July 11, 2007
SHE COULD RUN AS BILL, BUT SHE WANTS TO BE ADLAI:
Marital Discord: Bill Clinton was the ultimate free trader. But Hillary, tacking left, is sounding protectionist notes. Can Bill win this argument? (John Heilemann, New York)
Here’s the curious thing, however. One of the central tenets of Clintonomics was its embrace of globalization; indeed, a convincing argument can be made that Clinton did as much to advance the cause of free trade as any president of either party in the past 50 years. Yet as far as I can see, none of the top-tier Democratic runners has come close to offering a full-throated endorsement of this aspect of Clintonism. And although that may come as no surprise with regard to Obama or John Edwards, the distance between Hillary and her husband on the topic is both noteworthy and telling—not just about the brass-tacks electoral calculations behind her policy positions, but about the shifts now under way in Democratic economic orthodoxy.Just how far apart are Mr. and Mrs. Clinton on the question of global economic integration? The gap is yawning. For the former president, three sweeping and historic trade agreements did much to cement his reputation as bone-deep internationalist: the passage of NAFTA, the ratification of the Uruguay Round of the gatt, and the extension of permanent normal trading status to China and its inclusion in the WTO.
But for the current senator, much of this apparently seems dubious, at least as a road map to the future. “We just can’t keep doing what we did in the twentieth century,” she told a reporter from Bloomberg, adding that we may need “a little time-out” before the enactment of any further trade deals. Accordingly, in 2005, she voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Last month, she announced her opposition to the South Korean Free Trade Agreement. She has backed legislation that would impose trade sanctions on Chinese goods unless Beijing stops holding down the value of the yuan. She has even repeatedly spouted skepticism about the wisdom of NAFTA—while stopping short of blaming her husband for its deficiencies. “NAFTA was inherited by the Clinton administration,” she informed Time magazine.
He may not like it, but Bill Clinton gets that his entire historical legacy rests on the times he acted like a Republican. He's our Grover Cleveland. She, on the other hand, seems to have learned almost nothing during their stay in the White House. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 11, 2007 10:29 AM
"He may not like it, but Bill Clinton gets that his entire historical legacy rests on the times he acted like a Republican."
Nonsense. Bill Clinton's entire historical legacy is being impeached. And doing nothing against international Islamic terrorism after the first WTC bombing.
Posted by: b at July 11, 2007 10:58 AMCredit where credit is due; she learned that she like the sound of the street address.
Posted by: John at July 11, 2007 11:15 AMSandy, I think it's notes on the scale she is supposed to be sounding, not the other kind of notes. The whole thing is idiocy.
Posted by: erp at July 11, 2007 1:01 PMNo one will remember the chick stuff anymore than they recall the Beast of Buffalo
Posted by: oj at July 11, 2007 3:11 PMoj: That's the whole point. The only significant thing Clinton did was getting impeached, and no one is going to remember that except as a trivia question. Historically, he's a non-entity.
Posted by: b at July 11, 2007 3:30 PMA non-entity sandwiched between two Bushes.
Posted by: Bartman at July 11, 2007 5:46 PMHillary was always the hard-eyed Leftist of the family. Bill became a liberal democrat because that was where the loose women could be found. Hillary is a true believer. Bill is a grifter, and he will cheerfully trade away his most cherished political beliefs in exchange for a little poontang.
Posted by: JonSK at July 11, 2007 5:48 PMNo, the only significant thing he did was Welfare Reform. Trade was good, but was just a Reagan/Bush deal. Reforming entitlements made him the first retrograde president since Coolidge.
Posted by: oj at July 11, 2007 5:49 PMWe've been over this before: give him credit for signing it, but he did not "do" it - and he had already vetoed it twice.
I wonder if Hillary knows that the %$#(*&^% bond traders will expect the same of her that they did of Bill, presuming she is elected. Nobody wants to be the next Herbert Hoover or Jimmy Carter.
Posted by: jim hamlen at July 11, 2007 6:06 PMHe vetoed it to make it his bill.
Posted by: oj at July 11, 2007 8:28 PMBetween Reagan and Bush. The elder Bush is a cipher historically.
Posted by: oj at July 11, 2007 8:29 PMYou crack me up.
He vetoed it (twice) because it was written by Republicans. He signed it because he wanted to get re-elected. Had it come to his desk after election day in Nov. 1996, he would have just vetoed it again.
As your comment notes, he surely doesn't like his legacy being so tied to Republican legislation.
Posted by: jim hamlen at July 12, 2007 12:07 AMHe was elected president on the basis of Welfare Reform. The GOP wisely aped him. He made them write a bill he could sign and then did so.
Posted by: oj at July 12, 2007 6:24 AMHe was told he had to sign it, and he did.
As for your assertion that he 'campaigned' on it - he campaigned on a middle-clas tax cut, too. What happened there?
And every President since Nixon has 'campaigned' on energy independence (from the Arabs). Politicians campaign on anything - which among them follows through?
When Clinton talked about welfare reform in 1992, it was cheap pandering. Who imagined that the GOP would control Congress 2 years later, and actually write the legislation?
Posted by: jim hamlen at July 12, 2007 9:09 AMExactly. He campaigned on it and vetoed the two bills he didn't like, signing the one he did. That's his legacy. The rest is noise, not history.
Posted by: oj at July 12, 2007 12:24 PM