Presidents Great And Small

Charles Krauthammer had a very interesting column a few days ago on the “smallness” of Clinton and his presidency. I will not attempt to expand them (Clinton, his presidency, or the column) here, but Krauthammer’s column has provoked some thoughts, as it usually does.

Making lists of “the best” or “the greatest” presidents is a national pastime. Most of us have one, and we like checking the lists of others. What most of us usually mean by “best” or “greatest” is simply who accomplished the most “good,” i.e., stuff we like. Some historians, on the other hand, try to employ a more objective standard, such as which presidents were most successful in achieving their own goals, whether or not the list-making historian approves of those goals. Thus a conservative historian, employing this standard, could list FDR as a great president even though the historian might lament his success.

I believe that one of the essential elements of greatness in a president — perhaps the most important element — is that he stand for some large and important principle or policy. Thus George Washington really was the father of his country in that his prestige and stature were crucial in launching the new nation; Jefferson, with the Declaration of Independence already a feather in his cap, significantly expanded the nation with the Louisiana Purchase; Lincoln preserved the nation by stamping out secession, with elimination of slavery an important by-product; FDR redefined the role of the federal government and led the successful war against the Axis; Reagan un-redefinded, or re-redefined the role of the federal government and concluded the cold war against the Russians.

Note that under this standard some presidents could be very good, even very successful, without being great. Perhaps Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt are examples. LBJ, as usual, is in a class by himself: some success in expanding FDR’s principle (though that wouldn’t meet my definition of greatness); truly significant success in articulating the colorblind civil rights principle and implementing it into law; colossal failure abroad.

Your list will vary, but you get the idea. Now, with that idea in mind, what important principle or policy did Clinton stand for?

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  1. John from OK June 27, 2004 at 4:02 pm | | Reply

    Bill Clinton stood for raising taxes and spending money, and he excelled at both. He also extended this attitude to state governments, and to the public at large. None of the tobacco settlement ever became a tax rebate. The $500B presciption drug plan, a benefit for people who already own most of the country, was supported by the majority of the American public. That was Bill Clinton’s legacy. He was truly a great president.

  2. John from OK June 27, 2004 at 4:04 pm | | Reply

    Oh, and teenagers have taken to the concept that a b***job not really sex.

  3. Anonymous June 27, 2004 at 5:28 pm | | Reply

    Bill Clinton has always stood for himself. He tosses and turns as blown by the wind, there is no principle(s) which anchors him.

  4. Rich June 28, 2004 at 5:00 pm | | Reply

    “Your list will vary, but you get the idea. Now, with that idea in mind, what important principle or policy did Clinton stand for?”

    I always thought of Bill Clinton as the best president Chinese money could buy. His work in undermining the sovergnity and security of the US was first rate and it’s only been surpassed just recently.

    Bill Clinton was also a great foe of Civil Rights, and expanded Affirmative Racism more than any other president before him.

    It’s no surprise that more foreign nationals prefer democratic presidents, and I’ve no doubt that most of them voted for Clinton.

    Rich

  5. Kaimi June 29, 2004 at 10:38 am | | Reply

    How about this:

    Clinton pioneered an era of centrism; he steered American liberalism back from the cliff’s edge (just as GWB has tried, with mixed success, to do with conservatism); he oversaw massive changes to welfare and immigration; he resisted the outliers in his own party, appointing thoughtful and well-regarded moderate liberal judges to the Supreme Court. His centrism may have contributed (we’ll wait twent years for the economists to decide) to the economic boom that the nation went through during his presidency. He helped transition U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War model to the new post-Cold War model.

  6. fenster moop June 29, 2004 at 5:33 pm | | Reply

    I personally think Kaimi has it just about right. Those are the best things you can say about him. I don’t think those things qualify him for Mount Rushmore by any means, but they do characterize his administration and, holding aside his odd personal pecadillos, render his administration good, not great.

    I have gotten so, so tired of Bush bashing that I almost forgot how tired I got of Clinton bashing from the Right when he was in office. Now, with Clinton’s book out, the rabid droolers of the Right are back in force again. It’s pathological and sickening both ways. Neither Bush nor Clinton is evil, and the trends in our culture that forces us to demonize, not just criticize, leaders is abhorrent.

    PS I’m not referring to you, John–you remain an eminently sane critic.

