tax increases.
I love that spin - The middle class suckers always knew we were lying, and anyway, we're going to pitch this as punishing the rich. But don't call it class warfare!
Well, that is a flavor of Clinton's early stumbles- for more, the NY Times editors looked back on Clinton's first hundred days:
There have also been many missteps, beginning with his snakebit
search for an attorney general and continuing on through the bungled
sales job on his stimulus package. One result has been a flurry of
articles bemoaning a lack of focus in the White House and a general
dulling of the sharp sense of purpose outlined in Mr. Clinton's
campaign.
...
Mr. Clinton won the election in
part because he focused on one message ("It's the economy, stupid"),
despite his policy-wonk tendency to move in a thousand directions at
once. It's still early, and a hundred days really don't mean all that
much, but one lesson he can learn from his slump in Washington and at
the polls is not to confuse motion with progress.
And Tom Friedman looked back at the end of May 1993:
During the Presidential campaign, Mr. Clinton was hailed by friend
and foe as a rare, natural politician who would never lose the populist
touch. But now the biggest question consuming Washington, and
particularly Democrats, is this: How could such a political
thoroughbred seem to keep stumbling out of the starting gate in a race
for which he seemed to have been bred?
From the first week of
the new Administration, Clinton supporters have been waiting for this
young White House to turn a corner and build some consistent momentum
toward its main objective of healing the economy.
After the flap over homosexuals in the military dominated the first two
weeks, officials said they would turn the corner. After the flap over
the abortive nomination of Zoe Baird as Attorney General, officials
said they would turn the corner. After the failure of Mr. Clinton's
stimulus package, officials said there would be a little shake-up of
the White House staff, but now they would really turn the corner.
But after last week's White House news was dominated by the President's
pricey haircut, a revolt among Democrats on taxes, more groping for a
workable policy on Bosnia and the messy dismissal of the White House
travel office amid accusations of cronyism, many Democratic supporters
of Mr. Clinton are beginning to whisper the previously unwhisperable:
What if this White House never turns the corner? What if the real
problem is not focus, or staff, or organizational charts, but somehow
the President himself?
Ahh, well. George Stepanopolous wrote in his White House memoir "All Too Human" that the real reason the press hostility towards the Clintons was much more prosaic - the incoming Administration restricted the space available to the White House press corps. From the Times:
SETTLING IN: The Media; Outdoing Bush, President Keeps the Press at Bay
...In another break from decades of custom, Clinton officials have barred
reporters from the area behind the press briefing room that holds the
offices of Mr. Stephanopoulos and the press secretary, Dee Dee Myers.
This decision brought tense exchanges between Mr. Stephanopoulos and
the White House press corps at his first briefing this week. The public
could witness the exchanges because, in another departure from past
practice, Clinton officials have opened the daily briefings to
television cameras.
Now, I am not going to pretend that Republicans simply tossed rose petals at Clinton during his first months in office. However, a lot of his problems were self-inflicted, so ti pretend, as Krugman would like to, that Cinton's early problems were all due to Evil Republicans is absurd.
But let's press on with Krugman for a moment:
So what are the lessons for today’s Democrats?
First, those
who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to
return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the
punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to
the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession
of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major
media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the
accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).
Well, so what? Does he seriously think it was the only the wild charges leveled by the Wall Street Journal that gave Clinton so many problems? Hmm, does he also imagine it was Michael Moore's films that ruined the Bush Administration? In the case of Bush I am quite confident Krugman believes there were fundamental problems of mis-management; is he able to entertain the notion that the early days of Clinton I were also chaotic?
More Krugman:
The point is that while there are valid reasons one might support Mr.
Obama over Mrs. Clinton, the desire to avoid unpleasantness isn’t one
of them.
Time will tell, but we have seen the real Clintons in the last week in South Carolina - they will bring the nasty as quickly as anyone, and won't limit themselves to Republican targets. President Hillary's honeymoon will be over before she finishes taking the oath; for a lot of obvious reasons a significant portion of the country (and media) will be committed to seeing her fail from Minute One.
But President Obama? Of course there will be some unpleasantness - that would be true even if we elected George Washington or Elvis Presley - but Obama really does not bring the baggage or demeanor of the Clintons. I think it is highly likely that he would get a reasonable opportunity work his magic in Washington. Folks hoping to avoid all unpleasantness had probably better avoid politics (and stick with rooting for the Pats); folks hoping to dramatically improve the tone in Washington have a good chance of being pleased with a President Obama but no chance of seeing an improvement under President Hillary.
So if you have enjoyed the political theatre of the last 15 years, Hillary is an excellent choice. And since Paul Krugman never disagrees with someone without demonizing them, I can see why she is his choice.
