Throughout his presidency, Clinton made a point of getting close - physically and emotionally - to the people whose problems his administration was working to solve.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Clinton was a president who used his office, in creative ways, to try to reinvigorate the federal government to benefit the majority.
But I think what happened was that Clinton knew how to fight back. And the way he fought back was on the issues - being tough in staying on the things that mattered to people in their lives.
Bill Clinton was in the line of great progressive presidents who faced the realities in his own time and applied innovative solutions to problems.
Of all recent presidents, Clinton was expected to behave the most sensibly in economic matters. He understood how the economy works. But because he had used various dodges to stay out of the Vietnam War, he came to office ill at ease with the military.
Clinton is a big personality who has led a big life, and for some of the media conventional wisdom to boil it down to a view that 'all people are really interested in' are a few moments of madness in the Oval Office gets him, the importance of the presidency, and the significance of his life, all wrong.
At the same time, Clinton was doing a lot things right, like the economy.
In the time it takes to heat a TV dinner, Clinton had convinced me that he was the smartest person in the room and that I was the center of his attention. In the next 25 years, I would see countless others fall just as quickly to the Clinton Touch.
President Clinton intentionally created a structure that was a little loose. And one that kept him a little in the center. He didn't want one person filtering all the information that went to him. He had always operated with a lot of information coming in and a lot of stuff going out.
The first term of the Clinton administration was very jolly. Everybody was running around meeting people and of course, in the second term, everyone went down the black hole, which also happened at the end of the Reagan administration.
I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on.
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