A Chance for Recovery
ROBERTS, STEVEN V.
A Chance for Recovery On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency By Elizabeth Drew Simon & Schuster. 462 pp. $24.00. Reviewed by Steven V. Roberts Senior writer. "U.S. News and World Report ".former...
...What seemed youthful and combative in Little Rock suddenly seems immature and whiny in Washington...
...As a result, two-thirds of the voters who were troubled about their economic prospects voted Democratic...
...But once the guerrillas capture the palace, things are different...
...for every mention of Christina Jeffrey, Newt's ill-fated choice to be House historian, there is one less take on Paula Jones...
...The narrative is full of endless meetings, delayed decisions, and countless conversations that seem to lead nowhere...
...In the new Congress the President has already exerted leadership on a number of issues, from the Mexican fiscal crisis and the trade battle with China to the baseball strike...
...We've dealt with that, they asserted, we know better...
...In 1992 we heard no talk about food stamps or public housing, a lot about tuition loans and health insurance...
...For years they have promised lower taxes, more defense spending, declining deficits, and budget cuts that don't hurt anybody...
...Both Clintons, on the basis of their campaign experience, thought they could finesse the issue...
...Sure, he had dreamed of occupying the Oval Office foryears, andhad pursued that dream with relentless energy...
...or what he wanted to accomplish...
...News and World Report ".former White House correspondent...
...Elizabeth Drew makes it painfully clear in this meticulous account of Clinton's first 18 months that he was not ready to be President...
...In due course, he was out there without its protective wrapping...
...He still has time to salvage his Presidency—not much, but some?and as I said at the outset, the electoral disaster of last fall could actually help him recover...
...The author depicts a man who wants no rivals yet can't make up his own mind, who thinks he knows best and yet is constantly "in need of affirmation...
...The whole incident was devastating because it reminded many middle-class voters of why they had been so uncomfortable with the Democrats for so long...
...Drew is right when she says that voters never fell in love with Bill Clinton: "even in the periods when the people gave him their approval, they didn't give him their hearts...
...He has to seem sympathetic to the lives of average Americans, although he can't be average, and too often Clinton strayed over the line...
...My favonte definition is this: Middle-class is when you make too much money to qualify for any government help in sending your kids to college, but not enough to afford it out of your own pocket...
...It had come up briefly in a New York Times article, lingered for a few days, then disappeared...
...Middle-class is an overused and under-explained phrase...
...There is something else the Clintons did not grasp until very late: the profound difference between running a campaign and running a government...
...Now there is a new lightning rod in town, a new focus for investigative reporters and scandal salesmen...
...One mutters with frustration while reading the account of how Clinton handed over the bill-writing process to his wife, Hillary, and their longtime friend, Ira C. Magaziner...
...Too many vested interests were being gored, or ignored, or both...
...New York "Times " I CAME TO AN ODD CONCLUSION after reading this book and watching the first weeks of the new Congress unfold: Losing control of Capitol Hill might be the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton and the Democrats...
...The fiasco over health care was even worse...
...Nor has his performance so far generated any new loyalty or affection...
...Drew documents hisjust stumbling into the issue of gays in the military, in part because he totally failed to understand the way his words would suddenly take on new weight the day after his election...
...The Speaker is mentioned only twice in Drew's tale, both times briefly...
...News coverage is basically a zero-sum game, and for every story about Gingrich's book contract or college course there is one less about Whitewater...
...I know, he didn't succeed in settling the strike, but I think summoning both sides to the White House—and siding with the fans against the millionaires—was a Presidential act...
...Accordingly, the GOP victory and the coming of Gingrichism have given Clinton some desperately needed breathing space, a chance to redefine his Administration while the blinding glare of publicity is directed elsewhere...
...No episode shows the difference between campaigning and governing more vividly than Whitewater...
...On several occasions during the first year...
...The most searing indictment in this book, however, is its portrait of Clinton's personal immaturity...
...Bill Clinton can still draw on some outsized assets: resiliency, determination, a strong belief in his own powers of insight and persuasion...
...Bill Clinton's re-election chances next year would be very bleak...
...Newt Gingrich could not have done a better job of resurrecting the ghosts of the "counter culture McGovemicks...
...Drew reports, the White House staff looked wistfully to the Gipper and argued that "somehow, Clinton should have been more like Reagan...
...He's alone a lot...
...Clinton understood why his party had wandered in the political wilderness for a generation, and—with the help of Ross Perot—figured out a strategy to recapture the White House...
...Four years is a long time...
