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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2004-06-23

Clinton Coverage

I have not bothered to sit through a single interview of Bill Clinton in the last four days.

But I have been watching the coverage of the Clinton Memories Tour, and one thing strikes me: everything seems to be about Lewinsky. Sure, he takes shots at a lot of different opponents, and rails on Ken Starr, and self-congratulates himself a lot. But the highlight reels of the interviews are full of Lewinsky.

Which indicates one of two things to me. Given that the interviews have all been by persons quite friendly to the former President and his political positions, they must have made the calculated decision that this is the easier topic. His friends would rather ask about Lewinsky because that's a PR battle he's already won, and it means he doesn't have to face real questions. Questions like Mark Rich, like why he named Saddam a threat and didn't do anything about him, why he didn't pursue bin Laden with all the resources available to him, like the Chinese fundraising goofiness. Much rather focus on Lewinsky--easy win.

Or. . .it could be an indicator of just what an accomplishment-less presidency Bill Clinton presided over. If the main thing that lasts out of the 90s was the Lewinsky story, then Bill Clinton is going down in history as nothing more than a capable steward of the economy. And that's just got to drive him nuts.

I think, in the long run, he severely miscalculated the effectiveness of this book as a means of rehabilitating his image. Probably should have waited another 20 years.
Posted by: Michael / 6/23/2004 02:20:00 PM

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