Andrew Cohen's Washington

Abstract

Last December, Bill Clinton invited the national press corps to a year-end meditation on his presidency. Over the course of 93 minutes -- the longest presidential news conference in recent memory -- Clinton answered all of the usual questions with his usual artfulness. Still, at the end of the day, the only real news was his announcement that he had found a name for his new dog.That Clinton had little to say wasn't surprising. Nineteen-ninety-seven was a year of inertia and frustration for him, and it was not uncharacteristic of most of his administration. While it was fashionable to call Clinton a lame duck after his re-election in 1996, the truth is that by then he was already ineffective. Indeed, long before the world learned of Monica Lewinsky and of the crippling allegations of sexual impropriety and criminality, Clinton had already become a diminished president in a diminished presidency -- a reality unlikely to change in his remaining two years in office.In 1997, Clinton was thwarted on virtually every major policy he proposed at home and abroad. The treaty on global warming -- which the United States signed in Kyoto, Japan, and which Clinton calls a hallmark of his presidency -- was declared 'dead on arrival' in the Senate, which must ratify it. The treaty on landmines was greeted a little more favourably in the Senate but Clinton, well aware of its probable fate, refused to sign it. Even more humiliating was the refusal of the House of Representatives to renew his request for 'fast-track' authority to negotiate trade agreements, which it had granted him in 1994 (as it had every president since 1974). What made the defeat especially galling -- in truth, Clinton withdrew the measure fearing he would lose it on a vote -- was that Clinton had more support for the measure among Republicans than Democrats.Clinton has even suffered the erosion of his powers of appointment. He was forced to bypass the Senate and name an 'acting' assistant attorney general because the Republicans refused to confirm his nominee. He was forced to withdraw the name of William Weld, the able if outspoken former Governor of Massachusetts, as ambassador to Mexico; he was far too liberal for the Republicans, and they refused to give him a hearing.That was only last year's harvest of tears. Since he withdrew his initiative on health care reform in 1994 -- the most serious setback of his presidency -- Clinton has been loathe to propose anything too ambitious to Congress. His reluctance has only deepened since the storm broke over his White House last winter. Of the dozen or more proposals he made in his State of the Union address, none has been enacted by Congress. Most recently, it turned down his much-heralded anti-tobacco legislation and campaign finance reform, and rejected his nomination for secretary of the air force.Abroad, Clinton can boast about expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement and establishing the World Trade Organization, blunting North Korea's nuclear capacity, and brokering peace in the Middle East and Bosnia. But all were accomplished early in his first term. Since then his diplomacy has largely failed. His foreign policy seems without principle or consistency, governed only by a creeping neo-isolationism that Americans seem happy to embrace in the aftermath of the cold war. Even when the United States wants to become more engaged, it is rebuffed, as if its internationalist muscles have atrophied. Clinton was unable to reassemble the old Gulf War coalition to make good on his threats against Iraq in February, and in August, when Saddam Hussein once again suspended weapons inspections, he didn't even try.Although his trip to China in June was hailed as a success, he has not been able to change in any significant way Chinas position on the big questions: self-determination for Tibet, the security of Taiwan, the preservation of democracy in Hong Kong and the protection of human rights. …