Clinton Decries Taste for Political ‘Meanness’ in U.S.

President Clinton loves his job but says he hates “the politics of personal destruction and meanness” he feels have replaced debate over issues and ideas on the national scene.

Americans, Clinton said, should not “pay any attention to all this sort of hatemongering and venom-spewing, because all that does is drag you down and preoccupy you.”

“And every piece of your mind and spirit you give to that is a piece you can’t give to America and to the future,” the president said in an hourlong interview taped for broadcast tonight at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. PST on C-SPAN.

“Every hour I spend angry about something like that is an hour I have taken from America’s future,” he said, referring to the highly negative and personal character of some of the attacks leveled against him, especially during the recent campaign.

Clinton, interviewed for C-SPAN’s “Booknotes” program, discussed a wide range of topics, including the disappointing sales of his book, “Between Hope and History.” Random House printed almost 500,000 copies but expects that bookstores will have returned between 250,000 to 350,000 unsold copies by the time of Clinton’s second inauguration in January.

The president said the book, a 176-page essay on his first term and his plans for a second one, did not do as well as anticipated because he did not promote it. “Books sell when people go around and go on book tours and talk about them and do interview shows like this,” he said.

The president’s strong--at times emotional--remarks about the decline of political discourse, and his particular anger at radio-talk show hosts who attack him and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, dominated the interview, however.

“It’s been the war of words in America, where people are always bad-mouthing each other,” Clinton said. The attacks “are designed to bring people down, to make you small,” he said. “And America doesn’t need small. America needs big.”

The radio attacks, he said, vary from criticism to ridicule and hatred, and he usually tries to ignore them. But sometimes he hears something that makes him mad and he’s thankful that his friends also get mad and call in to the radio programs and “try to reason with these folks.”

Although the president says he finds his job fascinating and considers the presidency “an incredible gift,” he clearly resents critics who complain he tries to please everyone and has no vision on national security and foreign policy.

If he wanted to please everyone, he said, he would not have attacked the gun lobby and the tobacco lobby, nor pressed for the controversial economic recovery act that passed by only one vote in the House. Clinton noted that he also pursued controversial and unpopular policies on health care reform, economic assistance to Mexico and the North American Free Trade Agreement--over which the Democratic Party “was divided right down the middle.”

He said he finds it “weird” that critics say he tries to please everyone.

“I’m a Southerner, you know,” Clinton said. “I was raised to believe you don’t have to prove your manhood by going around picking fights with people and bad-mouthing them, and that you can be courteous and kind to people while you are disagreeing with them.”

Clinton said he has a “clear vision” of national security and foreign affairs, including a smaller, more mobile and technologically advanced military as well as plans for reducing nuclear arms and preventing their spread. He said he has a plan for dealing with new security threats in the 21st century, especially terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical devices.