Even though he was the second American president to be impeached because of his illicit relations with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton is still, in my estimation, one of the greatest leaders our country has ever seen.
Despite the backslide with the recent ban on gay marriages in 11 states and crazy fundamentalists trying to get an Amendment banning it nation-wide, one of Clinton’s greatest accomplishments was the headway he made for gays. He banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. He appointed lesbian Karen Tramontano as assistant to the president and counselor to the chief of staff. He also confirmed Fred Hochberg, an openly gay New Yorker, as deputy administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration. Clinton’s attention to such a minority show his compassion and concern for the people of his country in the face of discrimination.
Economically speaking, Clinton can be thanked for promoting free trade and not only allowing but facilitating Alan Greenspan in his attack on inflation.
The best thing that he did for this country, however, was to revolutionize the role of parties. Although Clinton is a proclaimed liberal, he moved toward the conservative end of the spectrum in several respects, including welfare and social reforms. As a result, under his watchful eye, crime rates decreased, illegitmate births and abortion rates plummeted. As a result of his aberration from liberalized welfare issues, the government’s role for this subject was re-legitimized. These policy aberrations show that stepping outside your party’s lines when it is appropriate can benefit the country as a whole as opposed to working to benefit one party over another.
When the role of the president was first created, the framers had no intentions of party lines being drawn. Intrigue was unheard of, and the republican virtue meant electing someone to office that didn’t even want the position. As times changed, it was thought that having competition via parties would help to keep candidates honest and prevent policy switches for elected officials. The fact is, however, that parties no longer provide that function. Candidates lie to the public no matter who they’re running against, and it is fruitless to attempt to discern the truth based on who accuses who of lying.
Generally speaking, nowadays, liberals want a large government and conservatives want a smaller government. We have, in essence gone back to the days of Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The problem with this dichotomy is that in many cases, it makes for a zero sum game. When one party wins, the other necessarily loses. It seems that it might be preferrable to have more policy makers professing more moderate beliefs that have the benefit of the nation as a whole in mind as opposed to their particular party.
So let’s take the religiously driven morality out of the Republican party and the pity party charity plea from the Democrats and merge into something more moderate so that everyone benefits – not just the top of the tax bracket or the inhabitants of the projects. We’ll call ourselves the Republicrats.