Reply #50: Not hatred, but deep disappointment [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

One of my friends analyzed Clinton as "having no deep-seated principles that he wasn't willing to give up in a futile effort to make the Republicans like him."

I didn't have high hopes in 1992, since I knew that Clinton was DLC and I already hated their interventionist, Reagan-ass-licking, Pentagon-coddling ways, but I thought that maybe he might actually try to keep some of his campaign promises.

First, he let the Repiggies get away with talking about his "failed" administration only two weeks after inauguration. The Dems and their allies should have subjected that comment to so much ridicule that the Republicans became the butt of Leno and Letterman jokes.

Then he let them intimidate him out of allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military (which he could have done by executive order, telling the officers that anyone who objected would be court-martialed for insubordination--this is what Truman did about racial integration).

Then there was the health insurance debacle. He tried to play nice again, letting the insurance companies keep as much of their business as possible, but ending up with an unwieldy plan that was hard to defend and easy to shoot down.

He never caught on to the fact that the Republicans smell blood if you give in to them. After caving on gays in the military and national health care, it was as if he had a "kick me" sign on his butt.

He made a mistake common among beginning schoolteachers faced with a hostile class. Every experienced teacher will tell you that you have to establish your authority in the first two weeks of class, being stricter than you normally would be and perhaps even singling out some of the ringleaders. But inexperienced teachers try making the hostile students like them. It doesn't work, because students aren't hostile to a teacher they've just met because they dislike that teacher personally. They're just bullies, and you have to stand up to them right away or have a miserable year.

Similarly, the Republicans didn't necessarily hate Clinton at first. They were bullies and sore losers who hated the very idea of a Democrat in the White House.

Yes, Clinton had to deal with a hostile Republican Congress, but if he had stood up to the Repiggies in 1993 instead of trying to compromise with them at every opportunity, perhaps the voters would have respected him more and selected Congresscritters who were Democrats.