Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

Dear Andrew,

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Happy Monday to you. The paper's pretty boring today, isn't it? But it strikes me that I have in you a tremendous resource: instead of wondering what it is conservatives can possibly be thinking when they say or do something I don't understand at all, I can ask you! So here is my question: Why do conservatives hate President Clinton so much? Many observers have noted how far to the right he is on many issues--he loves corporate capitalism (NAFTA, for example); his judicial appointments have been very centrist; he favors the death penalty, the anti-drug war, balanced budgets, welfare reform and many other causes dear to the right. It's true he's not a homophobe like so many right-wingers, but it's not as though he's actually done anything for gays (except, as you've noted, get more of them than ever kicked out of the armed forces). Ditto on minorities--he's not opposed to affirmative action, but he expended no political capital defending it--as in fighting California's Prop. 209. Women he's done a bit more for--but even there, more for show than in reality.

For a person of materialist turn of mind, like me, it is hard to understand the vitriolic hatred of Clinton on the American Spectator-Scaife-Rutherford Institute side of the spectrum. And not just there, either. Conservatives should love this man, who accomplishes so much of their agenda while bewitching so many liberals! A Republican could never have pushed through welfare reform, or the crime bill, without raising a major storm of protest.

Is it all really about sex, drugs and rock and roll, after all?

Cheers,
Katha

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