A Clinton Restoration?

Among the strongest non-ideological arguments against the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, to my mind, is the one that Andrew, among others, has frequently marshaled - that putting her in the White House would keep the country mired in the Bush-Clinton civil war that's defined our politics for quite a while now, trapping us all in the political psychodrama of the Baby Boomers for another 4-8 years. The question is whether this sort of reasoning has any resonance with the general public. Matt Continetti, parsing AEI's latest political report, offers reason to think it doesn't:

In September, when ABC News / Washington Post pollsters asked respondents whether they approved of Bill Clinton's presidential job performance, 66 percent approved and 32 percent disapproved. Furthermore, when those pollsters asked whether respondents were "comfortable with the idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House," 60 percent said yes, they were comfortable, while 30 percent said they were uncomfortable.

I'm pretty sure those numbers would begin to move if the pollsters scanned likely voters in a presidential election. And if the Republican National Committee spent millions on a slew of negative ads reminding the country of Clinton's bad karma. I'm just not sure how much the numbers would move - or in what direction.

Still, as it stands, about two-thirds of the country wouldn't mind if Clinton were back. Republicans to whom I've talked have long thought that if people realize that a Hillary Clinton presidency would mean the return of Bill Clinton and all of his, you know, baggage, then those people would not want Hillary Clinton to become president. Maybe that's not quite true.

If you followed politics religiously, as everyone who writes about politics for a living does, the Clinton years were a poisonous and depressing era in American history, and another Clinton term sounds like an enormously wearying prospect. But of course most Americans don't follow politics religiously; they tuned out the Clinton wars then, and I'm sure they'd be happy to tune out a revival of the Clinton wars now, if putting Hillary in the White House would bring back certain other aspects of the pre-9/11 era. A "back to the Nineties" narrative sounds like a terrible idea if you care about the quality of life inside the Beltway, but I doubt that's nearly as important to most voters as it is to us pundit types.

Photo by Flickr user MarcN used under a Creative Commons license.

Comments

It depends on what the meaning of is…is!!!

Who do you believe Peter Paul or Bill and Hillary Clinton. Personally I believe Peter Paul, because he never lied to me or the American people. How long will the American people let these people get away with scandal after scandal before they pull the plug on them? I mean come on!!!

Seven months after he wagged his finger and sternly told a national audience that he did not have sex with "that woman," the president said during another live television address that he had not been candid because he wanted to protect himself and his family from embarrassment..

Then Bill goes on to spin the Starr investigation at his congressional library interview.

Hillary accepts illegal campaign funds from Peter Paul then lies about it. They discredit Paul by saying he is a fraud and leaks information to the press.

Pardon gate list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill_Clinton

Scandal list

http://prorev.com/legacy.htm

Peter Paul video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019&q=hillary+uncensored&total=146&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Is Hillary Clinton a fibber? It depends on what the meaning of the word is>>>is.

Posted by Stephan Andrew Brodhead | October 30, 2007 5:21 PM

Exactly right, Ross.

The DC consensus tends to lump Clinton and Bush into the same bad era. But that ignores a pretty critical point: Bush is extremely unpopular. Clinton was relatively popular. The idea that there's some overarching "Bush-Clinton civil war" is more or less manufactured out of insider perception.

I think to the extent that people were aware of the "poisonous and depressing" aspects of the "Clinton wars," they tended to blame Clinton's opponents - who, not unrelatedly, are the same people who are the quite unpopular establishment now. Matthew Continetti might be convinced that the Clintons have some kind of "bad karma," but the frame he's stuck in is not only, as he puts it, "not quite true," it's the opposite of true.

To illuminate Continetti's dilemma in a metaphorical way: if people are eating McDonald's hamburgers, then you give them dirt to eat, they're not going to be convinced to eat more dirt just because you remind them that McDonald's is high in fat.

Posted by SDM | October 30, 2007 5:40 PM

That first comment makes Douthat's point perfectly.

The Clinton administration's various scandals make all but the most committed politicos glaze over. Bush's scandals tend to involve (actual) dead bodies, torture victims, or wooden pallets stacked with money -- and directly harm America's reputation as a world power, as opposed to inspiring a bunch of jokes about someone's penis.

Call me a crazy pinko, but I think Bush's scandals carry a little more weight than Bill Clinton's troubles defining the word "is" in a deposition.

