High Hopes

Front matter

HIGH HOPES

IGH rl

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London

CHAPTER 6 Character and Presidential Psychology 119

PART HI. GROWING UP, COMING OF AGE

CHAPTER 7 His Mother’s Son 145 CHAPTER 8 Adoration and Abandonment: The Clinton Family 166 CHAPTER 9 Some Consequences of Hope: A Tale of Two Women 183

CHAPTER 10 Vietnam and the Draft 200 CHAPTER 11 A Life’s Choice: Hillary Rodham Clinton 216

PART IV. THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CHARACTER

CHAPTER 12 Judgment and Leadership: The Core of Presidential Performance 245 CHAPTER 13 Clinton’s Presidency 259

PART V. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 14 Lost Opportunities: President Clinton’s First Term 285

APPENDIX Bill Clinton’s Character and Presidency: A Note on Method 307

Notes 319 References 367 Subject Index 391 Name Index 399

* ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

B the effort to clarify and refine my analysis, to address and where possible integrate the various strands of evidence, and to develop frameworks that do them and the questions asked of them justice, I have benefited enormously from the help of many others.

I would like to thank the following people who have read and commented, sometimes more than once, on successive versions of this book. My sincere thanks to John Fiscalini, Lloyd Etheredge, Alexander L. George, Fred I. Greenstein, Edwin P. Hollinder, Bruce Mazlish, Jerrold M. Post, William McKinley Runyan, Peter Suedfeld, Sheldon Zalkind, and Stephen J. Wayne. Their comments, questions, and disagreements have been most helpful.

I was also very fortunate to have had the stimulation and excellent theoretical observations afforded by two doctoral seminars I recently taught on the presidency at the City University Graduate Center, one specifically on the Clinton presidency and the other on the modern presidency. I would like to thank the students in those classes, and especially Beth Brofee, Dan Cook, Robert Geary, Tom Kono, and Andrew Sway.

I presented this work in several contexts as it evolved. I would like to single out for special mention iny colleagues at the Training and Research Institute for Self Psychology (TRISP), especially Harry Paul, Doris Brothers, and Richard Ulman. They were very helpful in refining my thinking regardx k ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ing ambition, idealization, and the object relations implications of the theory of character presented herein.

I had a number of opportunities to present and discuss my work on the Clinton presidency during a sabbatical spent as a Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University during the 1995 academic year and wish to acknowledge, with appreciation, that opportunity. Dean Alan Altschuler helpfully facilitated my time there. While at the Kennedy School, I was associated with the Leadership Development Project directed by Ronald Heifetz, M.D., from whom I learned a great deal about that subject.

Several graduate students assisted me in the development of this book. I would like to thank Suzanne DiMaggio, Jasmine Farrier, and Ann E. Zemaitis for their diligent research and retrieval skills.

This work was also supported by two grants to the author from the City University Faculty Research Award Program. I am very appreciative for the help those grants provided in conducting my research.

Charlotte Sheedy, my literary agent, encouraged me and this work, and I am very appreciative for her confidence in both.

Niko Pfund, editor in chief at New York University Press, was extremely supportive of this project. His skillful suggestions and collaborative working style make him an author’s true friend. I thank him. Despina Papazoglou Gimbel, managing editor at the press, supervised the copyediting and production of the book with attention, care, and dispatch. The copyeditor, David Updike, did a superb job of copyediting the manuscript.

My family, Judith, David, and Jonathan, have been the sustaining force and the great pleasure of my life. Their support was my constant companion throughout my writing.

* PREFACE

A president’s personal strengths and limitations are the foundation of what he will accomplish in office. His ambitions, ideals, and sense of who he is and where he wants to lead all matter enormously for the direction and effectiveness of his presidential leadership. The presidency is clearly a office where psychology counts.

It counts all the more in Bill Clinton’s case because his presidency spans a critical period in American and world history. The Cold War is over. Yet, Americans face daunting economic and social problems and are increasingly divided about how to address them. Many Americans were hopeful that Bill Clinton would resolve these divisions. He is an engaging man and a talented politician. But Clinton has emerged as a president of extremes, combining immense personal and political skills with equally evident personal and political flaws. Not surprisingly, his presidency has been characterized by substantial accomplishments and equally substantial difficulties. This pattern has followed Clinton throughout his public life.

Political analysts are deeply divided about his presidency, as is the public. Many admire him. He is clearly smart, is knowledgeable about the nuances of many aspects of domestic policy, and has focused on and tried to resolve long-standing public problems like health care. He is determined to leave his personal and political imprint, and has proposed the most ambitious schedule of policy initiatives in thirty years. Indeed, Clinton xi xii k PREFACE may be the most ambitious and knowledgeable president in the last two decades.

