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« Back to President Clinton’s Legacy main page    Transcript for: President Clinton’s LegacyClinton Legacy ANNOUNCER: Think Tank is made possible by AMGEN, recipient ofthe Presidential National Medal of Technology. AMGEN, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology. Improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow. Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation,the Lilly Endowment, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, theUnited States-Japan Foundation, and the Donner Canadian Foundation. Brought to you in part by ADM, feeding the world is the biggestchallenge of the new century, which is why ADM is conducting researchinto aqua culture, and other new food sources. ADM, supermarket tothe world. (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm Ben Wattenberg. President Clintonis about up to here in scandal. But, he is hardly the firstpresident to be in that situation. Some survived their scandals withtheir reputations intact, some didn't. How will history ju dge President Clinton? Joining us for what we expect to be apornography free discussion of President Clinton are, MichaelBarrone, author of Our Country, editor of the Almanac of AmericanPolitics and a senior staff editor of the Reader's Digest, and W illiam Galston, professor of public policy at the University ofMaryland, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, and formerdeputy assistant for domestic policy for President Clinton. The topic before the house, Clinton's legacy, this week onThink Tank. (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: By all accounts, President Clinton is astudent of past presidents, and how history has regarded them. Hereare some presidents he might want to study further. Andrew Jacksondefended the loose morals of the wife of his Secretary of W ar, that was Peggy Eaton, and in the resulting scandal he forcedhis entire cabinet to resign. He was also censured by the Congressover his handling of a banking crisis. Today his face is on the $20bill, and Democrats hold fund raising dinners in his honor. Ulysses Grant, though a hero of the Civil War, was dogged byfinancial scandals during his second term as president. Thehistorical judgment, great general, bad president. President Warren Harding died in office just before hisAttorney General and Secretary of the Interior were indicted forcorruption. Judgement, bad president. Richard Nixon, lashed by the Watergate scandal, was the firstpresident in American history forced to resign. PRESIDENT NIXON (From video): I shall resign the presidencyeffective at noon tomorrow. MR. WATTENBERG: But, he had some major international triumphs. Judgement, mixed. Ronald Reagan, during his second term was embroiled in what wasknown as the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan's rating, for the moment,good, getting better. PRESIDENT REAGAN (From video): General Secretary Gorbachev,tear down this wall. MR. WATTENBERG: What will happen to Bill Clinton, hisdefenders point to the job that he has done in office, on theeconomy, welfare, crime and the environment. His detractors don'tlike him, or his policies. Scandal or accomplishment, which will win , which should win? Welcome, Bill Galston, Michael Barrone, to Think Tank. Michael Barrone, why don't you give us a little historicalbackground. I mean, how did Andrew Jackson end up? He had thesescandals, we saw on the set up piece, and he's on the $20 bill, andevery February they have Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners. MR. BARRONE: Well, part of the reason for that was thecensure, which the Senate voted on him was really a difference --over a difference of republic policy, whether or not the federalgovernment should withdraw its deposits from a national bank, the Second National Bank of the United States. And so that was -- thequestion is, over time, Jackson became a sort of symbol of afrontiersman, Battle of New Orleans, a president, and so forth. Heinstituted the practice that was followed up until the tur n of the century, or after, of throwing out all the old governmentofficials, putting all the new ones in. So I think, in that sense,that was a difference 'scandal' situation than this one. MR. WATTENBERG: What about Ulysses Grant? MR. BARRONE: Well, I think what you see in the case of bothUlysses Grant and Warren G. Harding who are often set up as our mostscandal plagued presidents, in fact significant accomplishments ofpublic policies that they backed got obscured by the cha rges of scandal, which I think in Grant's case were mostly, as afriend of mine Frank Scaturo's (sp) book President Grant Reconsideredargues, most of those scandals weren't about Grant, they happenedbefore he came in, or else he stopped them and foiled them and so