www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=476642&CFID=158030&CFTOKEN=36446350
Jan 11th 2001 From The Economist print edition Our parting judgment on Bill Clinton AP AP EIGHT years ago, as Bill Clinton took office, The Economist wrote a leader entitled "The Trouble with Mr Fizz". We liked Mr Clinton's energy and optimism, and we had endorsed him largely on the strength of them. We were bothered that Mr Clinton was naturally prodigal, that he wanted too much to be all things to all men, and that he lacked the discipline to get things done. Now that the eight tempestuous years are up, is that our closing judgment too? Mr Clinton's presidency has been both better, and worse, than we foresaw. Begin with the economy, where Mr Clinton's two terms have spanned America's longest peacetime boom. Happy coincidence, you could say--all thanks to Alan Greenspan's skilled work at the Federal Reserve, and to Silicon Valley. That is mostly right, but Mr Clinton played a part with budgets that became increasingly responsible, until by 2000 (when he proposed almost no new spending, despite the forecast of huge future surpluses) they were positively virtuous. It is true that Newt Gingrich's Republicans set the pace. But by the late 1990s it was the Republicans who were flirting again with deficits by proposing giant tax cuts, and Mr Clinton who was standing firm. This extraordinary turnaround, by which the Democrats became the flag-bearers of fiscal responsibility, was the culmination of Mr Clinton's recasting of his party. He made the Democrats electable again, starting long before he was president, by moving them decidedly towards free trade and enterprise and away from excessive regulation. To those who like sharper flavours in politics, this was a disappointment and even a betrayal of the needy. The needy themselves, buoyed up by economic boom, have been happy to go along. Al Gore may well have lost in November because he tried to lurch away from the muzzy centrism his boss had perfected. On trade, Mr Clinton's instincts were fine, but he seldom made the case for free trade persuasively to the country. He won the North American Free-Trade Agreement more by luck than judgment, after pushing it clumsily and late. This was typical of his foreign-policy performance in general, at least in the early years. With his instinctive empathy, and his desire that all men should be friends, Mr Clinton was a natural candidate to sort out the world's more intractable arguments. But at first he was loth to get interested, let alone involved. When he did get involved, as in trying (and failing) to sell the test-ban treaty, he often made a poor fist of explaining the reasons to Americans. Nonetheless, the Clinton of the second term was a huge improvement. His support for the Balkans peace process and for NATO enlargement was unwavering. His handling of both Russia and China was, mostly, tactful but firm. The sight of him in the past few months, tirelessly trying to mend fences in the Middle East, inspires a sigh for the good work he might have done earlier--and even a wish that he could carry on. His slow involvement with the world was not just because he came from Arkansas. He followed a president, George Bush senior, who had neglected reforms at home. We approved, and thought, with his energy and a head abuzz with ideas, that he would be good at it. Politically brilliant, politically inept Even when the Democrats were in charge in Congress, Mr Clinton turned out to be a poor twister of arms and an erratic salesman of his policies. As a result, despite his talents as a spotter of political trends, he has a thin legislative achievement to show for his eight years. Health-care reform, his first hope, was woefully mishandled. Welfare reform, his greatest success--won in the teeth of opposition from his own party--owed a lot to pushing from Republicans. The paucity of his achievement, however, was not merely because he lacked the right touch. He also wasted large amounts of time, energy and authority battling the scandals that were constantly laid at his door. Much of 1994 was taken up with Whitewater, a seemingly dodgy property deal in Arkansas; It was the same old problem of indiscipline again: this time, sexual. He thought his enemies were out to bring him down, and had half a point: nothing was proved against him on Whitewater. After a time, Americans definitively sided with him, losing patience with his accusers. The Economist took a sterner line, arguing that he was dragging his office into such disrepute that he would eventually lose all standing both at home and abroad. But we have to admit that Mr Clinton has preserved much more moral authority and effectiveness in office than ever seemed possible. By an irony, he has looked more and more presidential the closer he has come to leaving. In these past weeks, as the focus has shifted to another inexperienced but less clever southern governor, there is a huge sense of talent wasted. With more discipline and less self-indulgence, how good eight years of Bill Clinton could have been.
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