Yet he is also widely distrusted and in some quarters vehemently disliked. Such widely divergent feelings toward a political leader are uncommon. Only Richard Nixon—whom, in some interesting ways, Clinton resembles— generated such passionate and diverse feelings. Clinton is, and is likely to remain, a controversial president.

There are also puzzling contradictions in his presidential accomplishments, and in the public’s response to them. In the first three years of his presidency he accomplished a substantial amount. Yet voters overwhelmingly repudiated his leadership, and his party, in the 1994 midterm elections. Many question whether he can be reelected and, if he is, whether he will be able to accomplish many of his goals. Even if he is reelected, Clinton may ultimately be judged to have failed as a president and leader. Such intensely divergent evaluations of a president whose administration is unfolding during such a critical period in our history, coupled with the apparent contradictions in his character and personality, make understanding this complex, controversial man all the more important.

These strong and conflicting popular views have limited what we understand about Clinton and his approach to political leadership and social policy. For a man who has been in elected public office almost all of his adult life, there is surprisingly little understanding of the forces that have shaped him, and certainly no consensus about his accomplishments.

Like other presidents before him, Clinton has supplied a number of details about his life and career. However, presidents’ views of their own development are not necessarily the most reliable guide to understanding them. Reporters and other analysts covering the Clinton presidency have tended to focus on particular policy victories or setbacks. Did the budget and NAFTA pass? Did President Clinton backtrack on his commitments to Haiti or to reform military policy toward homosexuals? Will he manage to gain reelection after the sweeping midterm election successes of the Republicans in 1994? While each of these issues is important, focusing on discrete issues in terms of winning or losing obscures the patterns underlying presidential performance.

This book steps away from the day-to-day scorecard analyses and places Clinton’s performance in a broader context. My goal is to examine Bill Clinton’s psychology —and how it developed—and to trace its influence on his approach to presidential leadership. I do so by drawing on theories of political leadership and psychology. More specifically, I make use of psychological theories of character and personality, theories

PREFACE x xiii of presidential leadership and performance, and theories of public psychology.

A psychologically framed analysis of Bill Clinton and his presidency will not resolve every question raised by his performance. But neither can his puzzling contradictions, his missteps, and his accomplishments be fully understood without it.

This book’s title, High Hopes, refers to the public’s investment in the success of the Clinton presidency, an investment borne of increasing anxiety and mounting frustration with the American political process in the last few decades. A New York Times/CBS News poll taken just before Clinton’s inauguration suggested that “Americans await Bill Clinton’s presidency with revived optimism about the nation and its economy and a pre-inaugural burst of confidence in him as an effective leader who cares about them” (Clymer 1993b). The phrase “high hopes” refers as well to Clinton’s own ambitions, and reminds us that presidential leadership is, in reality, a triangular relationship consisting of the president, the public, and the problems they both face and wish to resolve.!

In the subtitle, “the Clinton presidency” refers both to the man, Bill Clinton, and the institution he occupies. Each presidency unfolds in an institutional setting whose history, development, and resources require consideration on their own grounds, as well as for their effects on the particular person who occupies the office. This broadened concept of the Clinton presidency is an important vehicle for analyzing Clinton’s ability and success in using the powers, and addressing the responsibilities of the office.*

The phrase “politics of ambition” reflects a key element of any modern president’s psychology, but one especially prominent in Clinton’s character. Yet character, however conspicuous, gains its importance not so much from its prominence as from its effects. Hence, the term “politics of ambition” reflects not only the importance of ambition per se, but its direct relationship to the carrying out of presidential responsibilities.

The Clinton administration is a presidency of many words. Much has been said by the president himself about his policies, his leadership, and his prospects. Much more has been said by others on these same subjects, including, at the end of the first term of his presidency, a substantial number of books, some of which are quite good. Any author or reader must therefore ask: Why another study of President Clinton and his administration? What rationale is there for one specifically framed by the theories of political psychology?

Given the office’s growing responsibilities, vast resources, and central location in governance and public decision-making, every modern presidency is consequential. However, some presidents, because of the particular historical period in which they seek and gain office, face a particularly striking range of opportunities and challenges. Their presidencies unfold in particularly acute historical times, domestically, internationally, or, on rare occasions, both. The Clinton presidency is just such a presidency.

Clinton’s is the first presidency to fully unfold in the post-Cold-War period. The competitive, hostile Cold-War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States no longer dominates and structures international politics. However, no comparable set of dominant relationships in the international system has emerged to take its place. The role of the United States in this emerging context is, as yet, unclear. So are the rules of engagement and the circumstances in which it is necessary to become involved. Every action, or decision not to act, therefore, runs the risk of becoming a premature or inappropriate precedent.

