Clinton and the Dems
Mark Steyn:
Mark Steyn:
...
Why, you wonder, would they want to go through one more summer season of Monica and Paula and all the rest? Because, so his defenders have convinced themselves, it makes them look good: unlike the Bush administration with the scandal of Abu Ghraib and torture, in the Clinton administration the biggest scandal was about oral sex. Say what you like, but, in the Clinton era, the only naked guy with women's panties on his head and a dog leash round his neck would have been the President breaking in the new intern pool.
This comparison is valid in the narrow sense that Bill Clinton, like Abu Ghraib, has been blown out of all proportion. But Clinton is what you wind up with when you have Reagan's communication skills but nothing to communicate: you're left with pure celebrity - Tina Brown's "heat" - and celebrity depends on living presence. You can't go away, because the heat fades instantly.
The Clintons' Democratic Party was great for the Clintons but disastrous for the Democratic Party: during the 1990s, they lost the House and the Senate and a ton of governorships and state legislatures, and eventually, with nothing else left to lose, they lost the presidency. Clinton's heat left the party so parched for talent they had no successful governors to run for president and were forced to turn to a stiff hack weathervane senator in the hope they could so damage Bush they could drag their boy across the finishing line.
If you think a great political party should be a star vehicle for a guy who won't get off the stage, fine. But, if you don't, then it is time, as Bill Clinton used to say, to move on. Monica's no longer on her knees. There's no reason why anyone else should be.
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