DU

Posted by The Mechanical Eye | October 30, 2007 5:43 PM

What bugs me about Sullivan lately and the other Hillary bashers is the circular, somewhat hypocritical nature of their criticisms of Hillary - constantly pointing out how "divisive" she is is really just a kind of divisiveness, isn't it? The question is, why is she so "divisive" anyway.

It's also not fashionable to say it in elite media circles, but the main reason that Washington was so poisonous in the 90s is because well-funded right wing conservatives really did target the Clintons, forcing the MSM to cover a lot of cooked-up "scandals" that sort of set the standard for how politics is now largely waged in Washington. Yes, the Clintons' did live their personal flaws writ large and fought dirty too, but their political maneuvering wasn't out of character with historical antecedents. And while someone might have qualms with their worship of polls, well, at least it's better to over-rely on the sentiment of the American people - rather than ignoring it, which has come to be the Bush m.o.

Even if you don't agree with every point of that last statement, you have to grasp that that's how most of the longtime Democratsv supporting Hillary view it. So for those Democrats to not pick Hillary because she's too divisive is ultimately to give the VRWC credit for mission accomplished. Why would Democrats want to do that?

Posted by Ron | October 30, 2007 5:45 PM

Oh yeah sure, the last thing we want after 8 years of a non-poisonous and non-depressing era in American history under Bush/Cheney, is a rerun of the "poisonous and depressing era in American history" under the Clinton. Is America ready for a possible repeat of Clinton's 60%+ approval ratings? Gimme a friggin break.

Posted by Bill | October 30, 2007 6:02 PM

the Clinton years were a poisonous and depressing era in American history

Yeah, thank God for George W Bush. Seriously, what's crucial is that most of the 'poisonous and depressing' stuff was - and especially from a post-Bush perspective - bullshit. Not in the sense that it was all made-up or manufactured (though of course much of it was) - but bullshit in the sense of "oh who cares"? It was mostly trivial nonsense, and we should be fucking praying that our greatest political conflicts are again centered on such mere bullshit.

Posted by Toadmonster | October 30, 2007 6:43 PM

What pretty much everyone said. I'm a political junky, and the effect of a Hillary presidency on the atmosphere in Sally Quinn's village means precisely bupkis to me. Yeah, the Clintons weren't perfect, and Hillary's not my cadidate, but I'd be happy to return to an era of peace, prosperity, a balanced budget and an admired America. Yeah, Me and a mjority of voters it seemes.

Posted by Justin K. | October 30, 2007 6:48 PM

In other words Ross, if this is most compelling 'non-ideological' (whatever that means) argument against Hillary, you really don't have much to work with.

Posted by Justin K. | October 30, 2007 6:49 PM

I will only say that anyone who thinks 2001-2007 have been better years for America (or American government)than 1993-2000 were is either a malignant sociopath or a complete frigging idiot or both.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | October 30, 2007 8:33 PM

It's pretty obvious to me that if Obama or Edwards becomes president, we'll just have the Obama or Edwards wars instead. After all, you don't have to be an insider to notice conservatives are calling Obama "Osama", hanging on his middle name 'Hussein' and suggesting that he's a closet muslim or that they're going on about Edwards' haircut and big house and implying he's gay. For Dems, it's really just a choice between spending the next 8 years listening to brand new smears or smear re-runs.

Posted by Bo | October 30, 2007 8:41 PM

and another Clinton term sounds like an enormously wearying prospect

Well, then, don't play that busybody moralizing game, if you think it will make you tired. Oh, I forgot, you're a Catholic conservative.

In any case, 'enormously wearying' sounds a lot better to me than 'murderously incompetent' and 'destructive of America's reputation in the world' and 'trashing the Constitution.'

Posted by guy | October 30, 2007 11:17 PM

Exactly. The thing that was enormously wearying about the Clinton years was the continual and vicious attacks on the Clintons by right wing demagogues. Really, a blow job turned into a perjury trap turned into impeachment? It was absolutely despicable. The man had a job to do.

The Republican party is still firmly under the control of the same bunch of sorry crackpots, so we can expect the same vicious tactics again if any Democrat is elected. Unfortunately, this means that in order to govern at all - and not be swamped in obstruction and character assassination - we need someone tough enough to nail the bastards. If we had a Republican party with real ideas and plans for how best to govern the nation we could all debate on that level. But it seems clear that the main Republican goal in the next Democratic administration will be the failure of that administration, and the first requirement for the president will be the ability to prevent that.

