"An ex-President Stoops Low for Political Mileage"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“An ex-President Stoops Low for Political Mileage”

April 22, 2010

Unbecoming to an ex-President, Bill Clinton wrote an op-ed in Monday’s New York Times – essentially an abridgement of a speech he gave on April 13 before the Center for American Progress, a left wing think tank in Washington, D.C. His subject was appropriate and the timing was correct, but what made it unbecoming were his allusions, omissions and innuendos that were more politically partisan than simply informative.

The op-ed was titled, “What We Learned in Oklahoma City”, and the date the piece appeared was, appropriately, fifteen years following Timothy McVeigh’s deliberate and horrific bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which resulted in the death of 168 people, including 19 children. The piece also appeared, as Mr. Clinton notes, exactly seventeen years after the siege ended on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, a siege begun by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and carried out by the FBI, who were accompanied by U.S. Army tanks. The siege lasted 51 days and resulted in the fiery deaths of 76 men, women and children, including the leader David Koresh who was killed the first day, on February 28. The Oklahoma bombing was a direct consequence of the Waco massacre.

Mr. Clinton’s op-ed is replete with more hedges than would be known to a Goldman derivatives trader: “Criticism is part of the lifeblood of a democracy;” “No one is right all the time;” “Civic duty can include harsh criticism, protest and even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy. That is the bright line that protects our freedom.” And, in his op-ed, he never specifically referred to the tea party movement, though he did mention it in his speech.

The ex-President wrote that we should never forget that what drove the bombers, in Oklahoma City, was an “ultimate extreme”, an idea advocated by “an increasingly vocal minority.” But he added toward the end of the piece, “We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisan time.” There is little question that he was alluding to the tea party movement, a focus of concern to Democrats, as we head toward November’s elections. (Of course, if one listens to the tea party people, most incumbents are at risk.)

In Washington, Mr. Clinton spoke of a “sort of fever in America in the early 1990s…a time, like now, of dramatic upheaval.” “…in the decade of the 90’s, and really beginning in the 80’s, there was a run-up of much more demonization of the government and its employees and a whole effort to legitimize violence.” Emmett Tyrrell, in response, wrote on the New York Sun’s website that he recalled no “fever” in the early 1990s. Neither do I. The former President said that by the 1980s “…we began to have the rise in violence from the fringe I suppose you could call it right-wing but it was basically uncritical hatred of the government and beliefs that all taxes were illegitimate.” Again, I am not sure to what he was referring; however, earlier violence resulting from left-wing organizations such as the SDS, or the Weathermen, founded by Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn (acquaintances of President Obama) and who were involved in bombings in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s, received no mention. Or, what about the reverend Jeremiah Wright, former Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago? Were his words not inflammatory when he shouted from his pulpit, “God damn America!”?

Mr. Clinton properly noted that “we can’t let the debate veer so far into hatred that we lose focus of our common humanity” and that there is “a basic line dividing criticism from violence or its advocacy.” That is an ideal worth seeking, but history is replete with violence from both the right and the left and it is likely those tendencies will persist.

But suggesting that today’s tea party movement has characteristics in common with the Branch Davidians would stretch the imagination of even the most creative Goldman swaps trader. The Branch Davidians, a religious group, descend from Seventh Day Adventists and, as such, are fatalistic, in that they believe there is a forthcoming “final judgment”. The Davidians had very few members, even in 1993 and were very much on the lunatic fringe. The tea party movement, on the other hand, even according to that instrument of impartial reporting, the New York Times, have support from 18% of the American public, according to a CBS/NYT poll. (An AP-GIK poll, conducted at the same time, suggests that 31% of Americans consider themselves supporters of the tea party movement.) No matter which poll is accurate, one can assume that dissatisfaction of Washington is felt by millions of Americans. Moreover a recent New York Times article (April 14, 2010) indicated that “…while Tea Party supporters are more conservative than Republicans on some social issues, they do not want to focus on those issues: about 8 in 10 say they are more concerned with economic issues, as is the general public.” (My italics.)

Moreover, the article had some revealing general observations – more than 50% of the public feels Mr. Obama is moving the Country toward socialism and 60% of the public think the Country is headed in the wrong direction. Personally, I disagree with the tea party movement on social issues like immigration and their emphasis on religion, but I agree with them on most of their fiscal preferences and in their desire for less intrusive government. And, as I wrote yesterday, there are a lot of people living on fixed income who are distraught with low yields, the prospect of higher taxes and curtailments to Medicare. They feel isolated, in our politically-correct world.

In attempting to trivialize the tea party as a “fringe element” movement, Mr. Clinton comes across as a political hack, spouting political balderdash, and not as a serious, senior statesman standing above the fray, the proper role for ex-Presidents.

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On Friday I will be attending an important, non-financial meeting in Greenwich – grandparent’s day at Julian Curtis.