Bill's real fear

To ensure the truth in advertising law is followed, prior to writing the rest of this blog I’ll stipulate to the following:  I think Bill Clinton is one of the dregs of human morality; he was a disgrace to the office of the Presidency; and, I never voted for him.  That said, there seem to be two good points to the man.   First, his public persona manifests as an extremely likable guy who would be a hoot to have a beer or six with.  I have never met the guy, so I can’t attest if my impression is true or not.  Second, he appeared to be an extremely skilled politician (which probably goes hand in glove with his moral failings) who was able to attract a strong and loyal following.

What then can be said about his incredibly poor performance in support of Hillary’s campaign? 

As a graduate of Georgetown and Yale and a Rhodes Scholar, he is clearly not lacking in the intellect department.  Leaving office with a 65% approval rating (I will never comprehend that), obviously he was extremely likable to most people and his policies were acceptable.  It would seem that he would be the ideal spouse to help his wife’s ambitions along.  However in this, he has stumbled badly. 

As the “first black President,” his remarks equating Obama’s win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson, the country’s worst current race baiter, were so far out of line it was astonishing.  His action following the primary single-handedly chased a good bit of his strong following in the black community away from Hillary and to Obama.  Clearly he knew what he was saying and choose to say it; why?

He is the most intensely concerned over his legacy of our recent presidents; virtually all of his actions in the late stages of his presidency (except the pardon of Mark Rich) and all of his post-presidential activity (except his money making efforts) have been to cement a legacy of good will.  Despite his tremendous popularity, while history has yet to have adequate time on where to rank his presidency, the majority of presidential historians rank him in the middle of the pack as far as presidents go; ahead of Jimmy Carter but behind Lyndon Johnson.  This low this soon after a popular presidency is a bad harbinger of how history will view him in the long term.  Why would he risk his legacy alienating his most fervent base bloc?

I propose the following theses. 

Bill does not want Hillary to become President.  He is, despite his public persona, an extremely insecure man.  This is evidenced by his constant harping on how much money he makes and how rich he is now, but still apparently not rich enough to repay the donors to his legal defense fund; a classic sign of an inferiority complex. 

He is afraid that his wife will surpass his accomplishments (which would not be hard to do) as President.  He is aware that a great series of circumstances came together and allowed an unqualified, immoral human being to rise to the greatest office in the land.  He is knows he did virtually nothing in office and it would drive a stake through what is left of his self-image if that woman, Ms. Rodham, outdid him.

Thus, rather than a tin ear and mis-steps and mis-speaks, he either consciously or subconsciously is effectively destroying Hillary’s chances at becoming President.  If she can’t win the democrat nomination, she clearly can’t win as an independent.  He has alienated his most loyal base, driving them to Obama.  He has done nothing to help her, but has actively hurt her chances.  I believe he is afraid of her possible success.

Comments

[Dave Woods]

Your assessment of the judgment of the "majority of presidential historians" suggests the breadth and scope of your reading, Timo.

[MSUGeek]

Dave - You can't catch Timo on this one. I usually use Wikopedia as a starting source for further research, but in this case, the research and citations at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents seem at first blush to be fairly complete and informative. Bill Clinton is rated by multiple polls of notable scholars at around the middle of the pack.

[Dave Woods]

Your assessment of the "complete and informative" nature of a Wikipedia post suggests the breadth and scope of your reading, MSU.

[Ricky]

Skilled politician? He lost his first run at Congress.

Skilled politician? He lost his first reelection for governor in Arkansas, which wasn't exactly a Republican bastion.

Skilled politician? He won the Presidency with 43 percent of the vote in 1992, and didn't get a majority of Americans to vote for him the second time either.

Skilled politician? During his administration his party lost control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

Bill Clinton, like any of the lying kids I teach in middle school, is really adept at one thing-doing whatever it takes to ensure the success of Bill Clinton. After that, there is not much else to him.

And Dave, please list some accomplishments of Bill Clinton that are going to take into account his whole administration. Please include the economic downturn that actually began during his Presidency and was the reason both Al Gore and George W. Bush were talking about tax cuts in the 2000 election.

After you are done with Family and Medical Leave, please name one thing he accomplished that didn't require substantial help from the Republicans in Congress (including NAFTA, which was kind of a big deal). Clinton was middling at best.

