Consequential Indeed

Sometimes a healthy sense of context can be very important.   Take for example the likely remainder of the Bush Presidency as compared to the final two years of the Clinton Administration.  Clinton spent much of his second term embroiled in a scandal involving obstruction of justice, a sexual dalliance with an intern and a torturous parsing of words in the debate over what the meaning of 'is' is. 

For all the criticism, and there's a lot, the final two years of the Bush Administration will be largely concerned with how best to defeat a terrorist-driven insurgency and aid a fledgling Middle Eastern democracy in coming to fruition.  In a way, the difference in focus underscores the essential difference between the two presidents. 

President Clinton was narcissistic and self-absorbed.  Everything began and ended with him.  President Bush is essentially President Clinton's doppelganger.  Where Clinton  was enamored with and driven to establish his own fame and legacy, President Bush is objective-driven with nary a concern for public sentiment if he believes that his own internal conviction is right  -- no easy feat considering the sheer volume of those opposing his Middle East policy. 

Using a western colloquialism of which President Bush is surely familiar, President Clinton was all hat and President Bush is all cattle.  This colloquialism certainly does adequately portray their respective administrations.  President Clinton was smooth form the stump and long on flowery rhetoric.  Say what you want about his policies, but the man could flat-out articulate in a manner that conveyed understanding and compassion.  Aside from his grand ambition to place 16% of the national economy into the clutches of the federal government in the name of health care reform, President Clinton's legacy is one of incrementalism.  Even his signing of the Welfare Reform Act was more about political prudence than ideological commitment.  The Republican Congress passed it, the public supported it and President Clinton was not about to veto it with his re-election on the horizon.  Small, poll-tested measures designed to win him support with certain segments of the electorate was his game.  School uniforms, midnight basketball, neighborhood policing and the like.  Because of this minimalist policy, in no way can President Clinton be considered a consequential president.  He was, for all practical purposes, a defender of caution and the status quo.

President Bush on the other hand came into office pledging that he was not there to "mark time."  His grand ambition was to make significant changes in domestic policy.  He began with fulfilling his pledge to lower the top marginal tax rates while also introducing the practice of meaningful skills testing in the public schools.  I remain convinced that his designs to reform the social security system were really thwarted on September 11, when it became obvious that his presidency would be largely spent on foreign policy.  I appreciate his attempt to press for social security reform at the beginning of his second term, but there's only so much oxygen in politics and it was being sucked up by the war against Islamic extremism and the policies necessary to effectively wage it.   The timing rendered it a doomed project.  In any event,  President Bush's aggressive policy to introduce democracy into the Middle East is both grand and audacious -- qualities not usually in sufficient supply in Washington.

Keeping in mind the earlier colloquialism, the one area where President Bush deserves criticism is with his ability, or lack thereof, as a communicator.  Most of the time he seems like he doesn't even own a hat, much less wear one.  Where President Clinton had remarkable communication gifts but no substantive agenda, President Bush has a substantive agenda but not the skills required to effectively communicate it.  Advocating for his agenda has effectively become the work of others.  I shudder to think about how much more effective President Bush could have been had he been able to marry this policy convictions with the communication skills of President Clinton.

Still, fifty years from now historians will be talking and writing about George W. Bush.  I think it's a safe bet to say that the same cannot be said for Bill Clinton.