Posted by peter | October 31, 2007 12:05 AM

I don't exactly consider appeasing North Korea, abandoning Somalia, ignoring Sudan, and an increasing trade deficit with China to be "trivial nonsense." He was willing to placate every dictator that could make the US money from Vietnam to Taliban. He sold F-16 fighters at a bargain to Suharto when he was one of the most corrupt leaders in the world and an autocratic murderer of religious minorities.

Clinton was great if you believed in "live for today and ignore tomorrow."

Posted by Thomas R | October 31, 2007 4:27 AM

Hillary’s support has little to do with any issue she espouses. With Democrat voters, issues don’t count for much: what counts are feelings. Identity politics governs. Most Hillary voters will vote for her because, “It’s time for a woman”. It’s not more complicated than that.

The measure of Hillary’s support is the measure of America’s stupidity.

Posted by Scott in PA | October 31, 2007 7:38 AM

I don't exactly consider appeasing North Korea, abandoning Somalia, ignoring Sudan, and an increasing trade deficit with China to be "trivial nonsense." He was willing to placate every dictator that could make the US money from Vietnam to Taliban. He sold F-16 fighters at a bargain to Suharto when he was one of the most corrupt leaders in the world and an autocratic murderer of religious minorities.

Clinton was great if you believed in "live for today and ignore tomorrow."

That is soooo rich. Bush, Steward of America, has really planned for tomorrow hasn't he. Other than the apparent windfall of an imploding North Korea giving up its nuclear program, where exactly has GWB excelled on the fronts mentioned? Why were we in Somalia in the first fucking place? Since when is the civil war in Sudan the responsibility of the United States and not the AU? (What's your plan for Sudan? An American occupation?) Since when is the trade deficit with China under the direct control of any president? How is selling some F16s the height of irresponsibility in light of Bush's invading and occupying an Arab country under false pretenses and creating a second Vietnam? Corruption? Are you blind? Get some perspective dude. Which is worse, profiting in a minor way from an unsavory regime with relatively little harm done, or spending billions or even trillions on a ruinous invasion and occupation? Is that your moral stand? At least when we sold some planes we had money in the bank to show for it. Suharto didn't need our F16s to persecute religious minorities. And I'm not defending him or the sale, in and of itself. But please.

Everything people bitch about with regards to Bill Clinton comes across as so trivial compared to what we've been through under Bush. But the detractors just can't wait to get back to the good old days of Clinton bashing. They will so miss feeling morally superior again after 8 years of the Worst President in American History.

Posted by Bill | October 31, 2007 9:27 AM

Hillary’s support has little to do with any issue she espouses. With Democrat voters, issues don’t count for much: what counts are feelings. Identity politics governs. Most Hillary voters will vote for her because, “It’s time for a woman”. It’s not more complicated than that.

The measure of Hillary’s support is the measure of America’s stupidity.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

See, we already knew how stupid America is. 2004 cleared up any doubts on that front. If we're all just dart-throwing chimps, I'll take the Hillary rationale over the Rudy rationale, any day.

"What counts are feelings." Riiiiight. Republicans never resort to emotion or identity politics. Moron. Never forget how "they" hit us on 9/11, Scott in PA.

Posted by Bill | October 31, 2007 9:33 AM

What Bill said. Rudy has a three-prong campaign:

1) I'm President of 9/11.
2) I hire the crazies Bush won't touch.
3) I piss off the Clintons.

Yep, no emotion there. Just the facts. Sure.

One reason I don't support Hillary is Rudy's #3. Give Rudy a two-legged stool and he's toast.

Posted by Lynn | October 31, 2007 9:46 AM

What you (and presumably Andrew) are forgetting, Ross, is that 60% of the voting population consists of Boomers, and they like it this way. You've made the egregious non-Boomer mistake of thinking that politics should be about solutions rather than self-righteous moral preening (see just about every comment above).

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 9:53 AM

What you (and presumably Andrew) are forgetting, Ross, is that 60% of the voting population consists of Boomers, and they like it this way. You've made the egregious non-Boomer mistake of thinking that politics should be about solutions rather than self-righteous moral preening (see just about every comment above).

Tu quoque, Mr. What You Are Forgetting.

Posted by Bill | October 31, 2007 10:00 AM

Bill:

Fair enough, but as long as we're discussing logical fallacies, it would behoove you to go back and look for the place in the post where Ross claims that the Bush years have not been "poisonous and depressing". Lay off that straw man - he's had all he can take.

