No Respect
In recent weeks, Bill
Clinton's stock has been trading higher. His approval-disapproval rating in the
latest CNN poll is 59-31. This may account for the grudging credit the
president has begun to receive on the weekend talk shows (see
Slate
's "Pundit Central") and in the opinion columns. Commentators
are commending the administration's strategic acumen in proposing to expand
child-care benefits and let 55-year-olds buy into Medicare. More generally,
they have lately accorded Clinton a measure of respect for presiding over peace
and prosperity, and simply for staying afloat for five years.
Yet,
beneath these acknowledgments there runs an undercurrent of distaste, disdain,
even contempt. Last month, the unapologetically establishment journalist R.W.
Apple Jr. wrote a piece in GQ about Clinton's place in history. Though
he hasn't screwed up in any profound way, Apple contended, Clinton will be
remembered as a middling president, at best. He is a man with a "compulsion to
cut ethical corners" and "total contempt for ethical niceties." Such hostility
continues to peek through at regular intervals. On election night in 1996,
agribusiness spokesman and former TV journalist David Brinkley announced that
Clinton was "a bore" and would always be one. Among members of the Washington
establishment, especially the Washington media establishment, there is a scorn
for Clinton that is not always articulated in public but never fades.
I'm not talking here about conservative anti-Clinton animus
as represented by the American Spectator , the Wall Street Journal
editorial page, or the Christopher Ruddy-Ambrose Evans-Pritchard-Richard Mellon
Scaife-Jerry Falwell school of conspiracy wackiness. Though this form of
detestation does have a clinical element, it is easy to understand.
Right-wingers hate Clinton in much the same way that left-wingers hated Reagan
(although Clinton is, of course, hardly an ideological threat as Reagan was,
and in fact, many left-wingers also hate Clinton, precisely for being a
centrist). The left had the October Surprise; the right has Vince Foster. What
is much harder to understand is the Clintonophobia exhibited by a Washington
elite that roughly shares the administration's center-liberal orientation. This
group includes the editorial page editors of the Washington Post and the
New York Times , as well as leading columnists for both papers. It is the
oft-expressed view of what remains of Georgetown society. Goodness knows there
are plenty of reasons to dislike anyone, maybe more than the average number in
Clinton's case. What is mystifying is the intensity of the contempt for
him.
Let's begin with the conscious reasons. If you
ask one of these Clinton detractors what she objects to, she is likely to
mention that the president is duplicitous, disloyal, and unethical. Michael
Kelly has called the president "a shocking liar." Apple has compared the
Clintons to the F. Scott Fitzgerald characters Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who left
a trail of broken friends in their single-minded social ascent. Maureen Dowd
recently wrote that the Arlington graves-for-cash scenario sounded like
something Clinton would have done, even though he did not, in fact, do it.
Interestingly, if these critics are much bothered by conventional immoral
behavior, such as the extramarital affairs, they don't make a public point of
it.
Each of
these criticisms contains a kernel of truth. Clinton almost certainly has not
told the truth about Paula Jones, just as the first lady did not tell the truth
about the travel-office firings. Bill Clinton treated his friends Lani Guinier
and Harold Ickes badly. Investing with James McDougal does not reflect the
highest ethical standards. But those who continue to dwell on these well-aired
matters seldom exhibit much perspective. What president or successful
politician has never acted expediently by dissembling, dropping old friends,
and compromising his ethics at various points? The real question is whether the
extent of Clinton's bad behavior is extraordinary. JFK was a favorite of many
of Clinton's Georgetown critics when they were younger. Kennedy, of course, cut
his corners with a touch of class, something else Clinton is said to lack.
Clinton haters hate Clinton for not having the dignity and sense of restraint
that should attach to his office. Even his jogging shorts, they think, are
unpresidential.
The next level is less literal, more psychological, and
involves several disparate strands. Many journalists were seduced by Clinton in
1992, and subsequently felt personally betrayed. Joe Klein is the chief
specimen here. During the 1992 campaign, Klein gushed about Clinton in New
York magazine. After Clinton became president, Klein tongue-lashed him in
Newsweek for not measuring up. Klein distilled his own emotional
roller-coaster ride into an excellent novel, Primary Colors . Related to
this sense of betrayal, which is shared in varying degrees by many others who
covered Clinton in 1992, is the feeling that Clinton has "got away with it," in
the sense of never paying the bill for his sexual misdeeds. Related to this is
an attitude not far from envy. Disappointed in Clinton, many of the shrewder
members of the president's peer group seem to think that they could do better
themselves. Since Clinton is no smarter and certainly no better behaved than
they are, why aren't their positions reversed?
The
generational factor is significant. Everybody distrusts the baby boomers. The
older generation sees them as spoiled and self-indulgent. Those younger see
them as greedy and narcissistic. Often, those who came of age during the 1960s
seem to resent themselves. Just as he gets it from all sides as a member of the
'60s generation, Clinton gets it coming and going on the issue of class. To
Georgetown sophisticates, there is something hopelessly garish and cheap about
the Clintons. At the same time, others sneer at Bill and Hillary for being part
of a snooty meritocratic elite (viz., Renaissance Weekend) with no feel for the
grimy working-class soul of the Democratic Party.
But the most important explanation of the
Washington establishment's Clinton hating is that Clinton threatens its waning
power. At the height of the Cold War, Georgetown society was the center of the
political world. These days, it is a vestige, whose only real wellspring of
importance is a president who elevates it with his blandishments and listens to
its advice. When a Republican president like Nixon or Bush fails to heed the
wise men of the permanent government, they can dismiss him. When a Democrat
like Carter or Clinton ignores them, they must launch their missiles. For
whatever reason, the Clintons have been notably uninterested in cultivating the
surviving members of the Georgetown set. During the presidential transition in
1992, the Clintons attended a dinner at Katharine Graham's house and drew
glowing comments from the attendees. They launched a round of intimate White
House dinners. Johnny Apple cooed.
After that, however, the
president more or less stiffed the Georgetowners. This outraged them--you could
tell because they all said their friends were outraged. In July 1993, Sally
Quinn observed in the Washington Post : "People who have been here and
who have attained a certain social or political position do not want to be
'dissed.' They want the new team to respect them. Because these tribal rituals
were not fulfilled, many people were virtually gleeful when Clinton went into
free fall in the polls. You reap what you sow, was the attitude." As he begins
the sixth year of his presidency, Clinton is reaping it still.
