Bill Clinton Most Admired President Of Past 25 Years, Bush 41 Woefully Underrated
Not surprisingly, Bill Clinton is the most admired recent President according to a new poll, but his predecessor seems to be underrated.
A new NBC News poll puts Bill Clinton at the top of Presidents who have served in the last quarter century:
Bill Clinton is by far the most admired president of the past quarter century, a new poll shows, underscoring how much he has done to burnish his profile since leaving the White House in 2000.
Asked which president of the past 25 years they admired most, some 42% of respondents named Mr. Clinton in the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Annenberg Survey. That was more than twice the share that named any other president.
The other three presidents of the quarter century all polled about the same: 18% said they most admired President Barack Obama; 17% named George W. Bush; and 16% named his father, George H. W. Bush.
I can’t say that I disagree with the poll all that much.
For all his personal flaws, Clinton was clearly the most effective President we’ve had in the last 25 years, certainly far more effective, and far more politically astute, than either of the two men who followed him. No doubt, Clinton benefits from the fact that the economy was in far better shape during the majority of his tenure than it has been in subsequent years and the fact that things were relatively quiet on the international front, at least as compared to the period of war that has lasted more than a decade since September 11, 2001. Clinton also compares positively to both of his successors when it comes to personal charisma and the ability to actually get things done in Washington even in the face of bitter political oppositions. Finally, it’s simply a fact that, from virtually the start of his campaign Clinton has been as much of a pop culture figure as a politician in a way that none of the other President’s in the past twenty years and that his post-Presidency has contributed significantly to the way he’s viewed by the public. Speaking as someone who wasn’t really much of a Clinton fan when he was elected, or for many years after that, I’ve got to say that he was without question the best politician to occupy the Oval Office since Ronald Reagan and, in every way, more competent than either of the men that followed him at doing what a President needs to do in order to be successful.
As much as Clinton being at the top of the list is expected, though, I’m somewhat surprised to see that George H.W. Bush ended up at the bottom of the list. The fact that he is the only single term President on the list, and the one who served the longest time ago, perhaps it’s understandable that he’d rank lower than more recent Presidents. It’s also possible that he’s suffering from being associated with his son. On the whole, though, it strikes me that the Bush Presidency wasn’t all that bad in retrospect. Although the Cold War was effectively coming to an end by the time Bush took office in January 1989, he was the man who presided over its demise, which began in earnest in the summer of 1989 in the nations of Eastern Europe, and culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of that year. In between there were protests from Czechoslovakia to Hungary to even Ceaucescu’s Romania and the streets of Beijing. Then, and in the years that followed, though, Bush resisted the calls of his advisers and many conservatives to take a triumphal tone and instead worked to help bring about something that had scarcely ever happened before, the largely peaceful collapse of a totalitarian empire. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 just as the new post-Cold War world was taking shape, Bush brought together the largest international coalition since World War Two to push him out. At the time, I wasn’t necessarily a fan of the idea of going to war to make Kuwait safe for the Emir and his family, but in retrospect I’ve come to think that going to war in 1991, and the decision to stop it rather than follow the Iraqi Army all the way to Baghdad, was the right decision. Unfortunately, we weren’t so wise when it came to Iraq a decade later.
Like Clinton, Bush 41 was hardly a perfect President, but I’d suggest that he was far better than this survey gives him credit for, and that his life-long commitment to public service, which has continued after he left office, is something that we can all admire. This is a life that started out by passing up admission to Yale to go fly planes in World War II, and continued in later years as a Congressman, which included a vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that was very unpopular in his district, Ambassador to China, CIA Director, United Nations Ambassador, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and of course Vice-President and President. Since leaving office, he’s continued that role in several respects, most notably in partnerships with the man who beat him for re-election in 1992 in response to the tsunami in Indonesia and Hurricane Katrina. Some 25 years after the fact, it seems pretty clear that the partisan vitriol one used to hear about George H.W. Bush was mostly nonsense.
Perhaps opinions of the first President Bush will improve over time, but if this survey is any indication he isn’t getting nearly the credit that he deserves. In this poll, though, that obviously isn’t happening.
That’s about right…
Bush 41 did a really good job.
The Budget deal of 1990, along with Clintons later deal, helped set the table for the longest recession-free period in history.
From an article by Bruce Bartlett:
As per usual the apoplectic were exactly wrong.
Unfortunately Republicans aren’t like Bush41 now…and they have us pursuing austerity during a weak recovery…and refucing to even hear the words “revenue increase”. So here we are….with the exact economy they want. Idiots.
I did neglect to mention the Budget negotiations above, which were significant largely because they led to a rebellion inside the GOP that undermined Bush’s own bid for re-election and, in many ways, set the table for the party takeover that led to the 1994 elections.
I think that explains it actually.
