All Too Human

G. Stephanopoulos

“I've been talking to Clinton constantly since the election,” [Dick] Morris continued... His index finger tapped furiously at a slim pocket computer that stored the polls he called his “prayer book.” Weaving that data with bits of policy analysis, political science theory, and historical analogies from England, America, and France, Dick spun out an elaborate “Theory of the Race” — that Clinton would win in 1996 if he “neutralized” the Republicans and “triangulated” the Democrats.

Neutralization required passing big chunks of the Republican agenda: a balanced budget, tax cuts, welfare reform, an end to affirmative action. This would “relieve the frustrations” that got them elected in 1994 and allow Clinton to “push them to the right” on “popular” issues like gun control and a woman's right to choose in 1996. Triangulation demanded that Clinton abandon “Democratic class-warfare dogma,” rise above his partisan roots, and inhabit the political center “above and between” the two parties — a concept Dick helpfully illustrated by joining his thumbs and forefingers into the shape of a triangle. That meant Clinton had to deliberately distance himself from his Democratic allies, use them as a foil, pick fights with them. Combine these two tactics with a “strong” foreign policy, a reasonably healthy economy, and public advocacy of issues like school uniforms and curfews that would demonstrate Clinton's commitment to “values,” Dick said, and Clinton would win in 1996...

Gays in the Military

David Mixner, the president's old friend and leading gay fund-raiser, argued that Clinton should issue an executive order lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military and tell the Joint Chiefs that he expected them to implement it with enthusiasm.

I wish Mixner could have been in the Roosevelt Room on the afternoon of January 25 [1992], when all four service commanders — army, navy, air force, marines — entered in full uniform with their chairman, Colin Powell...

The chiefs congratulated Clinton on his victory. But while Clinton was their host and their boss, he didn't hold the balance of power in the room... the chiefs weren't there to be persuaded, and they had the congressional troops they needed to fortify their position. Their message was clear: Keeping this promise will cost you the military. Fight us, and you'll lose — and it won't be pretty...

But Colin Powell was the most effective. He leaned his thick forearms into the table, his clasped hands pointing straight at the president, and laid down a marker: The armed forces under Clinton's command were in “exquisite” shape, he said. We shouldn't do anything to put that at risk. We'd never had full civil rights in the military, and it would be impossible to maintain morale if gay and straight soldiers were integrated...

If we didn't work out a compromise with the chiefs, they would sabotage us on the Hill. While they were obligated to obey their commander, they had the right to present their personal views to congressional committees publicly. That's all we needed: the top military brass led by Colin Powell, lined up in a row in direct confrontation with a new president who, they said, was sacrificing national security for the sake of a campaign promise to a special interest — all live on CNN.

Impassioned testimony from the highest-ranking black man in America denying the parallels between skin color and sexual orientation would trump our strongest civil rights argument for ending the ban...

Six months later, the president announced “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”— an outcome essentially identical to Powell's initial proposal and not far off from the earlier ban.

Grenada

[T]he president was on the phone to Tony Lake, screaming about our screwed-up foreign-policy team.. “The Reagan people were much better at the politics of foreign policy than we are. Look at Lebanon. They went into Grenada two days later and fixed it.”.

A few minutes later, as I listened with Sandy Berger to Tony's account of the president's tirade, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Grenada? That's how we should handle things? Like Reagan? The answer to losing 250 marines in a terrorist attack is to stage the invasion of a tiny country?