The ex-presidents' club

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 06/23/2002 | Chris Matthews

[Pokey78]

Washington -- The statues keep moving in the hall of recent American presidents. John F.

Kennedy retains the paramount place of honor. No recent U.S. leader commands a higher approval rating -- JFK's remains in satellite orbit at 83 percent -- or lower disapproval rating than his ground-level 7 percent.

[gcruse]

Given Carter's failed, malaise-ridden presidency, the post-presidential effect seems to overwhelm the in-office contribution. As young as Clinton is....shudder.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

The ex-presidents' club

[Hugin]

First: the facts. Kennedy remains high because he did things. He launched the Apollo project that put a man on the moon in a decade. He created the Peace Corps and personally inspired several generations to care about politics and public service. He got the country through the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the worst moment of nuclear danger in the Cold War.

Mathews gives the American people too much credit. I doubt that most Americans can name more than one of those things, if that. Most Americans can't even remember the Kennedy adminstration. They approve of Kennedy because he was a martyr, and they were taught in school that he was a great president, and not taught any of the mistakes of the Kennedy adminstration.

[johnny7]

... now go out and do some good.”

No thanks Chrissy, I don't want this rapist bastard around... period!

Mathews was Tip O'Niells piss-boy a ways back and the closer we come to 2004, the more he will show his true allegiance.

[lentulusgracchus]

Not to worry about DIRTXPOTUS. My reasons for believing he will fall in the public memory:

1. A lot of his support during the scandal was from last-ditch defenders, particularly black voters, and as time passes these voters will have the opportunity to reassess Klintoon without the pressure of a need to spite white, Southern Republicans like Bob Barr and Tim and Asa Hutchinson.

2. Some things, as Matthews points out, don't go away. The memories of what he was said to have done in the hideaway offices of the Oval Office were vivid, won't fade, and will drag him down. Never mind what partisans said at the time -- they'll look foolish and mean, in years to come -- people really do expect more of a man they invest with the highest office in America.

3. Eventually, the Chinese will probably at some point, out of spite if for no other reason, produce the receipts, and show us the full measure of DIRTXPOTUS's defalcations, and of his malfeasance if not treason. It'll become treason in the strict legal sense, if we ever come to blows with the Chinese and nuclear weapons are exchanged.

4. Actors in a position to know what Klintoon did and what he was like on a daily basis -- trotting Cabinet officers out to tell large lies in his behalf, for instance -- will eventually write their books, which will click nicely with the account of the man's character that so many people refused with disgust to credit when Ken Starr published it; and Starr's "porn" will become less an issue that attaches to Starr (which in the first place was a classic instance of the psych phenomenon known as "transference", in which disgust is transferred by the hearer from the transgressor to the reporter of the offense), but will come home more to roost with DIRTXPOTUS, the man who deserved all the obloquy in the first place. I especially look forward to Sidney Blumenthal's stylishly self-exculpatory tome, and to Chris Hitchens's no-doubt lively review of it.

5. Klintoon's strategy of mini-initiatives and brain pharts, designed to keep control of the daily news cycle, will gradually weigh him down -- the only real initiatives I can associate with his political mojo are the Violence Against Women Act, which will probably be declared unconstitutional on XIV Amendment grounds, and the infamous Crime Bill of 1994. I'm not sure he'll get credit for the Brady Law, since it'll probably be overreached during the current administration by the NRA's competing idea of instant checks -- if Dubya doesn't wimp out on us. Otherwise, Klintoon is best known for gays in the military, demagoguing the budget, pardoning felons for money, signing cowardly executive orders on his way out the door, and damage-control lying b***ardy. That, and demagoguing his hag's election to the Senate.

[lentulusgracchus]

Having said all this, it remains to be said that I think DIRTXPOTUS knows it too, and that he will try to continue in the public eye by stage-managing his hag's elevation to the Presidency (his guy is in place at DNC, remember) and trying to catch the eye of the U.N. for a run at the secretary-generalship. If Hillary gets in, he might have a shot at it, as the "special relationship" aspect will catch the eye of the Eurocrats, bureaucrats and Third World slimocrats and kleptocrats interested in bringing America into camp and binding us to the U.N. in clear subordination.

[Redleg Duke]

Just what exactly is Mathews smoking?

[Freee-dame]

...Luckily for Reagan, Iran-Contra is so weird a scandal as to be unintelligible 16 years later. Try explaining to a 16-year-old today how important the thing was....

Maybe because in the whole scheme of things, it wasn't. The importance of ending the threat of Communism's worldwide domination in Central America seems to have been missed by leftists like CM.

[speekinout]

One major reason that clintoon's legacy will go on a downward track is that there now is an "epidemic" of oral sex in middle schools! These kids don't think it's "sex", and they see nothing wrong with it. Wonder where they got that idea???
That's going to be his most lasting contribution, and hopefully, better people will be able to change that attitude before too many years pass. This is not what most people wanted their kids to learn.

[bushfamfan]

Kennedy remains the most overrated president aside from Clintoon. Clintoon really deserves the title even if his numbers are low.

[zevonfan]

They approve of Kennedy because he was a martyr, and they were taught in school that he was a great president, and not taught any of the mistakes of the Kennedy adminstration.

Of course. It is the same reason Lincoln is so popular. Nothing makes a hero of you quicker than dying young, and that goes double if you are murdered.

[Hugin]

Of course. It is the same reason Lincoln is so popular.

Sorry, Lincoln was a hero anyway. He won the bloodiest war in US history and saved the union. If it wasn't for him there wouldn't be a USA.