Why I admire Bill Clinton
So many other politicians have got that woeful story of “adversity overcome”—which they haven’t really overcome because they keep bringing it up. Clinton doesn’t dwell on Hope, Arkansas; he’s gotten on with his life, incorporating whatever lessons his childhood provided into a fully-realized adulthood. His focus always seems to be on the future and the possibility of change for the better, rather than the current trend of yearning towards an idealized past—where minorities and women knew their places and everyone worshiped the same god. That’s a time which never existed.
I didn’t agree with everything he did in office. His policies on welfare reform and gays in the military were not to my taste, but you always got the feeling with him that his opinions were the result of serious study and consideration rather than some idee fixe provided by Machiavellian manipulators and accepted without a moment’s thought. Maybe he wasn’t thrilled by those ideas either, but, being a realist, he knew that they were both better than what existed and more likely to be accepted than the ideal solution.
He is someone who tries, who does his homework, who isn’t just skating through—and I think that is why so many people react positively to him. And it is also why he is so reviled.
The ones who hate him so vehemently are the same losers from high school who jeered at the “brains” and the students who cared about something other than the next beer bash or football game. It’s the reverse snobbery of those dream-less, soul-dead stiffs who resent and suspect anyone doing better than they are—similar to what Nietzsche termed ressentiment. Most people, at some point in their journey to adulthood, realize they should strive to emulate those who are more successful than oneself rather than try to bring about their downfall. The ones who don’t get to that point of enlightenment seem, lately, to gravitate towards the “conservative” wing of the Republican party.
So, that’s why I admire the man. (And also ‘cause—though she might not be to everyone’s taste—I think Monica Lewinsky was pretty hot!)
