One Eye in the Mirror
Lowry, Rich
BOOKS IN REVI Washington told Congress, it increased his "gratitude for the interposition of Providence." "I resign with satisfaction" he said, "the Appointment I accepted with...
...He documents the smears, blackmail, and coercion that went on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, dwarfing by comparison the dirtiest deeds of J. Edgar Hoover even in his heyday...
...They know everything," the redoubtable general said...
...The mission of Lowry's book is to deal with the Clinton legacy in total, not just the obvious scandals that plagued his tenure...
...Later, safely home, Washington would write to his former lieutenant, Henry Knox, likening himself to a traveler who "from his House top is looking back, and tracing with a grateful eye the Meanders by which he escaped the quicksands and Mires which lay in his way...
...and into which none but the All-powerful guide, and great disposer of human Events could have prevented his falling...
...It is there, in the realm of public policy, not of personal misconduct, that Lowry makes his most provocative arguments about the failures of the Clinton administration...
...Cry, the French military academy...
...In his own way, Rich Lowry makes the same comment on President Clinton when he asks how a "hyperintelligent, empathetic" person with "an amazing capacity for endurance, lasting through political setbacks and personal humiliations" could so manifestly have failed in so many important parts of his job...
...I resign with satisfaction" he said, "the Appointment I accepted with diffidence...
...And for You, we address to Him our warmest prayers, that a life so beloved, may be fostered with all His care—that your days may be happy as they have been illus trious, and that He will finally give you that reward which this world cannot give...
...And James Madison, future author of the First Amendment, was persuaded that this closing paragraph was written by the very man now reputed to be the architect of a wall of separation between church and state: We join with you in commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, beseeching Him to dispose the hearts and minds of its citizens to improve the opportunity afforded them of becoming a happy and respectable nation...
...BOOKS IN REVI Washington told Congress, it increased his "gratitude for the interposition of Providence...
...Washington seemed to express no doubt: God had been on our side, and we should work to keep it that way...
...In Annapolis, Congress had seen the text of Washington's speech and had prepared a response...
...His final words were as much a consecration as a farewell...
...I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life," he said, "by commending the interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have superintendence of them, to his holy keeping...
...72 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 2003/JANUARY 2004...
...Assessing the Clinton years without focusing on their culmination on September 11 would be like discussing Harding and Coolidge without mentioning the stock market crash that took place, Dick Morris, a former consultant to President Clinton, is the author of Off With Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business...
...A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which however was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our Cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven...
...In foreign affairs and national security, Lowry lays out a damning case of presidential neglect, shortsightedness, and half-measures...
...One Eye in the Mirror Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years by Rich Lowry (Regnery, 256 pages, $27.95) Reviewed by Dick Morris ARSHAL PETAIN, in his World War I heroic mold, may have pronounced the best judg ment on Bill Clinton when he commented on the graduates of St...
...After eight long years of war, America was finally a free and independent state...
...It was "largely written by Thomas Jefferson," Weintraub reports...
...A bitter irony of the Clinton years is that for all of the accomplishments his supporters laud and all the scandals his opponents bemoan, it is for what he did not do that he is most likely to be remembered...
...Yet Congress's Christmas wish for Washington was not a republic of this earth, but a place in the Kingdom of Heaven...
...Unfortunately, they know nothing else...
...But Lowry's most interesting discussion centers on Clinton's record between the foul lines, on the playing field of American politics...
...His treatment of the Lewinsky affair, impeachment, and the other narrow scrapes is enlivened by an appropriate discussion of the Nixonlike cover-ups of evidence and Gestapo-like intimidation of witnesses which underscored the administration's damage control mode...
Vol. 36 • December 2003 • No. 7
