Bill Clinton Plays Second Fiddle in Tune

I really enjoyed reading this week’s cover article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton.”  My interest in politics didn’t really start until after Bill Clinton had already left the White House in 2000 and I didn’t pay any attention to American politics until even later than that, so I don’t know anything at all about his presidency.  I have vague memories about the years of the controversy that resulted in his impeachment and I did stay tuned to CNN for a week when Al Gore lost the presidential election to George Bush.  But I remain almost completely ignorant of any of Clinton’s achievements or failures as the 42nd president of the United States.

Rather, I have been aware of Bill Clinton in his post-presidential role: his foundation and its work, the remarkable Clinton Global Initiative, his work with George Bush Sr. in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and those few months when people were suggesting he’s make a good Secretary General of the UN.  I even enjoyed the rumours last year that if Hilary were to be president, she’d likely appoint him to the Supreme Court.  So I was struck by the fact that the inauguration of Barack Obama marked the day when Bill Clinton could say that he had been a former president longer than he had held the office.  He has been out of the White House for longer than he was a resident of it.  The Bill Clinton I’ve known in the last 9 years has now existed longer than the Bill Clinton that balanced the federal budget ever did.

I’d recommend reading the whole article, but I was most interested in sections discussing Clinton’s remarkable capacity to make friends out of former enemies:

Yet if Clinton has a powerful memory for slights, he also has a remarkable capacity for reconciliation. He is likelier to find peace with people who hate him the most than with friends who betray him. He focuses his considerable charms on seducing the person in the room he finds most resistant.

The article outlines Clinton’s reconciliation with “Christopher Ruddy, a conservative journalist who was a chief proponent of cover-up theories involving the Clintons during the 1990s”

…now Ruddy says he was wrong about Clinton. “I do consider Bill Clinton a friend, and I think he would consider me a friend,” Ruddy said. “And to think of all the wars we went through in the ’90s, it seems almost surreal.”

With the passage of time, Ruddy said he came to believe that Clinton was much less liberal than his enemies thought. After all, Clinton overhauled welfare, tamed the deficit and promoted free trade. While still a proud “Reagan conservative,” Ruddy said he now thinks the attacks on Clinton in the 1990s went too far.

Among Clinton’s other enemies-turned-friends are “Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire publisher who financed Ruddy’s investigations and other anti-Clinton activities” as well as “Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman whose Fox News was a regular thorn in Clinton’s side.”  Even Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich apparently.

The final converts discussed in the piece are the two Bush presidents:

The elder George Bush told me he now considers Clinton “a real friend.” When I asked what changed his view, he wrote in an e-mail message: “I didn’t know him personally back then. I knew him, but not up close and personal. Now I do.”

It turns out that the junior Bush was bit harder to win over:

“President Bush the latter didn’t like me very much, because I defeated his father, and it was obvious to me when he came to the White House when I was president and he was governor of Texas…”

…The Bush crew bitterly complained that the Clinton team did little to help them; Clinton was bitter at the whisper campaign trashing him. “I had a talk with him about it one day, a real frank talk, because they were being rough,” Clinton told me. “I told him that I understood how he felt, and it didn’t bother me. I liked the fact that he loved his father and that I felt a great affection for his father, too. But I said: ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. If you ever need me to do something for you and I can do it consistent with my conscience, I’ll do it.’ ”

Bush took him up on the offer by asking Clinton to work with his father on relief efforts after the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. “We just developed a relationship,” Clinton said. “He would call every now and then. We would talk. I just made it a project. I wanted to figure him out and get to know him.” Although they disagree on many issues, Clinton said: “I like him personally. I think he did what he thought was right.” By the time Bush left office, the two presidents were close enough that Clinton taped a funny testimonial alongside the elder Bush for a video shown on the plane as the 43rd president flew back to Texas after Obama’s inauguration. And Clinton and George W. Bush agreed to appear onstage together in Toronto on May 29 for a 90-minute discussion of current events.”

How does Bill explain this desire he has to turn his enemies into friends?

“You know, I’m a Baptist,” Clinton explained. “We don’t give up on anybody. We believe in deathbed conversions.”