|
 s much as any journalist,
Joe Klein was a cheerleader for Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential
race — before turning on him, savagely, through his anonymous
authorship of the novel Primary Colors. Klein's reporting
could be brutal, too. His 1994 Newsweek article on Clinton
called "The Politics of Promiscuity" remains a perceptive
and prescient takedown of the 42nd president.
Yet Klein never
completely wiped away his fond spot for the Big He. Next month will
see the release of Klein's latest book on Clinton, a nonfiction
account called The
Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton. It
is an attempted apologia: Clinton, writes Klein, conducted "a
serious, disciplined, responsible presidency."
That's not
to say Clinton himself will much like The Natural. Klein
is an intelligent and shrewd observer of Clinton's weaknesses and
failures. He isn't shy about discussing them, either. There's an
elegiac tone to The Natural, a powerful sense of disappointment
and loss. The man from Hope — "the most talented politician
of his generation," according to Klein — dashed so many
liberal expectations.
Klein essentially
makes two claims on Clinton's behalf: "By force of personality
and sheer persistence, he had slowly dragged Washington toward a
recognition that a revised form of government activism might be
appropriate in the anarchy of the instant economy." Whatever
that means. And: A Republican in office would have been worse because,
well, Republicans are always worse. (Writing for Slate last
week, Klein claimed that Republicans are "dreadful on the economy"
and Democrats are "excellent on the economy.")
Klein really
isn't equipped to make a powerful case for Clinton, assuming one
could be made. When he calls the Earned Income Tax Credit a "crucial"
piece of the Clinton achievement, for instance, he writes (a bit
snidely), "the EITC subsidy was too cumbersome a concept for
most journalists to even bother to understand, much less attempt
to describe." He of course makes practically no attempt to
describe it himself.
Klein also
refuses to put the best face on things. He quotes Clinton —
from what is apparently a July 2000 private interview — on
the "Black Hawk Down" disaster in Mogadishu. "We
had this huge battle in broad daylight where hundreds of Somalis
were killed and we lost eighteen soldiers in what was a UN action,"
says Clinton. "I don't know if I could have saved those lives
or not, but I would have handled it in a different way if I'd had
more experience. I know I would have. If we were going to do that
now, I'd say I need to know what's involved here, and let's do this
the way we planned out the military action we took against Saddam
Hussein, for example, or the military actions I took to try to get
Osama bin Laden's training camps."
Yikes. These
words, notes Klein, "seemed unconvincing at the time, and it
seems downright embarrassing after" September 11.
And yet, writes
Klein, "a great deal of real work was done. ... [Clinton's]
domestic policy achievements were not inconsiderable and were accomplished
against great odds." This thesis is not proven — certainly
not by Klein.
But then comes
a claim — on the book's final page — that's laugh-out-loud
ludicrous: "Moreover, [Clinton] performed the most important
service that a leader can provide: He saw the world clearly and
reacted prudently to the challenges he faced."
Now that's
a statement that would have seemed unconvincing before September
11, and which seems downright embarrassing now.
|
