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New Book Reveals Clinton's Real Legacy Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.comIf you are getting hazy on your Bill Clinton facts – how the polticial “natural” squandered his opportunity to earn an honorable legacy in the pantheon of U.S. presidents – then National Review editor Rich Lowry’s “Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years” (470 pages, Regnery Press) is just the ticket. Not only can the serious student of modern politics brush up on such details as the complete inventory of Clinton’s various perjuries, but he or she can also gain a keen insight into the character of the world leader that gave terrorism a leg-up as he and his administration slept. On tap for the fortunate reader is not only a complete and documented Clinton primer, but an examination of some of the ineffectual characters that fleshed out a failed administration. Case-in-point: Attorney General Janet Reno, “Queen of the Bunny Planet,” a chief law enforcement officer whose main emphasis at a time of national trial was targeting the country’s legion of deadbeat dads. Even after the Clinton administration named Hamas a terrorist organization and Treasury as well as the FBI recommended freezing its assets in 1997, Reno blocked it. “How can you prove to us the money isn’t saving children’s lives?” was the absurd litmus test. The Reno saga is fit in neatly with a vignette of fellow administration outsider Louis Freeh, the computer illiterate chief of the FBI – cut off and isolated from the Oval Office at a time when information and being proactive became literally a matter of life and death. In a scholarly three parts – Politics and Policy, Scandal and Law, and Foreign Policy – Lowry takes the Clinton promise and promises and traces them through to perfidy and defeat. Along the way, he refreshes the recollection and exposes a grim truth:
If this much abbreviated listing of what’s in store seems at first blush to just be more generic Clinton-bashing, stand by. Lowey has clearly done his homework (There are no less than 110 pages of end notes.) and puts it forth in an entertaining and readable way. Every paragraph carries freight in this ultimate indictment, and the nuggets fly like rounds from a machine gun. One can literally flip open to any page, circle a finger in the air, and touch down on a morsel, which if not of first impression has impact nonetheless. Cases-in-point: The home front: “It was a $29 billion cut in defense spending from 1992 to 1995 that accounted for all of the deficit reduction from Clinton’s policy changes.” “Meaningful welfare reform never would have happened if he hadn’t been forced into it, as he vetoed GOP reform bills twice before finally signing…under political duress.” The Middle East: “The Clinton administration was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to prop up the Arab status quo in the service of the peace process. It begged Arab states to support Arafat… The peace process froze the United States into accepting what should have been an intolerable Arab status quo, and prompted it to subordinate important security issues, whether it was dealing with the weapons programs of Iraq and Iran, or the worldwide Islamic extremist network funded and supported by Saudi Arabia.” Somalia: “It was al Qaeda’s operational advice to wait until an American helicopter had passed overhead and shoot rocket-propelled grenades at its tail rotor…” Pakistan: “Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan was actively working against American interests, aiding and abetting Islamic extremism and terrorism, and doing it with impunity.” The list goes on with factoids introduced on just about every page that make the reader wince and wonder. And all along the way, Lowry remains steadfast with his binding theme: Clinton frozen in rigor mortis when it came to decision-making -- Clinton, the overweight non-athlete still writhing in adolescence -- always that same unsure, anxious-to-please character. The former president, himself, describes: “I was born at sixteen and will always feel I’m sixteen.” Lowry ties it all up in a neat package at the end: “The September 11 attacks finally gave Clinton the kind of legacy he had yearned for: one that couldn’t be ignored, one that was great in its implications. His could no longer be considered an inconsequential presidency. In leaving the country vulnerable to such an attack after eight years in office, Clinton had achieved the perverse distinction of a monstrous, world-shaking failure.” The careful reader of “Legacy” – no matter what their preconceived notions – will find themselves unconsciously nodding their heads.
Editor's note:
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