Enter Bush . . .
EDITORIAL Enter Bush . . . George W. Bush's inaugural address showed a man plain-spoken, secure in his faith, and confident in his ability to lead the nation. It also suggested that, as president,...
...By grounding the enlightenment principle of equal rights in a faith in providence, Bush spoke in the tradition of American presidents from Washington to Reagan...
...So end eight years in which Bill Clinton has unashamedly played the whole country for a fool, forcing us, whether we realize it or not, drastically to reduce our expectations of honor in the presidency...
...As Bush said, God's "purpose is achieved in our duty," to be pursued without tiring or yielding...
...Asked about Bush's unfortunate and garbled account of missile defense in his New York Times interview last week, one Bush adviser responded by pointing to defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's superb testimony before Congress, and suggested that Rumsfeld's remarks, not Bush's, would reflect policy...
...In short, America has "enabled" Bill Clinton and his presidency, as the pop psychologists would have it...
...Similarly ornamental is the $25,000 fine the now-former president has agreed to pay for having "knowingly" given "evasive and misleading answers in violation of Judge Wright's discovery orders...
...To govern is, of course, to choose...
...Indeed, Bush seemed to go further, by citing John Page's letter to Thomas Jefferson, shortly after the Declaration of Independence: "We know the Race is not to the Swift nor the Battle to the Strong...
...Courage, Aristotle said, is the first of the virtues, because it makes all the others possible...
...He pathetically attempted to hog the spotlight on Inauguration Day, boasting in his first remarks as ex-president that "we did a lot of good...
...Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm...
...He will need to listen to Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld and Mitch Daniels at OMB and, yes, John Ashcroft—more than to his campaign staff...
...Clinton's is a legacy of disgrace...
...In a letter written shortly before his death on July 4, 1826, Jefferson expressed regret that illness forced him to decline an invitation to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of American independence: I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword...
...Bush has had a fairly easy time of it so far in his political career...
...These men—a small band—made the choice, and a bold and doubtful one at that...
...We have reason to hope for the best: that Bush is capable of growing—in the real sense, not the usual Washington sense—in office...
...It also suggested that, as president, Bush may be capable of elevated sentiment and dignity of purpose...
...Especially since, more to the point, Clinton hasn't actually admitted perjury at all...
...And so he lacked the intent without which no charge of perjury can stand—and thus remains innocent of any crime...
...Would that it were so...
...This is a personality disorder, one that once would have seemed incompatible with the law and spirit of American democracy...
...With the exception of Linda Chavez, Bush's nominees have beaten back the assaults on them, and their critics on the left have probably hurt themselves with the foolish intemperance of their attacks...
...Clinton has confessed nothing that might matter to him and is consequently experiencing no pain...
...The cabinet is strong...
...Under the three-way deal Ray achieved last Friday with Clinton's lawyers and the Arkansas Supreme Court, Clinton, for having been found in civil contempt during the Paula Jones litigation by federal judge Susan Webber Wright, will have his home-state license to practice law suspended for five years...
...It is damage from which America will not recover overnight...
...The question becomes whether, in the process, we have also enshrined as acceptable—and thus invited—future such presidents and presidencies...
...Time and again, he has indignantly rebuked us for it...
...Two aspects of the Inaugural Address are promising in this respect...
...What a satisfying change...
...William Kristol, January 20,2001 Exit Clinton Bill Clinton has left office essentially unchanged: now, as always, a man convinced that no criticism of him can ever have justice, no fact that wounds his pride can ever be true—and convinced, as well, that any who see things differently are dishonorable...
...And he will have to depend on his faith, a faith that, one trusts, goes beyond a good heart to a strong will...
...First, Bush listed courage, along with civility, compassion, and character, as fundamental principles that will guide him...
...Appearing in person before the cameras later the same day, David Kendall was bolder still: "He did not lie...
...One shouldn't be Pollyannaish...
...Kendall was right...
...And he did not do so today...
...David Tell, for the Editors...
