Philip Terzian
Still, the question deserved an answer, and my stab went something like
this. I thought then, and still believe, that Clinton's status as a draft
dodger during the Vietnam war, combined with his clumsy efforts to disguise
the truth, put him beyond the pale for, perhaps, a quarter of the
electorate. They found it deeply shocking that such a person would presume
to be President of the United States, or that such a history would not
disqualify that person from the White House. The fact that Clinton had
carried on at least one extramarital affair with someone like Gennifer
Flowers, and sought equally clumsily to obscure this as well, didn't help
his cause. From the day he was elected by 43 percent of American voters,
about 25 percent regarded Bill Clinton as, somehow, illegitimate.
Now, of course, Bill Clinton is history, and we have a new president.
George W. Bush is a very different pot of spinach from Bill Clinton, but the
two have something in common. Given the dramatic circumstances surrounding
Bush's victory, another 25 percent of the electorate is estranged, probably
permanently, from that man in the White House. You still hear the phrase
"President-select" bandied about, and plenty of letters to the editor still
complain that the man who ought to be laboring in the Oval Office is Al
Gore. There is very little that George W. Bush can do about such people,
whose hatred and contempt for Mr. Bush -- and bitterness at his narrow
electoral victory in Florida -- will only intensify.
For them it is going to be a long eight years, for while Bill Clinton's
political skills were impressive, I am beginning to suspect that George W.
Bush's are superior. Bill Clinton won the presidency with a mandate from the
media, and he took office in tandem with a Democratic Congress. But it took
very little time for him to slip on some banana peels -- the hunt for a
token female attorney general, gays in the military, the Waco immolation,
his wife's attempt to rebuild American medicine on the Cuban model -- and
within two years Congress was in Republican hands for the first time in 40
years. Clinton never really recovered from those early pratfalls. He was
adept at co-opting certain Republican issues -- balanced budget, welfare
reform -- And he won re-election by frightening voters with the imminent
loss of their old-age pensions. But his skills were applied to survival, not
achievement.
At this early stage in his presidency, George W. Bush has not only
chosen to emphasize a select handful of issues that enjoy widespread appeal
-- ensuring success, and the semblance of strength -- but has lowered the
fever pitch of the presidency. None of us is privy to the melodrama of the
Bush marriage (if there is one) and there are no breathless revelations
about crisis management, or the burden of office, or burning the midnight
oil in the White House. The image is smooth and the atmosphere is one of
understated confidence -- so much, indeed, that journalists wonder who's in
charge. The Bush precursors who last inspired such thoughts were Dwight D.
Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. And Bush has the wit, and serene
self-confidence, to poke fun at this palpably fictional public image.
The President was criticized for failing to travel to Alaska to greet
the Navy fliers who had been held hostage in China. I confess my reaction
was very different. It was not difficult to imagine Mr. Bush's predecessor
seizing the opportunity to park Air Force One beside the military transport
that brought the fliers home, and striding to the head of the receiving line
for a handshake, hug and photo op. Bill Clinton would have used every day of
the crisis to televise his concern, advertise his labors, and cast the
US-China dynamic in personal terms. George W. Bush, by contrast, kept his
comments to a minimum and let events, rather than emotion, take their
course.
It's not as much fun for journalists, to be sure, but it is certainly
less exhausting to the bulk of Americans, and clearly more effective in the
realm of public policy. His habit of laughing at his foibles, and anointing
friends and enemies with nicknames, has left detractors speechless and the
disaffected 25 percent in helpless rage. Mr. Bush prefers to govern, not
intrude or dominate, and give credit where it's due. He has reconverted
modesty into a virtue, and reminded Americans that dignity and politics are
not mutually exclusive. In a hundred days in office, that's no small
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
A FEW YEARS ago an English journalist asked me why
some Americans seemed to loathe Bill Clinton so much. I replied that the
disdain for then-President Clinton felt in certain quarters seemed no more
potent than the hatred once expressed for Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
Different people were involved, of course, but the sentiments were
comparable, and probably reflected the fact that partisan rancor has an old
and imaginative history in America, and shows no signs of abatement.
JWR contributor Philip Terzian is associate editor of The Providence Journal.
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