Michael,
Well, your old boss was amazing last night–in every sense of the word “amazing.”
If the president can indeed be said to have grown in his seven and a half years in office, surely his greatest growth was as a performer and speech-giver. The man who bored Democrats to tears in 1988 and delivered a shockingly uninspiring speech at his nominating convention in 1992 has become a tub-thumping spellbinder in a manner suggestive of the pre-television era. In the 19th century, as you know, people used to spend their Sunday afternoons being entertained by listening to political orators like Edward Everett deliver three-hour stemwinders on the village green. While the president’s speech was actually shorter than spokesman Joe Lockhart said it would be in his briefing on Monday–Lockhart figured it would last at least 50 minutes, while the speech came in at around 42–it was as entertaining a political performance as I can remember. Clinton so clearly loved being there, feeding off his worshipful audience and making the case for the triumphs of his own presidency, that the feeling was infectious even for someone like me, who despises him for his rank and breathtaking dishonesty.
At the same time, the speech was amazing for the credit he took for phenomena he himself did not envision, did not plan for, and therefore does not deserve credit for. In 1993, Clinton was forced into holding fast to deficit politics by the quiet insistence of then Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who explained that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan would feel compelled to respond to the president’s neo-Keynesian plans by tightening the money supply–and that the bond markets would respond to Clinton’s forcible efforts to grow the economy by spiking in ways dangerous to genuine economic growth. And it was the hostile dynamic between Clinton and the Republican Congress his feckless first two years brought to power that led to the budget deal in 1997 (which, mea culpa, I then thought a bad idea) which brought us the surpluses. And still the president continues to tell lies about what happened in full view only a few years ago–that Republicans wanted to slash Medicare in 1995 when they were only seeking to keep the program’s spiraling growth under control.
No, the president did not see the astonishing growth of the high-tech sector and even sought to interpose himself in that growth–which led to the defection of his high-tech support in 1996.
And it was amazing for the fact that the president, the worst character witness in America, used his speech to praise Al Gore’s character far more than his qualities as a “partner.” He said Gore was a strong leader–surely an effort to boost Gore’s disastrous poll numbers on this vital matter–but never gave any evidence of it. Instead, he said Gore was a good man who thought a lot about the future and loved his children, which is very nice, I suppose, but also terrifically patronizing.
Finally, it was amazing because Clinton just set the bar even higher for Gore on Thursday night. The vice president already faced a difficult situation due to the surprising effectiveness of George W. Bush’s speech in Philadelphia. Now Gore has to compete with and somehow best Clinton’s superb performance, or he will be subjected to commentary in the days that follow about how he didn’t quite match the force and power of the president’s Monday-night address.
A double-edged sword, that speech last night.