...In the course of his press conference on Friday, Ray released a private letter sent him earlier that day by Clinton lawyer David Kendall...
...But perhaps the recovery will be quicker and more complete than one might have thought just a few weeks ago...
...But more are than one might have expected...
...The damage Clinton did—to our Constitution, to our public discourse, to the fabric of our national political life—will undoubtedly long outlive him...
...Bill Clinton, the vulgar narcissist, is gone...
...Clinton has skated...
...For the same misconduct, though, Clinton was already facing near-certain disbarment, from which he would have been eligible for reinstatement after an identical five-year period—so this "new" penalty is really just an old one in disguise...
...Some concessions were made that shouldn't have been made—particularly John Ashcroft's assertion that he would not seek to challenge Roe v. Wade—but Bush tried to walk that concession back, and perhaps not too much damage was done...
...And yet this disordered man has been our president, and he has successfully bent democratic politics to his needs...
...But he will need to reach into himself to make the tough decisions that may not seem popular at the time he has to make them...
...I hope and trust that's so, but at the end of the day we will need a president, not simply a team, that is up to governing...
...We have not admitted he lied...
...All is certainly not well in the body politic, and not all signs are positive for the new administration...
...Time and again, the nation has been disgusted by Clinton...
...Bush will get tons of advice from his own staff about how to remain popular, how to reach out, how to "change the tone...
...Henry Hyde, for instance, declares that Robert Ray's entente with Kendall about the president's Paula Jones deposition "vindicates impeachment...
...it will be tested...
...He was impeached for lying to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice, and Robert Ray's deal is silent on those charges...
...But Bush also reminded us, implicitly, that angels will not save us if we sow the whirlwind...
...his political courage is relatively untested...
...Not everybody sees it this way, of course...
...and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made...
...Independent counsel Robert Ray, sweeping up confetti in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, believes he has helped answer this question with a "no"—by extracting from Clinton, in the final twenty-four hours of his White House tenure, a painful confession that he was guilty not simply of private and sexual wrongdoing in the matter, but of public and legal misdeeds, as well...
...And time and again, we have ultimately decided to distrust ourselves, turn on Clinton's accusers and victims, and let him off scot free—that is, with his perfect vanity undisturbed...
...Clinton, Kendall wrote, while he is prepared to accept them in order to "achieve closure," believes that his fine and the suspension of his law license are penalties "far harsher than appropriate...
...they will not step in if we are weak before the storms we face abroad or at home...
...A majority of ordinary Americans remain happy with the economy Clinton has supervised and have never much troubled themselves to think unflattering thoughts about him in any other context, this one especially...
...Robert Ray apparently doesn't...
...Moreover, Kendall went on, where Clinton's "evasive and misleading answers" are concerned, "all he can in conscience do is say what he told the earlier grand jury: he tried to avoid testifying falsely...
...that count against him was rejected by the House of Representatives...
...Ray is mistaken...
...And this brings us to the fundamental point: The success of the Bush administration will depend on George W. Bush...
...For as Robert Ray should know as well as anyone, "evasive and misleading answers," even if given "knowingly," are insufficient to establish perjury...
...But the president was not impeached for his Paula Jones deposition...
...What is $25,000 paid to admit those perjuries against the millions of dollars in attorney's fees Clinton eagerly spent to deny them...
...Bush closed his address by affirming that "an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm...
...Even some of the president's staunchest critics are now prepared to let go their complaints and allow him this one last, spectacular deception...
...Partisan Democrats don't, either—for they have cravenly but consistently applauded Clinton's every successful escape from the normal rules of public life...
...Memorialized therein was the president's formal position on his pending bargain with the prosecutor and the Arkansas court...
...And not all violations of a judge's discovery orders are crimes...
...Second, in his reference to the one "Who creates us equal in His image," Bush deftly linked human equality to religious faith...
...President Bush, on his first day in office, gives reason to hope that he will not shy away from the bold and doubtful choices he will have to make for our country...
Vol. 6 • January 2001 • No. 19
