The Real Clinton

The Real Clinton is more or less the opposite of the Real McCoy. What you see is very definitely not what you get, and indeed it may not be what you see a moment or two later. There is a chameleon quality about the 42nd President of the United States, a quicksilver opportunism, that enables him to don and doff identities like cloaks: the New Democrat who promises to end welfare as we know it, the paleo-liberal who takes on the Klan in defense of black churches, the economic statesman who steers by the bond market, the policy wonk avid to socialize one-seventh of the U.S. economy, the moralist who crusades against illegitimacy, the redneck roué with Astroturf in the back of his pick-up, the nostalgia-merchant who wants teenagers home by seven, the futurist with visions of an information superhighway, and at all times and on all occasions the bringer of empathy who feels the pain of that day’s audience, whether millionaires or the poor, feminists or Good Ol’ Boys, labor unions or blue-chip managements.

Underneath all the empathy, however, there is a set of policies and attitudes that gives a sort of consistency to his Administration, and even to his personality. In the following pages, we examine this Real Clinton from several angles. We look at Clintonism, that ambidexterity of campaigning right and governing left; at Clinton’s steering of the economy by the stars of focus group and polling data; at the multicultural refashioning of the American identity in which he nervously colludes; at his stumblings down the multilateral by-ways of foreign policy, talking loudly and carrying a small stick; at his high-minded healing and sly exploitation of America’s most entrenched problem—race; at the manifold ways in which he, Hillary, and their confederates hidden in the last agencies of the alphabet, have abused federal power to extend their own personal power; and, finally, at that most extraordinary amphibian, Clinton the Bully Pulpiteer. Tales, in short, to / “harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood / make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres / thy knotted and combined locks to part / and each particular hair to stand an end / like quills upon the fretful porpentine. ” Now read on.

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Presidential Election

The Real Clinton is more or less the opposite of the Real McCoy. What you see is very definitely not what you get, and indeed it may not be what you see a moment or two later. There is a chameleon quality about the 42nd President of the United States, a quicksilver opportunism, that enables him to don and doff identities like cloaks: the New Democrat who promises to end welfare as we know it, the paleo-liberal who takes on the Klan in defense of black churches, the economic statesman who steers by the bond market, the policy wonk avid to socialize one-seventh of the U.S. economy, the moralist who crusades against illegitimacy, the redneck roué with Astroturf in the back of his pick-up, the nostalgia-merchant who wants teenagers home by seven, the futurist with visions of an information superhighway, and at all times and on all occasions the bringer of empathy who feels the pain of that day’s audience, whether millionaires or the poor, feminists or Good Ol’ Boys, labor unions or blue-chip managements.

Underneath all the empathy, however, there is a set of policies and attitudes that gives a sort of consistency to his Administration, and even to his personality. In the following pages, we examine this Real Clinton from several angles. We look at Clintonism, that ambidexterity of campaigning right and governing left; at Clinton’s steering of the economy by the stars of focus group and polling data; at the multicultural refashioning of the American identity in which he nervously colludes; at his stumblings down the multilateral by-ways of foreign policy, talking loudly and carrying a small stick; at his high-minded healing and sly exploitation of America’s most entrenched problem—race; at the manifold ways in which he, Hillary, and their confederates hidden in the last agencies of the alphabet, have abused federal power to extend their own personal power; and, finally, at that most extraordinary amphibian, Clinton the Bully Pulpiteer. Tales, in short, to / “harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood / make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres / thy knotted and combined locks to part / and each particular hair to stand an end / like quills upon the fretful porpentine. ” Now read on.