The Periodical Observer Care Supports Went from $4.5 Billion to $9.3 Times Too Clever by Half, and He Dislikes Mak- Billion; the Earned Income Tax Credit Ing Enemies
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TTHEHE PPERIODICALERIODICAL OOBSERVERBSERVER Reviews of articles from periodicals and specialized journals here and abroad Politics & Government 97 109 Religion & Philosophy Foreign Policy & Defense 99 110 Science, Technology Economics, Labor & Business 100 & Environment Society 104 114 Arts & Letters Press & Media 107 118 Other Nations The Clinton Legacy: A First Draft A Survey of Recent Articles se of the L-word was banned in the concedes that “Clinton’s economic rec- UWhite House last year, lest any ord...is pretty good.” observer get the impression that the 42nd Clinton also promised in 1992 “to end president of the United States was obsessed welfare as we know it,” and four years later, with his legacy. But as President Bill Clinton despite the opposition of liberals and most of moved reluctantly toward the exit after two his staff, he signed the welfare reform bill terms in office, journalists, scholars, and oth- passed by the Republican Congress, ending ers began to appraise his eight-year perfor- the cash entitlement for poor mothers. Peter mance. Clinton himself, not surprisingly, Edelman, a Department of Health and tried to give them a hand. Human Services official and Clinton friend, “I will leave the White House even more quit over this and still believes it was wrong. idealistic than when I entered it in terms of But welfare specialist David Ellwood, of my belief about the capacity of our system Harvard University, tells Washington corre- and our people to change and to actually spondent Joe Klein in the New Yorker (Oct. solve, or at least reduce, problems,” he says 16 & 23, 2000) that “the results are much in an “exit interview” in Talk (Dec. better than I expected.” Not only have the 2000–Jan. 2001). “We have turned around welfare rolls been almost cut in half, but so many things.” Clinton “did exactly what he said he was Clinton’s Exhibit A is, of course, the going to do: he made work pay. He did it booming economy. He promised in 1992 to incrementally, but the results have been dra- “focus like a laser beam” on the economy, matic.” More than half of the poorest and few deny his administration some credit women are now in the work force. for the ensuing prosperity. American Clinton’s persistent efforts since 1994 “to Prospect (Aug. 28, 2000) coeditor Robert force a reluctant Republican Congress to Kuttner notes that Clinton must share credit spend more money” on various social pro- with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan grams, “especially those that raised the Greenspan, “and with fortunate timing. income of the working poor,” helped mil- Thanks to information technology and the lions and constituted “the most admirable disinflation of the 1990s, these were likely to aspect” of his whole record in office, Klein be good years.” Even National Review (Nov. believes. Head Start’s budget grew from $2.8 20, 2000) senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru billion in 1993 to $5.3 billion in 2000; child Winter 2001 95 The Periodical Observer care supports went from $4.5 billion to $9.3 times too clever by half, and he dislikes mak- billion; the earned income tax credit ing enemies. FDR said, ‘Judge me by the increased from $12.4 billion to $30.4 bil- enemies I have.’ Bill Clinton, for all his lion. In his 1997 balanced-budget agree- intellectual and magnetic qualities, hates ment with the Republicans, Clinton won making enemies.” more than $30 billion in new tax credits for He has made some, nevertheless. higher education, effectively making the Norman Podhoretz, editor at large of first two years of college a middle-class enti- Commentary, despises Clinton as “a scoun- tlement. This affected more people than the drel and a perjurer and a disgrace to the original GI Bill of Rights (which applied office.” Yet Podhoretz contends that only to returning World War II veterans), Clinton’s very defects of character enabled Klein points out. him to move the Democratic Party “in a healthier direction than it had been head- n foreign affairs, Clinton’s modest record ing” for more than a quarter-century. Iis the best one could have hoped for in a (Others who applaud this move toward the world without the defining issues of the center take a much more favorable view of Cold War, argues Stephen M. Walt, a pro- Clinton, of course.) If Clinton had had any fessor of international affairs at Harvard’s principles, Podhoretz argues in National Kennedy School of Government, writing in Review (Sept. 13, 1999), “he would have Foreign Affairs (Mar.–Apr. 2000). Despite been incapable of betraying the people and Clinton’s idealistic rhetoric, his strategy has the ideas he was supposed to represent.” His been “hegemony on the cheap, because that impeachment “forced even the intransigent is the only strategy the American people are McGovernites of his party, who had every likely to support.” But Richard N. Haass, reason to hate him, into mobilizing on his director of foreign policy studies at the behalf for fear of the right-wing conspiracy Brookings Institution, charges that “Clinton they fantasied would succeed him.” inherited a world of unprecedented Amer- ican advantage and opportunity and did lit- linton claims in Talk that his tle with it.” He deserves credit for gaining Cimpeachment was “just a political congressional approval of the North deal.” But however history judges the American Free Trade Agreement and the Republican impeachment drive, Clinton’s World Trade Organization, Haass writes in own ethical and legal misconduct in the Foreign Affairs (May–June 2000), and his White House is unlikely to be overlooked. administration scored some advances in Historians who ranked all U.S. presidents in arms control, helped bring peace to a 1999 C-Span survey put Clinton dead last Northern Ireland, and “brought some mea- when it came to “moral authority.” He sure of stability—however fleeting or tenu- ranked 21st overall, far below the usual ous—to Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.” But greats and near-greats, and just four rungs Clinton leaves in foreign affairs not “a lega- above Richard Nixon, the only president cy” but “a void: no clear priorities, no con- forced to resign in disgrace. sistency or thoroughness in the implementa- “Self-inflicted wounds,” however, were tion of strategies, and no true commitment just one reason that the Clinton presidency to building a domestic consensus in support did not rise “to great heights,” George C. of internationalism.” He paid too little atten- Edwards III, director of the Center for tion to foreign affairs—and too much to Presidential Studies at Texas A&M polls, Haass believes. University, told National Journal (Jan. 1, For all Clinton’s “high swift intelligence, 2000) correspondent Carl M. Cannon. his impressive technical command of all the Another reason was that the opposition party issues, [and] his genuine intellectual curios- controlled the Congress after 1994, limiting ity...he’s not a fighter,” comments histori- his legislative ambitions. And a third reason an Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in a New York was “the absence of a crisis.” As Klein writes: Times Book Review (Nov. 26, 2000) inter- “He was president in a placid time; he never view. “He lacks self-discipline. He is some- had the opportunity to achieve greatness.” 96 Wilson Quarterly.