forth. His reputation -- what he did was, herestored the full value of the currency by withdrawing greenbacks andgetting a resumption of solid money, which went ahead after andfinished up after his term. And he was also the only preside nt between Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, I think you can argue,who made a serious attempt for equality for black Americans in theSouth in the reconstruction policy. The policy failed, but Granttried manfully to do it, and did it. Harding, 1920s, Harding -- the country was in economic shambleswhen he came in. He came back with a major tax cut, which made asignificant difference. He got rid of the red scare, he pardonedEugene Debbs, the Socialist candidate for president, who had been jailed by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Henegotiated the Washington Naval Treaty, something one friend of minecalled the only successful disarmament treaty ever negotiated. MR. WATTENBERG: And we ended up with world war after that? MR. BARRONE: Well, you know, I think Harding died in 1923 -- Ithink Harding died in 1923, to blame the world war on the WashingtonNaval Treaty or on Harding -- MR. WATTENBERG: Picky, picky, picky, right. MR. BARRONE: Well, I don't think it flows directly from theWashington Naval Treaty. That was a record of substantial policyaccomplishment, whether you agree that the policies are good or bad,that made a significant difference, arguably a good diffe rence, and yet all we remember about Harding, typically, is TeapotDome, and the affairs apparently he was carrying on with women otherthan his wife. MR. WATTENBERG: And what about Richard Nixon, just to put anexclamation point on all of this? MR. BARRONE: Well, Richard Nixon withdrew -- de-escalated andwithdrew American forces from the Vietnam War. He increased the sizeof the government. He invented EPA, OSHA, racial quotas andpreferences came into office under President Nixon. He -- MR. WATTENBERG: Opened the door to China. MR. BARRONE: Wage and price controls, I mean, there were majorsubstantial policies. In many ways Richard Nixon was our most leftwing president to date, on many domestic policies and onde-escalating the Vietnam War. MR. WATTENBERG: And how is he remembered, scandal or policy? MR. BARRONE: I think it's a mixture in President Nixon's case. The China thing is still remembered. It's not remembered as well,all the left wing initiatives that he did on domestic policy, becauseit's inconvenient for both Democrats and Republican s to think of Nixon that way. But, Watergate is also a majorcomponent of it. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Bill Galston, you were one of the formative spirits of theDemocratic Leadership Counsel, which attempted to rescue our partyfrom falling off the left side of the world. You worked withPresident Clinton in the White House for how many years? MR. GALSTON: Two-and-a-half. MR. WATTENBERG: For 2-1/2 years on domestic policy,principally education. You've kept your oar in on all of theseissues. If the Clinton presidency terminated today, what would hislegacy be? What are the accomplishments? MR. GALSTON: First of all, let me just say, the term legacy isambiguous, because one interpretation is, what a person has actuallydone. The second interpretation is, what he is remembered for at aparticular moment in time. And artists and musician s, if you go back hundreds of years, their reputations fluctuatewildly based on the same record of accomplishment, but differentstandards of evaluation. So I think we have to be careful. Ifyou're asking what has actually been accomplished, I think t he answer is, very substantial things. We were talking about $300 billion budget deficits, as far asthe eye can see when Bill Clinton took office. We're not talkingabout that anymore. We had a welfare system that was broken, and thepresident, working with the Republican Congress, redeem ed the pledge to end welfare as we now know it. The president hassubstantially reoriented the Democratic Party, and the country onissues of criminal justice. And I would add, the president took anobscure educational experiment, namely charter school s, and has made it, or helped to make it, a national movement byputting the federal government on the side of states that want to goin that direction. MR. WATTENBERG: And just to show my complete objectivity onthis matter, and in many ways I think I am objective. I mean, he didthings in the arena of foreign trade that I doubt that a Republicanpresident could have done, NAFTA and GATT. I mean, th ese were monumental achievements for the international economy. MR. GALSTON: Yes, well, you asked me about domestic policy. But, if I were to go on to talk about international affairs, andpoach a little bit, NAFTA, GATT, making the global economy a centraltheme of American foreign policy in the post war world, a nd making it impossible to evade that issue, and I would argue,forthrightly declaring his support for NATO expansion, and makingthat happen, which I think is a very significant structuralaccomplishment, which hasn't played out yet, because there is mo re to come on that front. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Michael, you've just heard a recentWhite House aid, and older White House aid, give a typical WhiteHouse explanation of how the world works. Everything good flows fromthe White House, and from the president. Do you buy what he said? MR. BARRONE: Well, I think very many good things flow fromBill Galston. MR. WATTENBERG: Right. We stipulate that. MR. BARRONE: Well, I think -- MR. WATTENBERG: But, is -- MR. BARRONE: I think Bill Clinton's -- MR. WATTENBERG: He gives him sort of a low A-plus, as apresident. I don't -- MR. BARRONE: I see it somewhat differently, Ben. I think thatthis president has been less important on the domestic front thanmany other presidents have been. And that's not entirely his ownfault. That would be true, I think, of any president lef t, right, or center at this stage in our history, because I thinkwe are becoming in many ways a more decentralized country. As wemove away from the experience of total war, or Cold War, of -- as wemove away from the idea that an ever larger state is a good idea, local initiatives -- I mean, Bill made several goodpoints here about -- I would say that in many ways Mr. Clinton hasbeen an interested, and occasionally helpful spectator of processesthat have been initiated otherwise. Where he has been helpful, Bill Galston played a leading rolein being helpful, by signing the welfare bill. But, the initiativecame from governors in many respects. The crime stopping, Clintonspotlighted it, provided some money, initiative came fro m mayors to a very considerable extent. MR. WATTENBERG: Michael, you know the rules of the road inthis town as well as anybody. If a man runs for president and says,I'm going to end welfare as we know it, and he gets elected and hesays I'm going to end welfare as we know it. And he keep s saying we're going to end welfare as we know it. And then fouryears later you end welfare as we know it. Now, there are a lot ofintervening events, and Republicans -- MR. BARRONE: Well, Senator Moynihan said, if the welfare billhad come 14 weeks after the election instead of 14 weeks before, hewould have vetoed it, whatever. MR. WATTENBERG: Whatever, but the rules of the road are, theman set a new rhetorical standard, and those of us who are speechwriters believe that rhetoric creates reality, and in fact, a seriesof events occurred where there has been a -- in my judgm ent at least, a major and beneficial change on welfare. So why doyou say he's merely a bystander to these events? MR. BARRONE: Well, I said an interested spectator, andoccasionally helpful, and I think he has been occasionally helpful onthat, because -- and I think that we're in a different period ofhistory from where we were when Franklin Roosevelt, you know, confronted his huge economic emergency, and then we had total warin World War II, Cold War. We got the idea that the president runsthe country, you hear that phrase. It's a ridiculous phrase in manyways. And I don't think you have to be saying -- s peaking in derogation of President Clinton to say that. It's aridiculous phrase, because this is a great and wonderful country thatin these happy and peaceful times, to a very considerable extent,through public as well as private sector, runs itself in lots of different ways. Now obviously, a president still has some importance, he canclaim the welfare reform bill, very much of the initiative came fromRepublican Congress, Republican and Democratic governors around thecountry, a variety of people of intellectuals and so fo rth. Mr. Clinton was one part of that process, a helpful part ofthat process, I believe. But, this whole idea that the presidentruns everything -- MR. WATTENBERG: You feel free to interrupt if you -- MR. GALSTON: I enjoy listening to him so much, it's very hard. But, I both agree and disagree with what Michael just said. I agreewith the proposition that, as compared to the depth of the depressionor the height of the Cold War, the centralizing f orces in American politics are weaker than they were. Anddecentralization is going to play itself out and -- MR. WATTENBERG: When President Clinton takes credit for thewonderful economy, now you're a pretty smart educated man, and havesome sense of how the economy works, and granted every president doesit, do you say -- I mean, I can't believe that any man would claim credit for a sterling economy in a country of almost3 Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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