The Clinton Wars

This book could very well be the bible of liberalism for the early 21st century. Sidney has written an 800-page masterpiece about the Clinton presidency that made me outraged all over again about the GOP's wanton abuse of power during the Clinton years - specifically during Clinton's second term, when Blumenthal served as the president's chief political advisor. To say that the president was morally bankrupt regarding his affairs is to state the obvious, and Blumenthal doesn't try to defend the president. What he does do is point out the blatant hypocrisy of the GOP leadership and Kenneth W. Starr, chief Clinton hater and possibly the most inept special prosecutor this country has ever seen (one can't help come to this conclusion after reading of Starr's abuses outlined in the book). Blumenthal also details: Matt Drudge's libel about Blumenthal's relationship with his wife that resulted in a lawsuit, Paula Jones's right wing backers who encouraged her to move forward with her baseless lawsuit (that was later thrown out of court), the myth of the birthmark on the president's genitals, the press's distortions of Al Gore during the stolen campaign in 2000, the right wing scourge named Richard Mellon Scaife, the outright lies cooked up by GOP hacks to discredit William Jefferson Clinton that started before he ever took the oath of office, and the myth of Clinton ignoring the threats of terrorism in the 1990s. The latter point is a pretty stark one in the wake of 9-11, since President Bush has suffered no political price for the disasters happening on his watch. Clinton ordered the bombing of Osama Bin Laden and just missed him by hours in August of 1998 following the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, all while Starr was busy subpoenaing the president to testify before a grand jury about his sex life (these 2 events happened within one week of each other). There is plenty of blame to go around for 9-11, but to blame it all on President Clinton is a line fit for Comedy Central. If the president was too busy to combat terrorism, as is often the accusation, then Congress and the FBI were pretty busy with less important things as well, since Starr's investigation WAS USING UP TO 78 FBI AGENTS. That's a whole lot of manpower not looking into terrorism, but this comes as no surprise since FBI Director Louis Freeh is an unabashed Clinton hater, as is Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The latter hating Clinton so much probably didn't have anything to do with the 5-4 vote deciding the 2000 election, did it? Blumenthal also lays waste to the myth that is Rush Limbaugh, where Rush gets all of his information (directly from the RNC), and his incredible intolerance, myopia and attacks on the Clintons, including Chelsea, whom he once referred to as "the White House dog." It took him nearly a decade to apologize. This is just a smattering of what will endure as probably the best book on the Clinton presidency by someone not named Clinton.

I was unable to finish Joe Conason's and Gene Lyons' book "The Hunting of the President" it was so upsetting. Their book is a factual recounting of the events. Sydney Blumenthal's book has been easier to read. He gives us more of the historical context and draws parallels to other progressive presidents who were attacked and smeared with equal ferocity (but without the internet!) in their time. In retrospect these are the greatest presidents to have served us and I'm sure that history will be kinder to Mr. Clinton than Rupert Murdoch has been. Although I am still angry about the GOP's underhanded tactics as well as the Democrats' lackadaisical defense, I'm comforted by seeing the bigger picture.Mr. Blumenthal is also a wonderful and compelling writer and makes this complex and lengthy tale highly readable. Besides the Conason and Lyons book, Susan McDougal's book is simpler story worth reading for those who are interested in these recent events.

During the mid 1990's, the witty sage, Garrison Keeler, said, "The Republican Party is morally bankrupt" in an interview published in a Lutheran magazine. As prescient as that view was, then, he could not have known how bankrupt until Sidney Blumenthal published so many facts to support that judgment in THE CLINTON WARS. While a preoccupation with sexual morality would lay that judgment on President Clinton (and as an Episcopal Priest, I would agree that the violation of his wedding vow to be faithful to Hillary was an egregious moral lapse), there is evidence in Blumenthal's book of moral rot at the core of at least the right wing of the Republican party and its adherents. As defined by the life and teachings of Jesus, morality consists of love for God and neighbor to the point of donating oneself to their glory and welfare. Blumenthal documents how unloving these folks are in trying to accomplish their own agenda. What he does not do is expose what lies behind the agenda, aside from talking about the vague "cultural war" that supposedly has gripped this country. I may be wrong, but I believe what lies behind it is one of the seven deadly sins: Greed. Accuse me of being a class warrior, if you wish, but as Molly Ivins has pointed out, our national govenment is daily becoming more and more a "government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations." While giving a significant role to the private sector in rehabing our economy, Clinton always had the vision that government and corporations exist to elevate and liberate PERSONS to achieve the best that was in them for the COMMON GOOD. THE CLINTON WARS gives us ample evidence that the President's vision lay behind all of the proposals and accomplishments of his administration. That moral vision has since been extinguished by the Bush presidency. I hope that people who read Blumenthal's excellent book will some how help rekindle the flame.

