The Legacy Squad Reports for Duty

John Quincy Adams, upon retirement from the White House, ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. Ulysses S. Grant traveled extensively, dabbled unsuccessfully in the stock market and then sat down to write his memoirs because he needed the money.

Until now, however, only one president has set out on a campaign to methodically redeem his presidency in the eyes of historians.

That was Andrew Johnson, who announced on his return home to Tennessee after a calamitous administration that culminated in his impeachment, “I intend to appropriate the remainder of my life, short as it may be, in the vindication of my character.”

Johnson’s record now has been challenged by our only other impeached president, Bill Clinton, who has gathered a collection of political aestheticians to remove the unsightly pockmarks and blotches from his eight years in the White House.

It is an effort condemned to failure.

It was reported recently that the most legacy-minded of all American presidents had convened a gathering in his New York offices of former White House staffers, ex-Cabinet officials and assorted Washington hangers-on and courtiers to tell the story of his administration in a manner most flattering to Clinton. Although most of the dozen or so participants were tight-lipped about the meeting, enough information seeped out to suggest that the vaunted Clinton public relations operation will now be assigned to spin history.

If it were not so vainglorious an exercise it would be laughable. Rather than let the slow-grinding mills of history produce a balanced and fair picture of his incumbency, Clinton, like some ancient despot, has summoned his chamberlains and masters of the rolls to embellish the accomplishments of his reign.

There is something profoundly sad about this pitiable exertion to burnish an administration that accomplished a great deal and attempted but failed to achieve other worthwhile goals. The effort resembles that of the soldier who has served honorably but who adds to his resume awards for valor that he has not earned, or the executive who puffs his credentials. When lesser figures apply cosmetics to their curriculum vitae and the puffery is exposed, it is profoundly embarrassing. When a former president becomes a revisionist of his history, the shame is greater.

Clinton always has been a reckless user of people. He lied to members of his Cabinet about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and sent them out to deceive others, making them part-owners of his falsehoods. No great respecter of truth, Clinton now enjoins his flacks and fabulists to bowdlerize history.

It may be that other presidents were eager for later generations to see them as nobler than they were, but aside from the hapless Johnson, only Clinton has convened a task force to accomplish it.

If Clinton feels uneasy about how future generations will judge his administration, he can use his autobiography to set the record straight. Dispatching a crew of euphemists with whitewash brushes to spruce up his blemished incumbency is unseemly and will only cause him to suffer ridicule, which in light of his important achievements, is undeserved.

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Ross K. Baker is a political science professor at Rutgers University.