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Clinton is often contrasted with the conflict-averse Barack Obama. The latter categorization is fair, but the description of Bill Clinton has this hardball fighter who didn't cave to Republican demands is not entirely accurate. At best the record is mixed.
People forget that prior to the 1995-96 government shutdown, Clinton did not have a reputation for steely resolve, but was seen as a vacillating ("waffling" is the term I remember) and calculating politician. There was his capitulation on gays in the military, his refusal to fight for Lani Guiner, his appointee to the Justice Department Civil Rights division, abandoning his middle class taxcut campaign promise, and NAFTA. Of course one could say that NAFTA was not a capitulation, as it is always what he believed in, but it hardly represents a commitment to Democratic priorities. Same with GATT. Republicans, now in the majority had every reason to believe that Clinton would cave on their budget in 1995. They were wrong, and Clinton found his spine. By the end of the budget fight in January 1996, Clinton was leading in the polls and would never look back.
But the capitulations resumed. He signed a punitive welfare bill that summer that was only slightly different than the one he vetoed the year before. In 1996,there was also telecommunications deregulation, the now unconstitutional Communications Decency Act (got to keep the suburban mommies happy who don't want their kids looking at porn on this new internet thing!), the odious Defense of Marriage Act (I guess he felt the need to appease the Christian fundies who would never vote for him anyway). After the election, there was a capital gains tax cut to benefit the wealthy, repeal of Glass-Steagall, permanent free trade with China and higher military budgets. In each of these cases, Clinton chose not to fight Republican demands, but to yield to them.
Richard Mellon Scaife's Arkansas Project dug up allegation after allegation against the Clintons, Republicans in Congress held endless hearings on Whitewater, Filegate, campaign fundraising, Travelgate, Chinese spaceship sales, etc. all for naught, and Ken Starr harassed the Clintons for 7 years, culminating in a bullshit circus that occupied all of 1998 and became a matter of impeachment. When they had to defend themselves, the Clintons went into defcon mode, and quite impressively, and liberals rallied around them against a common enemy, in spite of his policy concessions to Republicans. Yes, he fought off all of that bullshit like a junkyard dog. First and foremost, Bill Clinton was good at fighting for himself and Hillary, not so much for Democratic priorities.
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