  7. Jonathan Sadow June 30, 2004 at 1:02 pm | | Reply

    Much of the successes that Clinton claims were not of his own making but rather forced upon him. In fact, much of the centrism that Kaimi claims for him was imposed upon him by the limitations of a Republican Congress. His biggest idea, health care reform, went down in flames (and that was when Congress was still controlled by his party). Ideas that were implemented during his presidency such as welfare reform and economic policy were driven more by other actors such as Congress and Alan Greenspan.

    Clinton certainly will be known in the future, but I’m afraid it’ll be for the wrong reasons: his benign neglect caused foriegn policy issues such as North Korea and terrorist organizations to metastasize into serious problems. History will note, but not be kind toward, Bill Clinton.

  8. John Rosenberg June 30, 2004 at 3:49 pm | | Reply

    Kaimi – It may surprise you that I don’t dispute that much of your list of particulars, although I do agree with Jonathan Sadow that Clinton had some of his major accomplishments (such as welfare reform) forced down his throat by the Republicans. But never mind; he swallowed and took them. One of your items, however, strikes me as somewhere between sad and ironical: the one about Clinton’s “centrism.” First, he was not ever centrist on the controversial issues of racial preference and abortion, and those issues continued to fester and divide under his watch. The irony is that in one sense he did attempt to move the Democratic party back toward the center, but, his efforts notwithstanding, the party at the end of his terms was much more leftist than it was at the beginning, due in part to the defeat/defection of most of the conservative or moderate Democrats.

    Fenster – Thanks for your kind words, although I hope it won’t remove me from your good graces if I say that I wouldn’t regard being called a Clinton-basher an insult. (Let me hasten to add, however, that I do not now and never did hate Clinton. Hating him always struck me as rather like a hating a skunk for smelling.) I think reasonable people can disagree over whether the Kaimi/Fenster list of Clintonian accomplishments qualifies him for a “Good,” a “Good-, or an Average+.

    And finally, I beg to differ with you on one unmentioned issue that I predict will loom large and bode ill for Clinton’s reputation in the future: his diddling (alas, all too literally) during “the gathering storm” (to pick a metaphor from an earlier war) of the terror threat. Perhaps a future John Kennedy (but certainly not John Kerry) will write something like “Why Clinton Slept,” playing off the original Kennedy’s book. I used to think Clinton reminded me most of Warren Harding — good times, jovial personality, etc. (though I recognize Clinton’s accomplishments were arguably greater), but now I think the leading analog may be James Buchanan. Clinton defenders may argue that hindsight is a wonderful thing, that no other president would have done more than Clinton did to combat the ill perceived terror threat, etc., and they may be right. But hindsight is, after all, what historians are for.

  9. Nels Nelson June 30, 2004 at 10:46 pm | | Reply

    Here’s my uneducated stab at this:

    President’s who don’t govern during a major war or world event, enact sweeping changes, or manage to be assassinated while in office only get a few lines in the history textbooks. A hundred years from now, next to Clinton’s photo it’ll probably read that he governed during relative prosperity and was plagued by a major scandal. Sure, historians will know much more about him, but most people will at best remember that he was one of the guys between Reagan and Bush.

    Short term I think he’s had a major impact: by pushing to the right on economic policy he’s forced the debate between Democrats and Republicans to be almost solely about social/cultural issues, while at the same time leading to the re-emergence of the economic far left (Nader and the Green Party) which now feels alienated from the Democrats.

  10. Bruce M. December 19, 2004 at 3:25 am | | Reply

    William Jefferson Clinton. With a name like that he was destined to be president. It must have been a dream, if not the dream, of his parents. Yet we all know him by Bill. Simple, yet much more personal. I wonder if his parents felt as though the rest of his name was wasted, maybe they thought too hard.

    Bill Clinton, there that’s better. A “good old boy” from Arkansas. You know the south may have lost the civil war but they have pretty much goverened the country since then. I remember it was going to be my first time to vote. My 18th birthday fell on election day 1992. I was a senior in high school, I watched all the debates between Bush, Perrott, and Clinton. I knew Clinton was the man for the job. There was something about him that was likeable. He seemed as though he could relate, as though he cared. Then, on the night before the election I was involved in a car accident. I spent the night in the emergency room and was unable to vote the next day. Now twelve years later at the age of 30 I have never voted demacrat. I guess for me Bill Clinton will be remembered as the president who won over this excited 18 year old high school student with a few months of campaigning, then spent 8 years making me glad I was unable to vote for him.

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