As the Clinton presidency staggers to its conclusion, accompanied by last-minute pardons and an end to the 5-year ban on lobbying federal agencies by ex-government officials, it’s fair to ask - where does this Administration stack up on corruption when compared to those of other U.S. presidents?
Bill’s major legacy seems destined to be his impeachment and possible future indictment stemming from his cheap, greasy personal behavior and attempts to cover up same. Add in a variety of low-rent scandals (i.e. Clintonite lies to evade responsibility for illegal closed-door meetings on health care, trumping up charges against Travel Office employees so that wealthy pals could benefit etc.).
To me, the biggest stain on the Clinton presidency is his record on campaign financing. There were no meaningful efforts at reform. Instead, we saw an orgy of fundraising excesses, with the beneficiaries of all this influence peddling (excuse me, “access” peddling) being the usual corporate suspects and foreign interests (i.e. the government of China, which received technology transfers, and Indonesian mining interests, which benefited from a block on development of a portion of the U.S. coal reserve).
Despite all this, I think our rummy-nosed President might have trouble cracking the top ten of unethical presidencies. He ranks well behind Nixon, and for me the Iran-Contra scandal under Reagan tops anything for which Bill has responsibility. Grant and Harding probably have him beaten as well.
How does William Jefferson Clinton stack up in your estimation?
Ethically, probably about average. First of all, I don’t think the Lewinsky scandal should even be considered in this discussion. I like Clinton, but even I can admit he lied in court. However, we are not talking about Clinton as a person, we are talking about his administration. Therefore, I think personal scandals should be excluded.
There’s a lot of things that are “shady.” Whitewater, Travelgate, the pardons, the lobbying ban revocation, stuff involving the DOJ, and especially the campaign financing. But illegal? Hmm, tough to say. I think time will tell. Anyone who brings up the number of murders done by the administration, please visit Snopes.
On the other hand, we have a number of administrations that clearly did things that were illegal. Iran-Contra, for example. Nixon is obvious. Grant and Harding are the same. (In fact, Clinton can’t even rank first on the list of unethical presidents as individuals. Harding has him beat by a mile, Kennedy by light years.) All in all, the Clinton administration pales in comparison.
As for most ethical, I’ve heard both of Grover Cleveland’s terms were pretty clean-cut. Apparently, he was just a pretty nice guy.
Nowhere in the cite does it state what law was broken. The way I read the newsrelease, the suggestion seems to be that the administration (the DOJ, perhaps) was ordered to pay attorney’s fees to the AAPS for failing to be forthcoming during a trial. Additionally, the release does not establish why the meetings were “illegal” in the first place. I’m not certain they were.
I will admit that the failure of the administration to act in good faith with the court does add to the pattern of less-than-ethical conduct and obfuscation that I think has been rampant under Clinton.
The law in question is the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The suit was brought on the basis that secret task force meetings violated the Act. The court agreed. An appeals court found that the Act did not apply to Hillary Clinton, who was found to be the equivalent of a full-time government employee (by what must have been very interesting logic). Since the Administration knew this wouldn’t let the rest of the task force off the hook, they publicly released the task force documents, making the matter moot. Seems sort of unfair, since if you’re a bank robber they don’t let you off if you return the money.
The Executive Branch was found to have acted in a “dishonest” and “reprehensible” manner in its response to the suit, and sanctions were granted in '97. They’re still appealing the financial award.
Well, the Clinton administration may have a unique distinction as a result of having two Cabinet members and an Assistant Secretary cited for contempt of court, all at the hands of Judge Lamberth in the Cobell Indian trust-fund lawsuit.
However, they had a compelling explanation. They said they needed a space suit in order to recover documents that were contaminated with hantavirus-carrying rat-shit. And, they probably really don’t know where billions of dollars of trust fund moneys went. It’s been disappearing since at least 1887, so I suppose all administrations since then have played a role in perpetuating what may be the greatest slush-fund ever created.
It will be interesting to see how the, um, “fiscally-minded” administration to come rolls in that particular pile of excrement. I see the waving of many a magic wand…
Not much you can do in a month…although Tyler probably didn’t replace the admin.