Reasonable Nuts

Sometimes nuts. Always reasonable. We are REASONABLE NUTS.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

"... quintessentially a temporizer ..."

What could I possibly add in the way of commentary to the greatest public service done yet to date by our esteemed former President, William Jefferson Clinton? Check out Michelle Malkin's video "Vent" for details. The best commentary I've read thus far is this factual summation and reasoned opinion of Clinton the President, by Ronald Cass. Here's a snippet:
Clinton, like all presidents, had some top-notch advisers, including some thoughtful advisers on military and foreign affairs. But he is quintessentially a temporizer, one who always has had difficulty reaching a conclusion and sticking to it, and not someone who was terribly interested in either preserving our military power or using it effectively in world affairs. He'd much rather talk one on one with world leaders, persuaded he could convince them to do what he wanted by the concerted application of charm.

Talk and compromise - not clear moral principles and the will to do whatever is needed to support them - were the hallmarks of the Clinton Administration, reflecting the person at the top. Nothing Clinton says now can change that, though he still evinces conviction that he can talk us into anything - just as he thought he could when he denied point blank having had anything to do with Monica Lewinsky. Clinton always has been the one who, caught in a compromising position, would disarmingly ask, as the parody has it, "what are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" His instinct for lying, even under oath, earned him the second presidential impeachment in American history.
Novelist Andrew Klavan has penned the second best commentary thus far. A salient set of nuggets:
To put it in his own terms, Clinton has never understood what the meaning of "is" is, the fact that some things happened and others didn't, that some things are true and others simply are not. He believes that his legacy will be created in the spin cycle of history rather than in the fitful but persistent human search for history's truth.

... He thinks reality itself is being wrestled away from him, that he can wrestle it back and mold it into the shape he wants it to have.

But he's wrong. That's just "is" being is. That's just "truth" bearing away the victory.

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