@Doug Mataconis:
Yeah…that really did mark the beginning of the transformation from the GOP to The Party of Stupid.
@george:
Probably true.
CNN had a Bush 41 retrospective on Sunday night and as they were going through the events of his Presidency the one thought that occurred to me is that it seemed like such a long time ago.
@george: True. Especially given that this is all about the difference between 16% and 17. Basically round off. Also, under Clinton the economy was good, and people remember feeling good. Under Obama, or either Bush, not so much.
Bill Clinton had his shortcomings, but he was an able manager. I would have voted for him for president for life if not for term limits.
Doug, of course Bush 41 is ranked so low. He’s the doddering, out-of-touch guy who didn’t recognize a supermarket bar-code scanner, who put Dan “Potatoe” Quayle one heartbeat away from the presidency, the vile racist who used Willie Horton to crush Michael Dukakis, the guy who put Lee Atwater into the head of the GOP, the former spymaster who’d flown to Iran to engineer the hostages’ release, the man who’d placed his manhood in a blind trust to be Reagan’s veep, the guy who broke his “read my lips — no new taxes” pledge, and — worst of all — was the monster that gave us Bush 43.
Some of us are old enough to remember 1980-1993, and remember all too well what the liberals of the day said about Bush 41.
The Bush 41 era marked the beginning of our military misadventures in Mesopotamia. This I cannot overlook.
@Jenos Idanian #13: “Some of us are old enough to remember 1980-1993, and remember all too well what the liberals of the day said about Bush 41.”
Gosh, I guess that means you’re also old enough to remember what “conservatives” said about Clinton.
For those interested in Bush 41, historian Serhii Plokhhy has a wonderful new book out about his administration’s policy in the last months of the Soviet Union, showing how masterfully Bush 41 ‘led from behind’: while he preferred the Soviet Union remain more or less intact and was a close ally of Gorbachev, he had no qualms about letting him go and siding with Yeltsin once it was clear the latter had won. Throughout those months, he had one overriding priority: making sure Soviet nuclear arms remain safe, and he was even willing to talk to the harldiners who initiated the August 1991 coup d’etat against Giorbachev, when it seemed they might be winning.
Reading that book, it become crystal clear that Obama, not Bush 43 is Bush 41’s political scion..
@wr: Gosh, I guess that means you’re also old enough to remember what “conservatives” said about Clinton.
That he was a horndog who couldn’t keep it in his pants, even to the point of potentially compromising national security? That he’d try to nationalize health care and allow gays into the military?
Yeah, those awful “conservatives.”
@Jenos Idanian #13:
I feel bad for you, I really do. Man, from how you type just the whole big bad world is out to get you. Everyone is unfair to you and your side, why are they just sooo mean?
Don’t worry. Some day you’ll be dead or senile, and then the big bad world cant’ hurt you anymore.
@Surreal American: This is a very problematic point of view. Bush 41
a) had a clear casus belli
b) had a universal international support
c) had clear goals for the war
d) got allies to pay for it
and most importantly
e) stopped when strategic goals were achieved
His statecraft in 1991 has nothing, absolutely nothing in common with later follies.
@humanoid.panda: Reading that book, it become crystal clear that Obama, not Bush 43 is Bush 41′s political scion..
You had me right up until there…
Doug,
In listing Bush the Elder’s accomplishments, you ignore not only the 1990 budget deal, but _anything_ domestic about his Presidency. That includes a significant recession, the budget deal and some significant accomplishments which increased government control in the ADA and reauthorization of the Clean Air Act. These last few have made him a bit of a pariah among Republicans.
Contra Jenos, I suspect that his low approval ratings reflect an unwillingness of his own party members to support him.
@Jenos Idanian #13: I am not sure about your age, but I’d wager dollars for donuts that if you were at the appropriate age, you’d be one of the people convinced the Soviet Union was about to overthrow American defenses in a pincer move from Afganistan and Nicaragua, so forgive me if I disregard your opinions.
Do you think this means most admired person who was president, most admired time in office, or most admired presidential era?
Well, re the international front, this isn’t quite accurate. Clinton’s time in office, after all, was marked by the crisis in Somalia, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the Rwanda genocide, and the 1998 embassy bombings, among others. And let’s remember that the “period of war” wasn’t something that just happened to us — it was, in large part, something that George W. Bush initiated. Staying in Afghanistan for over a decade, and the attack on, invasion and occupation of Iraq were voluntary on our part, they were the choices we made. Clinton benefited from peace because he chose to keep the peace.
@humanoid.panda: In fact, amusingly, Plokhy has some choice words to say to the idiots who thought to replicate Reagan’s victory in the Cold War with moral clarity and American values and got us into Iraq. Since I am absolutely certain you were a sycophant of said idiots, I care about your opinons even less than previously indicated.
