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cloudboy -> RE: Clinton most admired President last 25 years (6/17/2014 7:07:03 AM)
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"The most important achievement in political economy in the Clinton yeas was reducing the federal deficit. Just before his inauguration Clinton held an economic summit in Little Rock, at which academic, business executives, and financiers one after another moaned about how huge federal borrowing to cover debt was making capital too expensive to allow industry to grow. One year later Clinton had rammed through a tax-and -budget bill that turned a chronic deficit into a surplus.
The anti-deficit drive was controversial within the Democratic Party, because Clinton seemed to be truckling to financial markets rather than spending more for education and health. It was bitterly resisted by the Republicans; every single Republican member of Congress voted against the new taxes in the plan. It was an enormous gamble on Clinton's part: he had Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. The historical judgment has to be that it paid off, for Clinton, and, of vastly more importance, for the country."
--James Fallows
But two things stick out so far from the normal that they will probably be remembered no matter what happens. One of them is the sheer insensate virulence of his critics. If size can be measured by the lip-frothing frustration of one's enemies, Clinton is right up there with Moby-Dick. The other is the five-minute standing ovation Clinton received at the UN at the height of the Monica madness. The applause couldn't all have been for adultery--not even the applause from the French Ambassador.
And even if, as his critics maintain, its was all a trick both at home and abroad, the trick had worked wonderfully well. But he couldn't have gotten all five minutes without Kenneth Starr.
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