I have often said I never saw Bill Clinton do anything stupid with his pants up. That's not entirely true but we'll get to that. I do think he gets economic credit he doesn't really deserve, sorta. Clinton and the republicans did negotiate and implement tax and spending policies that set up, briefly, responsible management of spending. They announced, in 1995, their plan would balance the budget by 2002. I thought, at the time it was awfully convenient to set a date for long after they would be out of office. Everyone was surprised when the budget balanced years ahead of schedule. Since I've never seen anyone give a reason for the success I assume they are mystified. The claims of imposed republican fiscal responsibility kind of evaporate when you consider the same basic Congress never batted an eye when G W started writing what would eventually be 13 trillion in hot checks.
It's a collection of elected officials and economists. Of course they're mystified. Watching members of Congress discuss taxation and economic policy is like watching chimps sniff a Rubik's Cube. Some of them have gotten kinda close. They dismiss Clinton's success by saying he rode the tech bubble. Those are guys who think the economy stops at the end of Wall Street. It's no real surprise they generate nothing of value.
What happened was we bought a bunch of new stuff that we had never needed before. We bought VCR's, cell phones and PC's mainly. It was a whole new class of mid level, pervasive consumer purchases of totally new durable goods. On top of that the Boomers were working out from under the twin body blows of the energy "crisis" and Reaganomics and coming into their economic prime. Here's a practical illustration of what happened. In 1970, a standard home electrical panel was 60 amps or sometimes just a little more. By 2000 a standard, residential service panel was 150 amps and now it's 200. That's basic consumption of an underlying resource.
It took some real doin to put a crimp in that surge. Here's a question: How the hell do you wage two wars and crash the economy at the same time? The obvious answer is you let a bunch of guys like Dick Cheney and Ken Lay steal everything that isn't nailed down. You let it be known open season has been declared on the financial markets. The term "obvious" bares repeating. In order to obscure the obvious you need a blizzard of crap. That's where Willie's Winky comes in.
Let's look at 1984. Gary Hart was having some "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice. I think he was taken by surprise that the republicans broke the old boy's code and he reacted badly which drug the whole thing out and effectively ended his national career. It was a different era but had I been him I'da stuffed the girl in a bikini, called a press conference and said, " What would you do?"
Clinton danced around a lot and basically ended up at exactly that same place and got away with it. Middle-aged men in responsible positions have been chasing young girls forever. I thought Hart and Clinton were totally pedestrian. Trump, who actually is kinda creepy, just shrugged it off. In a way he did a public service. We probably won't see that nonsense as a campaign tactic for a while. I don't care if you like screwin goats. Don't do it on the White House lawn and don't write hot checks.
Here's what I think Clinton did wrong. (Beyond the obvious.) He never should have cooperated with the Paula Jones deposition. Having made that mistake he should have just shut up. Instead he got into playing lawyer with these guys. Each deposition has it's own list of definitions for terms key to the specific suit. These guys over-thought everything, so much so that Clinton joked about the definition of the word "is". I imagine that was a result of mediocre guys finding themselves in circumstances well above their pay grade. It's a symptom of self-perceived inadequacy. The joke on the word "is" was kind of a nuggy. Sort of a ruffling the hair of an over officious inferior.
Clinton noticed and may even have manipulated these guys into a definition of the term "sexual relations", "sex" that didn't include fellatio. (Eatin ain't cheatin?) I can't imagine what kind of fun these guys might have had in college but I'm thinking it couldn't have been much. When you think about it, they almost certainly weren't gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just sayin.
Clinton's mistake was making a statement in public that technically wasn't a lie under the definitions but was an obvious lie to just about anyone who wasn't a lawyer. The republicans went wild and the loyalists shook their heads and said, " Oh Geez."
Pants zipped? Pretty smart. Pants unzipped? Not so much. Kinda a cross section of the American public.
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