Naked Ambition

For Bill Clinton, his exit from office in January 2001 was a national disaster.

Not long ago, at Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry in Iowa, Clinton lamented: “We went from surplus to deficit, from job gain to job loss, from a reduction in poverty to an increase in poverty, from a reduction in people without health insurance to an increase of people without health insurance.” He added, for good measure, “Instead of uniting the world, we alienated it.” Everything Clinton said was technically true, but served the cause of a larger lie—the implicit argument that all the good things were attributable to his miraculously proficient governance.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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For Bill Clinton, his exit from office in January 2001 was a national disaster.

Not long ago, at Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry in Iowa, Clinton lamented: “We went from surplus to deficit, from job gain to job loss, from a reduction in poverty to an increase in poverty, from a reduction in people without health insurance to an increase of people without health insurance.” He added, for good measure, “Instead of uniting the world, we alienated it.” Everything Clinton said was technically true, but served the cause of a larger lie—the implicit argument that all the good things were attributable to his miraculously proficient governance.