- Douglas Brinkley massages clinton numbers, ego + legacy at (clinton-was-an-utter-failure-containment-scheme-team) revisionist confab
- C-SPAN historians find no clinton "greatness" irrespective of moral-authority deficit
- C-SPAN historians find no clinton "greatness" irrespective of moral-authority deficit
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by Mia T, 11.10.05
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- Speaking on the opening day of a three-day conference at Hofstra University examining his presidency, Clinton challenged a statement by noted historian Douglas Brinkley, who opined that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment.
Bill Clinton, at Long Island conference, calls impeachment `egregious abuse' of Constitution
FRANK ELTMAN
Associated Press Writer -
- clinton's ranking will likely get worse over time. Economic issues fade in importance over time. Moral issues presist and grow. (paraphrase)
Douglas Brinkley
(discussing C-SPAN PRESIDENTS POLL)
Washington Journal
- Speaking on the opening day of a three-day conference at Hofstra University examining his presidency, Clinton challenged a statement by noted historian Douglas Brinkley, who opined that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment.
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PRESIDENTIAL FAILURE, 9/11 + KATRINA
by Mia T, 9.26.05
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(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
thanx to jla and Wolverine for the audio
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deconstructing clinton… "just because I could"
-SPAN asked noted presidential historians to rank the American presidents1 along the following ten dimensions: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within context of times.bill clinton emerged as middling in most dimensions; he was surpassed in others by a settled mediocrity (Carter) and a putative failure (Nixon). In moral authority, bill clinton was rated dead last.2 He did fairly well in public persuasion, not a surprising finding given the volume of snake oil he managed to peddle during his presidency.
Clinton's best scores were on the economic management and pursued equal justice for all dimensions. However, both of these results are meaningful only insofar as they redound to the moral authority dimension: they are wholly based on clinton fraudulence, cooked books and black poses, respectively; and clinton's shameless Rosa Parks eulogy last week assured us that the insidious brand of clinton racism is alive and well.
Note that although Brinkley doesn't place much importance on the economic management dimension--he argues that the economy variable is not durable over time--he fails to recognize that the evaluation of the clinton economy by the historians is erroneous to begin with.
Note also that contrary to Douglas Brinkley's claim at the clinton revisionist confab3, C-SPAN historians found no clinton "greatness" irrespective of his moral-authority deficit.
MIDDLING
Twenty presidents rank higher than bill clinton and 20 rank lower. But this placement assumes equal weight for each of the dimensions. And therein lies the flaw.
If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that presidential character and moral authority count, and count most.4 If the variables are properly weighted, bill clinton will always come out dead last.
That is, unless Americans are dumb enough to make the same mistake twice.5
(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU! FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME!
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AFTERWORD
This legacy confab, is in and of itself, proof certain of clinton's deeply flawed character, and a demonstration in real time of the way in which the clinton years were about a legacy that was incidentally a presidency. Madeleine Albright captured the essence of this dysfunctional presidency best when she explained why clinton couldn't go after bin Laden.
According to Richard Miniter, the Albright revelation occurred at the cabinet meeting that would decide the disposition of the USS Cole bombing by al Qaeda [that is to say, that would decide to do what it had always done when a "bimbo" was not spilling the beans on the clintons: Nothing]. Only Clarke wanted to retaliate militarily for this unambiguous act of war.
Albright explained that a [sham] Mideast accord would yield [if not peace for the principals, surely] a Nobel Peace Prize for clinton. Kill or capture bin Laden and clinton could kiss the accord and the Peace Prize good-bye.
If clinton liberalism, smallness, cowardice, corruption, perfidy--and, to borrow a phrase from Andrew Cuomo, clinton cluelessness--played a part, it was, in the end, the Nobel Peace Prize that produced the puerile pertinacity that enabled the clintons to shrug off the global danger.
- WASHINGTON -- Two Norwegian public-relations executives and one member of the Norwegian Parliament say they were contacted by the White House to help campaign for President Clinton to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his work in trying to negotiate peace in the Middle East.
Clinton Lobbies for Nobel Prize: What a Punk
White House Lobbied For Clinton Nobel Peace Prize Updated
Friday, October 13, 2000
By Rita Cosby -
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- There's been speculation in the last few months that Clinton was pursuing a Mideast peace accord in an effort to win the prize and secure his legacy as president.
AIDES PUSH CLINTON FOR THE NOBEL
- At the time, clinton observed: "I made more progress in the Middle East than I did between Socks and Buddy." Retrospectively, it is clear that clinton's characterization was not correct.
Mia T, Buddy Death Report Raises More Questions Than It Answers
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- WASHINGTON -- Two Norwegian public-relations executives and one member of the Norwegian Parliament say they were contacted by the White House to help campaign for President Clinton to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his work in trying to negotiate peace in the Middle East.
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1.
