By Mona Charen
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
The byzantine relations between President Obama and
former president Bill Clinton could fill several psychology textbooks,
providing juicy examples of passive aggression, older man/younger man
competition, complex alliances (Hillary as secretary of state is the perfect
embodiment of the maxim “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”), and
mutual interests.
That the president needs Bill Clinton now to make his
case to the country must be richly satisfying to the only American whose ego
can compete with Barack H. Obama’s.
Let’s recall that one of Obama’s supposed triumphs in
2008 was defeating the vaunted Clinton machine. The Democratic party’s delirium
for Obama supposedly obliterated the Clinton magic. After winning the South
Carolina primary in January, Obama exulted that “we’re up against the
conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from
longevity in Washington. . . . But we know that real leadership is about candor
and judgment and the ability to rally Americans . . . around a higher purpose .
. .” Though he never tired (and still doesn’t) of insulting George W. Bush,
that barb wasn’t aimed at him. It was for the Clintons.
Bill Clinton, for his part, nurses grudges. Obama
eclipsed Clinton as the most charismatic Democrat. The former president and his
wife also got a crash course in media bias. Obama spoiled the Clintons’
carefully nurtured plan of returning to the White House and achieving
vindication. And as someone who preened himself on his high standing among
blacks (Toni Morrison called him America’s “first black president”), Clinton
was justly outraged when Obama supporters Donna Brazile and Rep. Jim Clyburn
accused him of racism in 2008 because he referred to Obama as a “kid” and
dismissed his Iraq War stance as a “fairy tale.” Good thing he didn’t use the
word “Chicago” or mention “golf” — as those are now “dog whistles,” we’re told.
Now His Royal Majesty needs old Bill. He needs him to
mount the stage in Charlotte and persuade waverers to reelect The One. Why?
Because Clinton, for all his squalid ways, and for all that he was a
practitioner par excellence of what Obama disdained as the “old politics,” has
something Obama lacks — a successful economic legacy to brag about.
The wizardry that will permit Clinton to obscure Obama’s
record — or to throw the mantle of Clinton’s economic success over Obama’s
economic failure — isn’t entirely clear. In fact, this could easily backfire.
A swing voter could well glance at the screen and recall
that Clinton heeded the voters, whereas Obama thumbed his nose. After suffering
a rebuke in 1994, Clinton backed away from Hillarycare, tax increases,
opposition to welfare reform, and huge increases in federal spending. With
Republicans controlling Congress, Bill Clinton — after some resistance, and
after insisting it couldn’t be done — signed a balanced budget.
The combination of the end of the Cold War and the
dot-com bubble gave Clinton’s first term respectable economic growth of 3.2
percent. But the real boom came toward the latter half of his second term,
after Clinton (reluctantly) signed welfare reform, a dramatic cut in the
capital-gains tax from 28 percent to 20 percent, and a phased-in reduction in
the estate (or death) tax that exempted estates up to $1 million (increased
from $600,000). Clinton lobbied for and got the North American Free Trade
Agreement and maintained a strong dollar. With Republicans in Congress
demanding spending restraint, the federal government — younger readers may be
incredulous — ran a surplus.
The results, as Charles Kadlec recalls in Forbes, were
impressive. Economic growth jumped to 4.2 percent. Unemployment fell from 5.4
to 4 percent. Average real wages improved. Millions of Americans shared in the
general prosperity as their 401k’s swelled with the rising stock market.
Investors responded with enthusiasm to the sense that America was a
business-friendly country. Venture capital exploded.
Obama has chosen the exact opposite response to voter
disaffection. Unlike Clinton, Obama is a committed leftist. He doubled down on
Obamacare, ramming it through in an ugly, totally partisan vote. He refuses to
budge from his insistence on tax increases — though he has himself acknowledged
that tax hikes are counterproductive in a weak economy. He has attempted to
undo the key feature of welfare reform, the work requirement. And he has
presided over the downgrading of America’s AAA credit rating as he races
heedlessly into crippling levels of federal debt.
Bill Clinton can attempt to perfume Obama’s record — but
the truth is that Obama is following diametrically opposed policies. The
results speak more eloquently than either man can.
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