No, not perfect. And it's a thick monster. But it's worth the read in trying to understand the poisonous atmosphere that rightwingers and others have created. For them, it's essential to find someone to blame. Clinton could without question be a jerk. But Republicans were shaking in their boots at even the possibility of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run again. Why? Because he would have taken the flight suit phoney to the cleaners. Why?During Clinton's era, the United States balanced its budget and had the longest economic expansion in American history. There was no reason for it to end, but Bush's inauguration marked the downhill slide. The recession began in March, 2001. How remarkable was that growth during Clinton's years? For starters, Reagan's policies drove the nation into recession and almost bankrupted the nation. Talking about the success Reaganomics is revisionism. The government he turned over to Bush the elder had a deficit ballooning out of control. Reagan generated the largest deficits in history and made it harder for anyone after him to balance the budget. Bush elder made a lot of mistakes, but he somewhat bit the bullet on taxes. Clinton had to take another bite on the bullet, and aside from taxes, cut spending, amid dire projections by Hard Core Republican right wingers that the nation's economy would collapse. The opposite happened. There was no recession during Clinton's years. The economy expanded each quarter and millions upon millions of new jobs were created. No, it wasn't Clinton's singular genius that did it, but what happened, worked.How hard is that? Clinton served two full terms. No recession. That's not something you can say about Reagan or Eisenhower. In fact, you can't say it about any American President since WWII. Ike had three -- and he wasn't a bad president.The politics that Blumenthal dissects is the major reason leaders of substance have such difficulty dealing with issues of substance. Theories about government spending are nice for whacko right wingers.Social Security, which is self-financed although endangered by Bush, is one big expenditure. The Post Office is the biggest civilian employer, about 850,000, filling an essential role. But the big swallower of federal spending is the Pentagonm nearly 2.5 million people including troops and civilian employees. A great Army. But we can't get them body armor in Iraq.Perhaps Blumenthal overrates his importance, but he is a realist and he, along with many others of right and left leaning pols, know the truth. You can't cut taxes at a time like this without taking great risks with both our security and our military. As it happens, that's exactly what is happening and if it were Clinton pulling this, the Clinton Wars of the past would be nothing to compare to this. As it is, Bush ambles along and the Right wing whines that he's being treated unfairly. SEriously conservative Republicans are horrified, but so afraid of White HOuse or

Blumenthal's book is a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of his years both inside and outside the Clinton administration. The book is thorough, vividly written and steady and has, obviously, already been assailed by the right wing punditocracy largely because Blumenthal actually admires Clinton and measures the man's very real achievements (while also being quite forthright about Clinton's missteps, particularly his incoherent first two years in office.) But Blumenthal has also ticked off another power nexus -- that of the mainstream media. Why? Because Blumenthal, a former reporter for The Washington Post and The New Yorker knows how the game was played, and he names names, providing an absolutley devastating analysis of how big media companies like The New York Times, The Post, Time, Newsweek, et al, were duped by dirty tricksters on the radical right; how the Whitewater story was concocted by Republican gamesters during the '92 election and how, after Clinton's election, those gamesters used Jeff Gerth at the supposedly 'liberal' NY Times to do their dirty work by foisting the story into the national mainstream. With results we know now. Attacks on Blumenthal, from Times' editors, Newsweek's Isikoff strike a false and shrill (and hugely defensive) note. Blumenthal has the goods on these characters. The smoke has cleared, and as they say "history will judge." Those media bigfeet who became so usefully available to the Republican propaganda machine do not like now to have their bad behavior brought back up. Thus, the tenor of reviews claiming the Clinton era is all 'ancient history' and we should let the past be past.Significantly, the one dispassionate and also hugely favorable review of this book was written not by a journalist forced to confront the press's near-treasonous conduct during the Clinton years, but by an historian, Robert Dallek.