A Site to Complement C-SPAN's 20th Anniversary Television Series, American Presidents: Life Portraits
March-December 1999
C-SPAN Survey
of Presidential LeadershipBill Clinton
Historian Survey ResultsCategories
Final Score Category Ranking 70.3 11 50.5 20 74.0 5 19.5 41 54.3 21 56.1 21 38.2 36 48.1 22 76.7 5 51.2 21
TOTAL SCORE
539 OVERALL RANK
21 Historian Results
- 2.
A Site to Complement C-SPAN's 20th Anniversary Television Series, American Presidents: Life Portraits
March-December 1999C-SPAN Survey
of Presidential LeadershipHistorian Survey Results Category:
Moral Authority
Historian Results
President's Name
Final Score Category Ranking Overall Ranking 98.1 1 3 95.6 2 1 86.9 3 4 86.0 4 2 82.1 5 9 82.0 6 6 74.5 7 5 74.0 8 7 9. John Adams
72.2 9 16 10. Jimmy Carter
71.2 10 22 11. Ronald Reagan
70.0 11 11 69.4 12 19 13. James Madison
67.6 13 18 14. Andrew Jackson
64.4 14 13 15. John F. Kennedy
64.1 15 8 16. William McKinley
63.8 16 15 17. James Monroe
62.3 17 14 61.0 18 17 19. George Bush
59.8 19 20 20. James K. Polk
57.6 20 12 21. Gerald Ford
57.0 21 23 56.9 22 24 23. Calvin Coolidge
55.3 23 27 24. Herbert Hoover
55.0 24 34 25. James Garfield
52.3 25 29 51.5 26 26 27. Zachary Taylor
51.2 27 28 49.8 28 10 29. Martin Van Buren
44.6 29 30 44.1 30 31 31. Ulysses S. Grant
43.6 31 33 32. Millard Fillmore
38.9 32 35 33. Chester Arthur
38.9 33 32 38.2 34 37 35. John Tyler
37.7 35 36 36. Franklin Pierce
31.0 36 39 37. Andrew Johnson
27.5 37 40 38. James Buchanan
27.1 38 41 22.6 39 38 40. Richard Nixon
20.4 40 25 41. Bill Clinton
19.5 41 21
- 2.
3.
Bill Clinton, at Long Island conference, calls impeachment `egregious abuse' of Constitution
FRANK ELTMAN
Associated Press Writer
November 10, 2005, 7:29 PM EST
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Former President Clinton said Thursday that his impeachment was "an egregious abuse of the Constitution" and asked if history judges him poorly because of his White House tryst with Monica Lewinsky, "How many other presidents do you have to downgrade?"
Speaking on the opening day of a three-day conference at Hofstra University examining his presidency, Clinton challenged a statement by noted historian Douglas Brinkley, who opined that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment.
"I completely disagree with that," Clinton said. "You can agree with that statement, but only if you think impeachment was justified. Otherwise, it was an egregious abuse of the Constitution and law and history of our country."
Clinton, who was acquitted by the Senate of perjury and obstruction of justice at his 1999 impeachment trial, contended that the impeachment was not about what he called his "misconduct."
"Now if you want to hold it against me that I did something wrong, that's a fair deal," he said. "If you do that, then you have a whole lot of other questions, which is how many other presidents do you have to downgrade and what are you going to do with all those Republican congressmen, you know, that had problems?"
His remarks were cheered loudly by the audience.
In a speech that lasted more than an hour, Clinton touched on many of what he called the achievements of his eight-year presidency, citing everything from Middle East peace initiatives to turning around the U.S. economy.
Among his Democratic administration's failures, he said, were its slowness to act to stop genocide in Rwanda and the decision to allow FBI agents to raid a cult leader's compound in Waco, Texas. Nearly 80 cult followers died in a fire during the 1993 confrontation.
"We should have waited them out," Clinton said.
Former cabinet members, White House staffers and academicians converged at Hofstra for the conference, which will touch on issues including the economy, relations with Congress, the Middle East and Northern Ireland peace processes and confronting terrorism.
Those participating include former Attorney General Janet Reno, ex-Defense Secretary William Perry, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and advisers Paul Begala, David Gergen and Harold Ickes.
During an opening keynote speech, former chief of staff Leon Panetta quipped that he appreciated "the opportunity to, considering the problems that are confronting this White House, to take some comfort in the ability to say when we were in the White House those were the good old days."
The presidential conference is the 11th to be held at Hofstra; the first was held in 1982 and examined the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz said this year's conference was "one of the very first attempts to write the historical record of the Clinton presidency."
Brinkley, who is serving as a moderator at several events, said the transcripts and other records from the Hofstra sessions are considered important reference materials for students of history across the country.
Madeleine Albright, Clinton's secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, introduced him Thursday evening. In remarks earlier Thursday, she recalled some of the administration's foreign policy efforts during her term.
"I have always believed America is an exceptional country. But that is because we have led in creating standards that work for everyone, not because we are an exception to the rules," she said. "Countries should know that America is a nation whose leaders can be trusted and who will practice what they preach. By that high standard, I am proud of the Clinton administration's record."