[Dave Woods]

Since, in MSUGeek's Wikipedia source, 98% of professional historians rated George W. Bush's presidency a failure -- with 61% of them saying he is the worst president in history -- perhaps Bill Clinton and I should be satisfied with a middling rating.

[Timo Kokko]

Dave, you are spinning the answer. What did Bubba do to deserve even a middle of the road rating? As to W, I'm not sure any rating of a sitting president by historians is meaningful, but two poll results may be of interest to you.

The Sienna 2002 poll of 200 historians rank, very early after Clinton's departure so it should be suspect, Clinton as the 18 best president. The Wall Street Journal 2005 poll, which is still early and supposed to be an ideologically balanced survey of 132 professors of history, law and political science, has him ranked 22nd. This is moving in the direction I believe he will eventually end up; very close to Jimmy Carter near the bottom.

It will be interesting to see where W ends up when history has time to judge him.

[MSUGeek]

OK Dave - What part of the statement "starting source for further research" don't you understand?
I just pointed out that Timo's conclusion was correct based on what I saw from one source that had pulled together some divergent resources. If you want something a little meatier, I have listed the citations here. Instead of insulting someone's fact gathering, go to one of the original sources and find something to counter the argument that Clinton is ranked by most historians as a middle of the pack President. Don't worry about Bush - his time will come. This blog is discussing Clinton.

# Presidential Greatness (1966), a non quantitative appraisal by leading historian

# Degregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 4th ed. New York: Avenel, 1993. Contains the results of the 1962 and 1982 surveys.

# Faber, Charles and Richard Faber. The American Presidents Ranked by Performance (2000)

# Felzenberg, Alvin S. “There You Go Again: Liberal Historians and the New York Times Deny Ronald Reagan His Due,” Policy Review, March—April 1997.

# Melvin G. Holli. The American Mayor: The Best & the Worst Big-City Leaders (1999)

# Miller, Nathan. Star-Spangled Men America's Ten Worst Presidents (1999)

# Murray, Robert K. and Tim H. Blessing. Greatness in the White House: Rating the Presidents, from Washington Through Ronald Reagan (1994)

# Pfiffner, James P. ; "Ranking the Presidents: Continuity and Volatility" White House Studies, Vol. 3, 2003 pp 23+

# Ridings, William J., Jr. and Stuart B. McIver. Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. leaders, from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing, 1997. ISBN 0-8065-1799-9.

# Schlesinger, Jr. Arthur M. "Ranking the Presidents: From Washington to Clinton," Political Science Quarterly (1997) 112:179-90

# Skidmore, Max J. Presidential Performance: A Comprehensive Review (2004)

# Skidmore, Max J. "Ranking and Evaluating Presidents: The Case of Theodore Roosevelt" White House Studies. Volume: 1. Issue: 4. 2001. pp 495+.

# Taranto, James and Leonard Leo, eds. Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and Worst in the White House. New York: Wall Street Journal Books, 2004. ISBN 0-7432-5433-3, for Federalist Society surveys.

# Vedder, Richard and Gallaway, Lowell, "Rating Presidential Performance" in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom ed. John V. Denson, Mises Institute, 2001. ISBN 0-945466-29-3

[Dave Woods]

Most of those references seem to predate the end of Clinton's presidency, and some predate its start. Not that I'm attacking your sources...

[Michael Motta]

I might add that (to take a wild guess) most of the authors of these sources seem to come from the narrow class one might call "Anglophone males". Why is this important? Especially considering that the studies make no bones about being value-laden (they're ratings systems), to review the perspectives of only Anglophone males is to ignore the the vast majority of perspectives on the U.S. Presidency.

[Timo Kokko]

While I agree with Ricky's assessment of Clinton as a miserable politician in the grand scheme of things, practically everything he touched turned soft and brown, my meaning of skilled in this context was that he, a man of limited morality and skill, could be elected Governor, much less President. He was able to parley his modest talents into a very successful, from a narcissistic and materialistic viewpoint, career for himself; regardless of what it did to his party or others around him.

I'm curious if anyone shares my opinion on Bill's fear of his wife's success?

[Aubrey Marron]

Timo,

While I don't agree with your assessment of how history will rank Bill Clinton, I have wondered at times if he is subconsciously screwing up Hillary's presidential campaign...