@Neil Hudelson:
Someday?
Let’s imagine that Bush II was a more competent commander, and that bin Laden and most of the al Qaeda leadership were caught or killed at Tora Bora in October 2001, and that Bush then chose not to attack Iraq in 2003. That decade, too, could then have been a decade of peace instead of war. It wasn’t inevitable. It wasn’t that Clinton was lucky and Bush unlucky. It was dependent on very specific choices that Bush freely made (or that he allowed Cheney to make for him).
@Jenos Idanian #13: That he was running drugs from Central America, that he was a serial rapist, and that he had murdered many of his political opponents.
Think back a few years, little Jenos. These were all the lies you were happily spreading back then. Of that, I’m sure no one here has any doubt.
@Rafer Janders: No, no, no, no, no. Clearly you understand nothing about world events.
If good things happen under a Democratic president, it’s luck and general good times. If bad things happen, it’s solely his fault.
If good things happen under a Republican president, it’s because he’s a towering colossus who strides through history like a god. If bad things happen, it’s the fault of the most recent Democratic president and/or any Democrats in congress.
@humanoid.panda: I am not sure about your age, but I’d wager dollars for donuts that if you were at the appropriate age, you’d be one of the people convinced the Soviet Union was about to overthrow American defenses in a pincer move from Afganistan and Nicaragua, so forgive me if I disregard your opinions.
Feel free to disregard my opinions. But everything I said about Bush 41 was actually said about him by liberals. By embracing him now that he’s irrelevant, it lets them whitewash what they said about him at the time.
I don’t feel like enabling their rewriting history.
Frankly I didn’t notice the regime change when Bush #1 took over from Reagan. It seemed a simple continuation of the policies and staffing that permanently emplaced a large number of corrupt Nixon retreads, brought us S&L crisis that previewed his son’s banking debacle, and did it all under a phony banner of compassionate conservatism – the banner being all that could distinguish Bush #1 from his predecessor.
@Pinky:
The first of those.
@Jenos Idanian #13: First of all, sorry to inform you, but the most important item on your list as to his downfall, the tax pledge, is something conservatives, not liberals care about, then and now. In fact, I am pretty sure that among people who hated him in early 1990s, you will find many more conservatives than liberals.
As for the other items on your list: as Atwater himself conceded, Bush ran a dirty, race-tinged campaign. No liberal who cares about history would deny it. At the same time, liberals, now and then, have had grudging respect for his foreign policy, and two landmark achievements of his presidencey, the ADA act and the budget deficit deal, received heavy support from liberals.
Dan Qayle was indeed an idiot and Bush did put him a heart-beat away from presidency. No reason anyone who thinks that Bush was a decent enough president would deny that. (had FDR died a little earlier Cactus Jack Garner or Henry Wallace would have replaced him, both leading to a disaster, and yet FDR is a great president).
The barcode shit is silly, but so is Obama eating dog and I distinctly recall you reveling in that one. Really name one president whose partisan opponents did not enjoy employing this kind of silly sh*t against. This one is definitely in the game.
The Veep and manhood: for a man that correctly diagnosed Reagan’s economic program as a pile of bullshit to serve him requires a measure either partisanship or hypocricity. For his opponents to revel in that is yet again, in the game. I see no reason to rend garments over that one.
On the one about hostages and negotiations, you come close to being accurate. Congrats!
And finally, it is a known fact that 41’s Texas connections held Bush afloat during his business failures, allowed for him to purchase the baseball team that was his first major success, and 41’s political network allowed his sone, a relative newcomer, to easily take over the party. None of this is controversial, nor does it reflect on 41’s presidency, which is the issue at stake.
So in conclusion, 1/8 is not so bad. Keep on trying!
@rudderpedals: I disagree with you, but you’re honest, and I respect that.
@humanoid.panda: You misunderstood my point. What I was attempting to say was that the people now canonizing Bush 41 are the very same people — or the heirs thereof — who said all those things back then.
I think historically, its going to be really, really hard to argue that Clinton’s presidency was better than Obama’s– Obama was dealt a much, much more difficult hand and despite this has racked up far, far more substantive accomplishments in his 5 and a half years than Clinton did in 8, in retrospect Clinton’s presidency was essentially Cotton Candy– tasty, popular but ultimately largely hollow and lacking in lasting achievement.
Name a single Clinton Administration achievement that ranks with the ACA. Hell, name any achievement since the Great Society that matches that.
@SocraticSilence
“Name a single Clinton Administration achievement that ranks with the ACA”
Well, I’d put welfare reform at the top of that list, even though Clinton resisted its implementation. He had campaigned on “mending, not ending, welfare,” then wrestled the new GOP majority over it for two years (vetoing it twice). Finally, he signed the welfare reform bill shortly before the 1996 elections. It ended welfare as an open-ended entitlement and helped move hundreds of thousands out of dependency (yes, the booming economy helped). Eeven though current administration has undermined it somewhat, definitely comparable achievement to the ACA.