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 10:40 AM

flyerguy-

My "straw man" is Ross's sin of omission. Any morally preening reminder of how "poisonous and depressing" the Clinton era was, and of how "enormously wearying" another 2 terms would be, while ignoring the fact that one side was at least half responsible for the Clinton Wars and entirely responsible for the Bush Follies, demands at least a token acknowledgement of the bigger picture. At least if it doesn't want to sound ridiculously off-key and petty-vindictive.

Which is more enormously wearying -- impeaching a president for getting a blow job, or creating a second Vietnam? Preeners like me have earned the right to jump all the fuck over knee-jerk Clinton bashing when its unaccompanied by contrition about what's actually germane to "American history."

Posted by Bill | October 31, 2007 10:57 AM

The Beltway Bias is revealed in the question -- would you *mind* having Bill Clinton back in the White House. You mean, would I mind fiscal responsiblity, belief that a strong dollar is a good thing, that "it's the economy, stupid," that surpluses are better than deficits, that stem cell research is a good thing, that putting 100,000 cops on the streets of America is better than putting 100,000 soldiers on the streets of Iraq?

The Clinton 90's were a time of hope, optimism, and rising oportunity -- heavens forbid someone might want to RESTORE us to that period!

Posted by Jake | October 31, 2007 11:23 AM

Bill:

I guess we'll just have to talk past each other-
you seem to be rebutting a partisan argument that I'm not making. Don't think for a second though that I'm saying any side has a premium on preening - there's plenty to go around, and justified or no, it doesn't seem helpful to me. My point is that it's useless for Ross to hope that the current political climate, which I find as exhausting as he does, will change as long as the Boomers are running things. I may well be mistaken and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sensing a little Gen X/Boomer gap here...

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 11:23 AM

flyerguy, "boomers running things"? Well, it's one thing to indulge a straw-man argument. But a straw-man generation? This kind of idiocy is not only "poisonous and depressing", it's so beyond any rational explication that it appromixates psychosis.

Note to right-wing fantasists: the "generation" meme has, at best, a kind of poetic truth. Otherwise, it's as empty as the rhetoric of Islamo-fascism and freedom fries. Really, if you need reasons to despise someone, pick something a bit more germane than their birthdate.

Posted by walt | October 31, 2007 11:46 AM

Andrew sullivan's hatred of the clinton's is breathtaking: he is irrational on the topic and eager to prop up a very weak barack who can't get going and doesn't really have any policy differences with Hillary except the iran vote that he called in sick for.
Andrew (whose blog I love reading) is so right about torture but can't let go of the youthful fantasies about Thatcher and Reagan and who they really were and what they really did.(He's still half defending Ronnie today in his blog!). And his Boomer-like contempt for Hillary is cartoonishly predictable: boy boomers can't wrap thier minds around the idea that any female might be the right person at the right time.
Even worse is Chris Matthews who like Andrew even stops promoting his book long enough to try and tell Barack what he must do to stop Hillary and then accuses her of self-interest.
Hillary says that the war must end, that its wrong, that she will end it. How is that different than the rest of the boys on stage last night who felt compelled to run against her?
Dodd and Biden and Dennis show their vain delusions just by running and staying in race: clear that they have another agenda. Edwards criticizes people's electability but he dropped out of his senate seat so as not to risk a loss? He criticizes votes he could have perhaps made to go work for a hedge fund? If only he was the man his wife believes he is he'd be half as ready as Hillary is to lead.
But the media props him up too.
Andrew believes that in Washington he had a ringside seat for the Clinton years and he knows better than all of us how dishonest they really were but the chance is that we had the better seat outside the beltway, and that much of his petty hostility would be better aimed at the pundits and journalists who did not do their jobs then to rein in the nonsense excess of the fevered right and who don't do thier job in exposing Geo. Bush and Cheney's sickening dismantling of representational government.
He's delusional on this topic just like Matthews.

Posted by Michael | October 31, 2007 11:53 AM

Jake: So you think Bill will be running the show?

Posted by Scott in PA | October 31, 2007 11:57 AM

Go Bill! Scott and flyerguy are speaking based on fantasy when they accuse Clinton and Clinton supporters of substanceless preening.
Clinton was a smart and serious guy. He had some important and difficult successes, like his fiscal accomplishments, and keeping the lid on North Korea (see http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html). He made some outstanding efforts that didn't pan out, like a mideast agreement. He had some serious failures, like health insurance. He was in there pitching whenever Starr and Hyde gave him a day off. The contrast with the Bush years is total.

