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August 22, 2005
On Judging Presidential Candidates
One of the many problems I had with the Clinton-haters was they were attacking him for faults that had little (or nothing) to do with his ability as President of the United States.
Like Aristotle, I believe character matters, but character matters as a guide to how a person behaves in high political office. Ultimately what matters most about a man who attains high office is what does he do when he has power? Some people are incapable of handling the executive office (Jimmy Carter comes to mind). Some people reveal dictatorial or anti-democratic behaviors when in high office (like Richard Nixon). But the truth is what we need from a president is performance. Can he do the job?
Before we elect a person to office we need to make a judgement "is this person suitable for the job?" In Clinton's case, his failures of character (largely confined to fooling around with women who were very unlike his wife) were largely irrelevant considering the man had held executive office (Governor of Arkansas) for 12 years. Looking at the record of a governor for 12 years is highly instructive. Is the man corruptable? Does he appoint good or bad people to positions? Can he do the job? Clearly Clinton was a good if not great governor.
So, for those people who felt Clinton had bad character, while they had some grounds for this arguement, the purpose of the critique was nearly pointless, the key question "can he perform as a political executive" had been answered.
The hatred and the criticism for Clinton reached (for me) the height of madness during the 1996 campaign. At this point, having served as president for four years, questions about his character were utterly pointless. We knew how he would govern if he was re-elected, the only question worth considering was "had he done a good enough job with the first four years"?
All the fuss over the Whitewater land development deal was such a waste of time. There was no chance that Clinton would be revealed as a venal crook during his time as governor of Arkansas. Whitewater lost money for everyone involved - and Clinton never had much money even though he was a governor and his wife was an attorney.
All the fuss over Clinton's fooling around with other women was also pointless. Had he ever made a illegal or even bad decision as governor based on his fooling around with women who were not his wife? No one has ever made this arguement. So for all practicle, pragmatic concerns, Clinton's flaws were irrelevant to his suitability for president or for his running for a second term.
John Kerry
Some of Kerry's supporters tried to argue that the Swift Boat Vets who attacked Kerry's service in Vietnam were arguing over a similarly pointless issue (most Kerry supporters simply dismissed the Swift Boat Vets as liars). On this issue I disagree.
First, Kerry's career in government was hardly the best training for President. In fact I think being a Senator is inferior to being a Governor as far as training for president is concerned. There have been some good Presidents who were Senators (Lyndon Johnson comes to mind, as does Truman) but how about these former governors: Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and the current president G.W. Bush? So for Kerry, his character mattered. For his opponent in 2004, his character was largely irrelevant, we knew how Bush behaved in office, the question was "did he do a good job in his first four years"?
Kerry's character can be seen in three areas of his life: his performance in college, his performance in the Vietnam war, his performance as Senator. In college he was popular, political and a poor student (G.H. Bush actually had a slightly higher GPA, not that it matters much).
In the Senate Kerry was an average Sentator. He was nice, got on well with his colleges, and sponsored hundreds of bills. However, he was not very successful in getting his bills passed into law (only 9 passed) and none of them is noteworthy. Compared to other Senators of his time - Arlen Specter, Sam Nunn, Alan Simpson, and the great Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Kerry comes off as second best.
His service in Vietnam is quite relevant to his quest for the presidency. Here he was an executive with life and death decision-making power as captain of a small boat on the Mekong river. War is a test of character under harsh conditions. Here Kerry proved to be at least average, if not above average based on the Navy records at the time.
My question is (and remains) what lessons did he draw from that war? Was Containment - the policy Kennedy and Johnson were following which lead to Vietnam - the right policy? Should the U.S. have commited troops to Vietnam?
We know what Kerry thought as soon as the war ended, he was actively opposed to it. He made his political reputation on that basis. But 30 years have passed since the fall of Saigon and we know a lot more now than we did then. The key question Kerry never answered in the presidential campaign (to my mind): Was the Vietnam war justified? I felt that in the campaign Kerry wanted to have it both ways. On the one hand he wanted to keep faith with his earlier self and assert that the Vietnam war had been wrong, but on the other hand he wanted to give people the impression that he was "strong on defence" and did believe in using U.S. troops to intervene in other countries (specifically to hunt down Osama bin Laden).
My belief is that Kerry himself never really thought through the implications of his behavior during that time compared with the present and that was a key weakness. At the 60 (in 2003) Kerry was old enough to have developed a consistent, rational world view. But I don't think he had it. Or if he did, he couldn't explain it.
Was the Vietnam War right or wrong. This is still an important question today. For the next 20 years, this issue is still going to dominate U.S. foreing policy debate - until it is suplanted by "Was the invasion of Iraq right or wrong"
Posted by rakhier at August 22, 2005 10:53 AM