@ Jenos Idanian #13
Well, let’s see. I voted for him in ’88. Thought he was a mediocre president, strong on foreign policy, fairly weak on domestic. Did not really have the sort of personality needed to sit behind the big desk. Put Sununu in a key job he was not suited for, harming the administration. Handled Gulf 1 with considerable skill.
Yea, sounds like I am putting him up for sainthood. You nailed it pardner.
Years later, my feelings about his administration have not changed. I always thought he was a solid guy with a number of admirable qualities, and that feeling has been reinforced over time, even though I have gone from Republican to Democrat in the meantime.
You see, Democrats can admire 41. We can admire Bob Dole, Goldwater, and Eishenhower. We may not agree with their politics, but they deserve respect, and we can give it to them, regardless of party affiliation. You, of course, would not understand this.
I feel kind of bad for you dude, you have lost your mojo – such as it was – since your abdication from the Benghazi debate.
@RAGGEDT: “Well, I’d put welfare reform at the top of that list, even though Clinton resisted its implementation. ”
Not a good example. Welfare “reform” did little besides hurt poor people while making sure no one else ever was asked to pay attention to them. The ACA actually helped people.
I’ve got to say, if we’re talking about personal admiration, I’d rank the four in exactly the opposite order. Am I being partisan, or simply partisan? I don’t think so; it’s hard to think of the Clinton years without thinking of Newt Gingrich, and I have exactly the same low opinion of both of them.
i think a lot of people admire a guy who got oral in the oval office, i doubt if many respondents could actually name a few (if any) accomplishments of his. i remember our first brush with hillarycare and how it was rightfully stiffed.
@Jenos Idanian #13: And what I am saying is that one could believe nearly everything on that list is true, and still think he was a decent president. That’s not canonizing, but historical perspective.
@Grewgills:
I don’t know how the people in the original poll took the question (my thought was for the first way as well), but we seem to be arguing some combination of the second and third.
@wr:
Well, we’re at clear ideological impasse here. Many liberals like yourself still seem to think that perpetual dependence on welfare is a good thing. Others like myself — a black man raised by a single mom — disagree. Welfare reform ultimately helped thousands. While I opposed the enaction of the ACA, I’m willing to see how it plays out.
@anjin-san: I feel kind of bad for you dude, you have lost your mojo – such as it was – since your abdication from the Benghazi debate.
I didn’t abdicate that debate, I got sick of the stench of wr and Cliffy, among others, stinking up the place every time the topic came up. And instead of “policing your own,” they were routinely cheered on and given uptwinkles. I wasn’t willing to wade through those threads with a barf-bucket handy.
I still haven’t looked at the last thread, but I stand by my earlier prediction. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but at least three mentions of me by name, several repetitions of “BENGHAZI!!!!,” and all sorts of glee about how it makes the GOP look bad.
And maybe a token mention or two of the four Americans murdered, quickly drowned out by the gleeful mockery of Republicans.
If you’ve got the stomach to not only tolerate that, but enjoy it, then you’re sicker than I thought.
@wr: The ACA actually helped people.
True dat. Here’s a woman who was a little late to have an abortion covered by Obamacare, but they’re doing what they can to make up for that.
@Jenos Idanian #13: So it makes you sick when one of your talking points – that the perpetrators of the Benghazi attack remain free despite Obama promising to hunt them down – is rendered null by current events?
Oh, I gave you the barest of cover when I mentioned you might have a life off the Internet and wouldn’t respond for a while when they accused you of cowardice. There was self-policing.
Course now you’re conspicuously absent, what with showing up everywhere else. Hilariously, didn’t you say you weren’t going to comment as often anymore a month or two ago?
@Tillman: I already said what i had to say about it — congrats on the Obama administration for catching the guy after only 21 months, especially in light of the difficulties posed by him living openly in Benghazi and giving interviews to the press; for the love of God keep him away from any more YouTube videos; and I wonder who he’ll be traded away for.
Tell you what: you play Lot and Sodom/Gomorrah here. Tell me that there hasn’t been overwhelming glee and cackling. Find one decent quote out of that thread, and I’ll reconsider venturing in there.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Florack’s already used your point. (I cannot for the life of me figure out how to link to comments in other threads.)
Given how low that thread has sunk in the front page, appearing now probably wouldn’t do much anyway. Then again, I don’t have the “notify me by email” option checked.
Re Bush I: And don’t forget the nukes! Bush I presided over the largest nuclear arms reductions in history. So much for Republicans being war mongers, In fact it’s ironic that between them Reagan and Bush I got rid of more nukes than all other presidents combined (the times helped, but still…).