The problem with the "not the Clinton years again" narrative is false symmetry. The Republicans sometimes cooperated to accomplish things - e.g. NAFTA and welfare reform - but the main problem with those years was the politics of personal destruction, and within the limits of observational error that was 100% a Republican problem. The way to avoid the pain of the Clinton years again is to elect any Democrat president and a filibuster proof Democratic majority in congress.

Posted by Peter | October 31, 2007 11:57 AM

Well, remind me never to attempt to argue in good faith again. Apparently putting any stock in the age-old idea of generations having certain common characteristics makes one a "right-wing fantasist". Who knew?

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 12:07 PM

Bill the US is the world's sole superpower. Also we were involved in Sudan and Somalia under Clinton. We just did a poor job on both fronts. Bush, more Danforth really, did lead to an end in the war in Southern Sudan. Look it up.

Besides which there is no logical reason criticizing Clinton means praising Bush. I've voted against both of them. I don't want a Bush or a Clinton ever being President again.

Posted by Thomas R | October 31, 2007 12:11 PM

Peter, maybe I wasn't clear, but there's just as much, if not more, substanceless preening on the right. Hey, I think Bush sucks too, but wow, you people consistently remind me of progressive versions of my Rush Limbaugh-listening, Ann Coulter fan father (b. 1951, btw)

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 12:13 PM

I think the problem,flyerguy, is that you can't get rid of divisiveness by proposing another division. Besides, If Gen-Xers are perfectly willing to engage in divisive moral preening, like you are doing right here in this thread, then that weakens your argument somewhat, no?

Posted by Bo | October 31, 2007 12:15 PM

flyerguy, George Bush and Hillary Clinton are boomers. Tell me about their "common characteristics". The boomer "perfidy" is a right-wing talking point that tries to saddle an entire generation with responsibility for rock 'n roll, sexual promiscuity, Woodstock, disco, and anti-Vietnam war fervor. It does this because it knows certain people like you will swallow this idiocy as a fact. It's not a fact. It's an arbitrary distinction without ANY inherent meaning beyond some obvious contemporaneity. Boomers are all over the map poltically and culturally. Yeah, there are some songs, movies and TV shows they'll remember together. Otherwise, they're as heterogeneous as any other people defined by their "generation".

It never made any sense to define our politics that way. It still doesn't.

Posted by Walt | October 31, 2007 12:23 PM

As several have (mercifully) noted here, 1990s politics were poisonous and depressing because one side made them that way. Unlike pundits, who are generally amoral game-theorists because that's their comparative advantage, many if not most Americans have some vestigial moral component to their politics, and I suspect that's why they are somewhat less inclined to blame Clintonism and Republicans equally for something sown almost exclusively by the latter.

Posted by Rich | October 31, 2007 12:24 PM

Fair point, Bo. My generation certainly has its own problems. I'm not saying we're better at all, just sick of the same old rhetorical battle we've been in the middle of since childhood. It's become like a car alarm going off on the street below...

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 12:25 PM

Walt, their biggest common characteristic is refusing to believe their political opponents could possibly be acting in good faith, but are just very wrong.

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 12:29 PM

Those of us interested in politics think those of you who want to run a campaign on how lousy a President Bill Clinton was, well...you must not be very interested in politics to be so completely off base. Clinton is popular and his popularity has grown given the current worthless crew in the Whitehouse. Scandals? Give me a break! Travel office firings? Whitewater? Blowjobs? Compared to lying into a war, torture, diminution of civil liberties, out of control spending, and dividing the country by fear? If the campaign is run a referendum on Bill Clinton that is a guaranteed loss to the Repubs. And if you think that Edwards or Obama are going to get a pass from the right and lots of love and cooperation, well thats a pipe dream for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Contentious politics is often painful, remember the old joke about making sausage? If people want peace love and understanding, the rough and tumble world of elective politics in a divided country is something you probably should stay away from.

Posted by Jammer | October 31, 2007 12:31 PM

Also, Walt, point me to where I said "Boomer liberals". I'm talking about the Religious Right here too.

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 12:32 PM

What Bo says.....

But a point about "divisiveness". Why is that a problem? Isn't politics how we define and debate differences? Is that a problem? Or should we simply let centrists decide things?

No. We'll keep clawing at each other until we work through some of these differences. Liberals are generally happy with American culture and conservatives are generally happy with American economics. Culture and economics are tightly interwoven, so our debate involves a lot of intramural contradictions. Individually, we can't solve this conundrum. But one way or another, it will get solved.

