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sisyphusshruggedabout Jeanne's thoughts about Clinton. Would have used comments, but the comments at TypePad don't seem to work for me.
It confuses me that it's a given that the people who like Bush don't judge him for all the dreadful things he does because they just plain like him. He reminds them of themselves. He's fallible and he's flawed and he doesn't behave any better than they would have. It's a scary view of human nature, and of how poorly we think of ourselves for our flaws.
Still, it's roughly why I like Clinton. Yeah, he did some bad things. He also did some good things, and he did them despite the strenuous resistance of some truly evil people and almost universal condemnation from what's supposed to be the third estate, which morphed into a particularly nasty high school clique for the occasion.
His weakness is apparently being stupid about approval and about women. He passed legislation that was not good but popular, and he went after some seriously trashy women who seemed to adore him. When he's under pressure, he goes to his weakness.
Well, so do I.
The fact that we as a people seem to find less tolerable Clinton's self-destruction than Bush's destruction of others seems to me to be an indictment of our values. We're righteously attracted to (also flawed) manichaean trumpeters of perfect virtue like Bill Bennett and Ralph Nader because they tell us that the flawed are not worth our consideration, even if they themselves don't do what needs to be done, and to hold ourselves loftily above Clinton (and for that matter, Gore) because, well, they're less than perfect.
My idea of charity is to cut as much slack for people who mean well as I cut myself, not as much as I wish they'd cut me (I'm not deluded enough to think that's even possible). I'm willing to be mightily charitable to myself when circumstances lead me to my weaknesses. I like to think that the good things I do at least balance them.
I think that if you look at Clinton through those eyes, he comes out pretty well.
It confuses me that it's a given that the people who like Bush don't judge him for all the dreadful things he does because they just plain like him. He reminds them of themselves. He's fallible and he's flawed and he doesn't behave any better than they would have. It's a scary view of human nature, and of how poorly we think of ourselves for our flaws.
Still, it's roughly why I like Clinton. Yeah, he did some bad things. He also did some good things, and he did them despite the strenuous resistance of some truly evil people and almost universal condemnation from what's supposed to be the third estate, which morphed into a particularly nasty high school clique for the occasion.
His weakness is apparently being stupid about approval and about women. He passed legislation that was not good but popular, and he went after some seriously trashy women who seemed to adore him. When he's under pressure, he goes to his weakness.
Well, so do I.
The fact that we as a people seem to find less tolerable Clinton's self-destruction than Bush's destruction of others seems to me to be an indictment of our values. We're righteously attracted to (also flawed) manichaean trumpeters of perfect virtue like Bill Bennett and Ralph Nader because they tell us that the flawed are not worth our consideration, even if they themselves don't do what needs to be done, and to hold ourselves loftily above Clinton (and for that matter, Gore) because, well, they're less than perfect.
My idea of charity is to cut as much slack for people who mean well as I cut myself, not as much as I wish they'd cut me (I'm not deluded enough to think that's even possible). I'm willing to be mightily charitable to myself when circumstances lead me to my weaknesses. I like to think that the good things I do at least balance them.
I think that if you look at Clinton through those eyes, he comes out pretty well.
