Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Clinton Tops 50%!
Accomplishing something he could never achieve when actually running for the presidency, Bill Clinton has finally earned from the American people a clear majority (55%) positive rating. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News pollsters did not, however, think to test whether or not this "era of good feeling" was because he was not on a real ballot. Standby.
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I don't think there is anything in the Sage's life that has given him more joy than the fact that Bill Clinton never won a majority of votes from the American people. The Sage has been mentioning this since 1996 - - perhaps this fact should be chiseled into your tombstone?
ReplyDeleteOne of my sister's said to another after following the blog for a time, "Man, he really despises Bill Clinton, doesn't he?"
ReplyDeleteI do, but what may appear an obsession with him is actually more a case of trying to keep the record straight. I hear pundits and pols routinely refer to Clinton as a great and gifted politician and I'm afraid the facts just don't bear it out. I've labeled this practice "revisionist history even while it's happening."
My favorite example is the 1972 election in which incumbent Richard Nixon, four years after having promised and failed to extract us from the Viet Nam War, and in the wake of the earliest revelations of the Watergate scandal, won nevertheless a 49-state landslide against George McGovern, the most left-liberal Democrat candidate imaginable. McGovern could not carry even his home state of South Dakota. But according to "historians", the late-60s and early-70s represented nonetheless some fundamental change in America, that we were quite literally coming apart at the seams.
Well, in a sense, we did, but only eventually, and mostly because much of this Big Lie took root. As a result, the Left became over-represented in the American mind, it was given a place at the table, a respectable hearing, and afforded a weight it hadn't earned and didn't deserve. As the Left achieved real political power, their disastrous for the country nostrums slowly became official public policy. Do I need to chronicle them?
Similarly, we should not allow the notion that a fundamentaly unprincipled, reprobate, and criminal president was anything but. He should not be rewarded for his sins. Rather, he should be ignored, dismissed, or best, shunned. If he is rewarded, as, alas, he has been, then our respect for the office of the presidency, and the country it represents more than any other constitutional institution, will diminish as well.
What would have given me even more joy in 1996 than a mere plurality victory, would that he had been summarily rejected by the electorate and sent packing. We can do better than Bill Clinton, much better.