Posted by walt | October 31, 2007 12:34 PM

I can agree with everything you wrote at 12:34, Walt. My problem is I'm happy with both American culture and economics, so I have a hard time seeing what people get so worked up about. Still, I do get a warm fuzzy feeling from discovering some common ground...

Posted by flyerguy | October 31, 2007 12:39 PM

I'm not a huge Hilary fan, and the dynasty thing bothers me, but I could think of far worse things than a Hilary Presidency -- such as another Republican administration. By now, anybody with half a brain is a little nostalgic for the 1990's -- balanced budgets, growing economy, President that talks in full sentences, a pragmatic foreign policy, etc -- so the Clinton brand is really strong with normal people. Hilary has her weaknesses, but her combination of pragmatism, hard work, competence in both politics and policy, caution, and toughness might go over very well with normal people, especially when they discover she does not have horns. As for the right wing noise machine being deployed against Clinton, well, who thinks it won't be deployed against any Democratic President.

Posted by RP | October 31, 2007 12:55 PM

Flyerguy, I'm a little baffled by your first comment. Can you clarify for me:
- where Ross is talking about politics being about concrete solutions
-where commenters are disagreeing with that idea
-where commenters disagreeing with him are doing empty moral preening?

Maybe I don't get it because I'm not a boomer, but it seems like what you're saying is that Clintonism and Bushism are a part of the same empty boomer pathology, and people who take issue with that idea are "preening" or not being about solutions. And that doesn't make a lot of sense. Am I totally off-base on what your argument is?

Posted by SDM | October 31, 2007 1:12 PM

Will someone, anyone, please explain to me how this is a "non-ideological argument" when I never once heard it deployed regarding Bush in 2000?

Posted by dan | October 31, 2007 1:56 PM

flyerguy, are you saying that you, as a gen-x'er, believe that Republicans are acting in good faith? For whatever it's worth, they appear to this gen-x'er to be engaged in wholesale misdirection, obstruction, and distraction as means of covering up the results of their shot at one-party rule: corruption; hypocrisy; opportunistic gay-baiting; pseudo-morality and accompanying preening; general evisceration of the middle class; tax and bankruptcy policies designed to widen inequality; and historically bad diplomacy, warmaking, and fiscal stewardship.

That's what's tiresome.

Posted by Dan | October 31, 2007 2:28 PM

Will someone, anyone, please explain to me how this is a "non-ideological argument" when I never once heard it deployed regarding Bush in 2000?

FWIW, there was an article in Harper's back then on exactly that theme -- I believe 'Bush Restoration' was in the title, and there was a funny cartoon of W on a throne being handed a scepter or something. The gist was that it would be extremely foolish to put W in the White House on the basis of not much more than dynasty/name recognition.

Posted by guy | October 31, 2007 2:55 PM

Here's a link to the Harper's article mentioned above. Apparently you have to be a subscriber to read it.

Posted by guy | October 31, 2007 2:59 PM

The Clinton Era was poisonous because Newt Gingrich et al decided to go after Clinton relentlessly over any straw they could grasp. Clinton himself always seemed moderate in tone to me. I can't see how after the disaster of Bush anyone could get worked up over lying about sex. The current administration has better things to lie about, like the meaning of "torture."

Posted by evan500 | October 31, 2007 3:20 PM

commenter above asks - "George Bush and Hillary Clinton are boomers. Tell me about their "common characteristics".

off the top of my head,

1. self righteousness.

2. tendency to treat those who disagree with them as not just wrong but ill intentioned.

3. both preach to the choir, and are deaf to those outside it. (contrast with Obama. . .)

and, of course,

4. both occupy their current positions largely due to family ties.

Posted by chris | October 31, 2007 6:25 PM

I will only say that anyone who thinks 2001-2007 have been better years for America (or American government)than 1993-2000 were is either a malignant sociopath or a complete frigging idiot or both.

Well, sure. But, er, like many posters here this is assuming that Bush (awful as he's been) or Clinton (wonderful as some think he was) was the definitive factor in those years. Bush certainly contributed quite a bit of bad, but the argument that Clinton did a bang-up job, rather than mostly avoiding (or being stopped by his political opponents from seeking) giant errors is weak. 9/11 and the economy weren't products of Bush or Clinton. Iraq was a product of Bush, but even without Iraq these would have been more rancorous years.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | October 31, 2007 7:23 PM

That depends on what the definition of the word 'torture' is

Posted by Jacko | October 31, 2007 10:23 PM

As it happens, I am a Harper's subscriber, so thanks, guy.

Posted by dan | November 1, 2007 1:19 PM