Clinton Assured of Dubious Spot in History

Bill Clinton has long mused in private about the legacy his presidency will leave: Would he be remembered like Theodore Roosevelt, who led America confidently into a new century, or John F. Kennedy, who instilled an ethos of public service in a generation?

On Saturday, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives ensured that Clinton will be compared instead to a less inspiring predecessor: Andrew Johnson, the only other president to be impeached.

“A hundred years from now, this will undoubtedly be the first sentence in the paragraph that is given over to him,” said historian Stephen E. Ambrose.

Clinton can still claim other achievements: moving the Democratic Party toward the center, joining with Republicans to balance the budget and enact welfare reform--but none is as clearly defined as the dark stain of impeachment.

Impeachment Reflects Something Larger

It may seem unfair that history could define an eight-year presidency, even in part, by a political crisis stemming from a sexual affair. But the Clinton scandals, and the impeachment they have produced, actually reflect three factors larger than the articles of impeachment approved by the House.

One is Clinton’s paradoxical character, combining undoubted brilliance and unaccountable recklessness. Even Clinton’s defenders in the House denounced him for irresponsible and immoral behavior in his liaison with a young White House intern and his attempts to hide the affair.

Another is a decline in the prestige of the presidency--an office that once kept secrets but now is harried by seemingly nonstop independent counsels. “This is the culmination of the end of the imperial presidency,” said historian Robert Dallek of Boston University. “It has been going on for 30 years . . . , but it has really accelerated since the end of the Cold War.”

And a third factor, vividly alive in the House Republican conference, is a resurgence of what has been called America’s “culture war,” an increasingly bitter struggle between social conservatives and social liberals.

That culture war was defined crisply on Saturday by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the victorious leader of the drive to impeach: “This debate was all about . . . [moral] relativism and absolute truth. What [Clinton’s] defenders want to do is lower the standards by which we hold this president--and lower the standards for our society by doing so.”

In a sense, many Republicans voted to impeach Clinton not only for what he did but for who he is.

“This president has escaped accountability for his actions time after time,” said Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas). “His intelligence, pleasing personality and way with words have saved him so far. Perhaps the most accurate description of his pattern of behavior is . . . too many lies for too long.”

In Saturday’s debate, their rhetoric focused on offenses against “the rule of law.” But there were also echoes of an earlier derisive description of Clinton and his party once offered by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.): “the promoters of counterculture values.”

Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) joined the two issues, saying that he based his vote on the current evangelical Christian slogan, “WWJD” (“What would Jesus do?”)--with a GOP codicil, “WWALD” (“What would Abraham Lincoln do?”).

“The Republicans don’t hate Clinton for his policies; he’s not a rabid Democrat, he’s a centrist,” said Dallek. “They hate him for what they believe to be the cultural outlook of the Democratic Party: affirmative action, political correctness, big government and moral relativism.”

Indeed, what many Republicans resent most about Clinton is his remarkable political success at freeing the Democratic Party from the image of out-of-touch social liberalism it acquired during the 1970s and 1980s.

Some of their resentment stems from the fact that Clinton accomplished his feat by stealing some of their most popular issues, like crime, welfare reform and family values.

“On some issues, Clinton is not very liberal, and he has undercut the Republicans by adopting some of their positions,” said Herbert S. Parmet, a historian of the presidency. “But on other issues, he sends out liberal signals and holds positions that infuriate the cultural opposition--on gun control and gay rights, for example.”

Goals Unlikely to Salvage Legacy

In his statement after the House vote, Clinton unsurprisingly pledged to continue pursuing the centrist goals that have sustained his popularity even through the scandal: “saving Social Security and Medicare,” regulating private health insurance plans, improving education and maintaining a strong economy.

But his own aides acknowledge that it will be difficult to get much done under the distraction of a trial in the Senate. Clinton’s biggest remaining agenda item, reforming the Social Security system, looks especially bleak because it would require active cooperation from Republicans.

And even if Clinton should somehow manage the feat of both keeping his job and forging a bipartisan Social Security reform plan, many presidential historians say that his legacy still seems likely to fall short of greatness.

“What’s his great achievement been?” asked Ambrose. “He certainly aspired to greatness, but the one big thing he tried, health care, failed completely.”

“This will be seen as an average presidency,” predicted Dallek. “There’s no central achievement, no core concept. Balanced budgets aren’t very sexy. The headline will be the impeachment.”

Even more unkindly: “He’ll be remembered as a kind of low-achieving Nixon,” said Fred Greenstein, a political scientist at Princeton University. “He’ll be remembered for reorienting the Democratic Party away from big government. But he’ll also be remembered for this scandal, as a president who was brought down by a young woman who flashed her underwear.”

As a mitigating factor, the historians noted, this has not been a time that provided opportunities for greatness.

“Great presidents are produced in part by great events,” said Ambrose. “We are in a time when politics is just not relevant. We’re in a time of prosperity without war . . . and the presidency doesn’t mean as much as it used to.

“It’s not just the power of the presidency that’s waning; it’s the power of politics. Why are the American people not concerned about this impeachment? Because it won’t make that big a difference. . . . It’s not a new event in American history that Democrats and Republicans hate each other.”

If Clinton’s presidency ends in his resignation or his removal from office, he will be remembered for that--and for the even greater bitterness and polarization those events might bring. But that would not be unprecedented.

“American politics is often thought of as balanced, as stable, with two very similar political parties,” said Greenstein. “But American politics alternates between periods of pragmatic cooperation . . . and periods of very intense hostility.

“This is a country that did have a civil war. This period isn’t as bad as the Civil War, but it does seem reminiscent of the McCarthy period in the Truman administration, when some Republicans cast Democrats as treasonous.”

‘It’ll Be Like Nixon and Watergate’

In any case, even sympathetic historians say that they will not be able to write the story of the Clinton presidency without a large dose of scandal.

“I think he’s been an effective president, but 20 years from now we will not be able to get past this thing,” said Parmet. “It’ll be like Nixon and Watergate. You can write about the achievements of Richard Nixon except for Watergate, but it isn’t easy.”

“I expect we’ll see another Nixon parallel,” Greenstein added. “Clinton may spend the rest of his life trying to rehabilitate himself.”