...But if the President reads On the Edge and learns from the mistakes it so carefully documents, then his prospects could be considerably brighter in November of 1996...
...Based solely on the record that is detailed in this book...
...Those aims were always contradictory, and now that Republicans have to make good on their vows, the conflicts will become visible...
...Hillary, a Clinton confidant adds, fails to give him that affirmation: "She can be very cold...
...Once a President takes office, though, news organizations have fresh incentives to invest additional resources and take another look...
...Nevertheless, this story is not over...
...He conveyed a useful set of messages for an insurgent band of political guerrillas still in the boondocks: young, feisty, hip...
...I have always believed Clinton's mishandling of the issue was shaped by a simple yet stunning fact: He knows far more gay people than military people...
...Ronald Reagan was a great head of state, raising the national spirit and self-confidence, but he ignored the details of governing...
...Gingrich does something else that is useful for Clinton: He puts a face on the Republican Party...
...One gets the feeling that Liz Drew does not particularly like the First Couple, and it's hard for the reader to summon much affection as well...
...The military, with the exception of Colin Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is practically invisible...
...But he obviously had not thought much about how to do the job, who would advise him...
...Let's start with the plus that we are seeing less of him on television...
...One "Washington observer" tells the author: "They hit the ground barely standing...
...David Mixner, a gay activist and old friend of Clinton's, turns up several times in its pages, urging him to take on gay causes...
...The cluster of defects that could be listed under the term 'character'—his 'Slick Willie' aspect and all that conveyed, his inclination to avoid responsibility for some of his acts, his lack of discipline and his reckless streak (at least in the past)—endangered his Presidency," she writes...
...His outsized failings notwithstanding...
...Until now, Clinton has been measured against some ideal of perfection...
...Despite James Car-ville's famous admonition about economics, Clinton's first misstep was about culture, not money...
...Clinton has made the opposite mistake, becoming legislator-in-chief instead of commander-in-chief...
...Take that same spokesman, put him under a sign that says "White House," and the symbolism gets scrambled...
...This book should probably carry a warning label, if not from the Surgeon General then from the Librarian of Congress...
...Yes, it is true that during a campaign the pressures are such that if a story does not pan out quickly, it is usually dropped...
...Repeatedly, Bill, Ira and Hillary insisted they were right...
...In fact, the defeat could be what saves his Presidency...
...In his frenzied efforts to 'get close to the people,' to be accessible, to popularize the Presidency—telling a questioner on MTV that he wore briefs?he wiped away much of the mystique of the office, took risks with the authority of the office...
...As Drew puts it: "The Clinton campaign was determined to demonstrate to middle-class voters that here, at last, would be a Democratic President who understood their disappointments and their struggles...
...Clinton also never got quite right the balance between the two roles of the Presidency, head of state and head of government...
...Whatever your political leanings, it is a disheartening tale of lost promise and squandered opportunity...
...Finally, the Republicans will now be measured against their record, and not merely their slogans...
...They had turned to a pal when they needed a shrewd, experienced pol," writes Drew, "but they didn't grasp that until very late in the game...
...I invariably think of George Stephanopoulos, Clinton's spokesman during the campaign, in this context...
...In this case, Clinton's irrepressible arrogance—his unwavering conviction that he and his friends are smarter than everybody else—was the source of his downfall...
...Clinton's deliberate demystification of the Presidency came back to hurt him," Drew observes...
...All assessments of the President's prospects in 1996 have to take account of his opponent...
...Clinton's recent counterattack against Republican budget cuts that threaten children is a good example of his ability to exploit the situation by reminding people of how they actually benefit from government...
...When seasoned political pros tried to warn the Clintons, and urged them to come clean with all relevant information, their reaction was another stunning combination of arrogance and ignorance...
...On the Edge confirms that imbalance...
...And Clinton spoke to precisely the people caught in that sort of squeeze...
...Indeed, Clinton's favorable ratings are running 10 points ahead of Gingrich's (although 10 points behind Bob Dole's...
...Or as one of his advisers told me recently, he's acted too much like a prime minister, not enough like a President...
...Repeatedly the troika was told by Washington insiders like Leon Panetta, "It won't work...
...That may seem strange in politics, where air time is like oxygen, but any President has to do a tough balancing act...
...today he is being measured against real Republicans, people with flaws and failings like his...
...Another blessing for Bill Clinton is the sudden prominence of Newt Gingrich...
...How quickly their hopes, and goodwill, evaporated...
...With Republicans controlling Congress, Clinton has room to revise his approach to the job, and it's clear that Reagan is his role model...
Vol. 78 • February 1995 • No. 2