In the domestic arena, the Clinton presidency is also unfolding at a time of great political uncertainty and conflict. The institution of the presidency itself has been attacked both as overreaching and imperial (Schlesinger 1973) and as ineffective, its powers and potential unrealized (Lowi 1984). Of the six presidents who occupied the White House between John F. Kennedy’s assassination and Bill Clinton’s inauguration, four (Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Bush) were unable to gain another term, and one (Nixon) gained another term but was forced to resign. Clinton, as the 1994 midterm elections made clear, is in danger of becoming the sixth of seven presidents who have failed to accomplish this limited reflection of adequate presidential performance.

Public identification with the major parties has continued to decline, as the rise of a serious third party challenge in 1992 underscored. Rather than

INTRODUCTION x 3 fading away, Ross Perot and his followers continue to play an important public role. Speculation about third party candidates in the 1996 presidential campaign, such as Senator Bill Bradley or retired General Colin Powell, whose “character—solidity, strength, effectiveness—is his main selling point” (Gates 1995, 77), reflect, even as they further encourage, an unstable political climate.

Moreover, confidence in the government’s ability to resolve public problems has declined, as has the public’s faith in its political institutions. The major political frameworks on which public consensus has traditionally rested now give every appearance of having irreparably broken down. The question is, What will take their place?

The times are right for the presidential politics of reconstruction (Skowronek 1993, 36). The 1992 presidential campaign revealed “a deep yearning for charismatic leadership . . . in substantial parts of the American populace” (Mazlish 1994, 751). Such a situation is full of opportunity for an ambitious, smart president like Bill Clinton. But it also contains a number of dangers, not the least of which is having to both lead and govern a suspicious and volatile public. The opportunities for Clinton to forge a new political framework are matched only by the consequences if he fails to do so.

Wuy A POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY STUDY OF PRESIDENT CLINTON?

I have already suggested why a study of the Clinton presidency is important. But why is an analysis specifically framed by the theories and perspectives of political psychology useful? The reasons are to be found in the nature of the office and the man who occupies it.

Clinton is a man who evokes strong feelings, both for and against him. He is also a man whose inconsistencies have profoundly puzzled reporters, pundits, and academics alike. Thus far, there has been little theory to guide us in making sense of these contradictions. Much of what is puzzling about Clinton “stems from inner complexities that do not figure in ... any classification” (Greenstein 1993-94, 597). In this study I seek to provide just such a theory, one that looks at Bill Clinton’s character from the perspectives of ambition, integrity, and his relationships with others.

Character and psychology are important in shaping presidential performance, including the president’s responses to particular circumstances. The purpose of a psychologically informed analysis, however, is not to prove

4 k INTRODUCTION that character or presidential psychology explains everything. It will rarely do that in any event. Rather, the challenge of such an analytical focus is to specify what psychological aspects of functioning affect which aspects of presidential performance, and to further clarify the circumstances under which they do so.?

Character is a vertical as well as a horizontal psychological concept. That is, the effects of character are evident throughout an individual’s psychological functioning. Character is found not only in the deepest recesses of an individual’s psyche, but in the everyday world of accessible and observable behavior. A president’s ambition, sense of who he is (identity), the level and means by which his ambition manifests itself, and how he organizes his interpersonal relationships are often plainly evident, even to untrained observers.

In examining Bill Clinton’s character and its relation to his performance as president, I do not assume that the latter is reducible to the former or that psychological factors are determinative. Clinton’s character and psychology do shape his presidency; however, both are mediated through a number of important filters, including his beliefs, his political and personal skills, and the political calculus of the circumstances he must confront.

This last item is crucial. No president operates in a psychological vacuum. He must contend with the conditions he faces. A president’s understanding of and response to the circumstances he inherits or makes provide important opportunities to better understand his psychology. Most presidents try to shape or respond selectively to circumstances in order to accomplish their purposes. This presents the president, as it would any person, with a range of possible ways to act. By examining the range of choices available to the president as well as those he selects, both within and across circumstances, one can begin to discern the underlying patterns of psychology that shape his behavior. Such an examination of Clinton’s responses is thus an important part of this book.

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE PRESIDENCY

No president controls all the forces he faces, which has led some to question whether any president can be a true “event-making” man.* However, the importance of a president’s character, judgment, and leadership does not rest on any “great man” theory of presidential impact. A president does not have to change history in order for his presidency to have consequences.

The presidency has become a highly developed and institutionalized fulcrum of governmental activity. It is the combination of public expectation and the vast resources and sophisticated governmental procedures under the presidents command that have institutionalized presidential impact, not the greatness of the men who have occupied this position.

The presidency is an office in which the individual psychology of its occupants, their personal strengths and limitations, has a pronounced effect. Some presidents seek more power; others are satisfied with less. Some presidents are skillful in exercising the powers of their office and making use of the leadership resources available to them; others are less able. Some, like Clinton, appear to combine both tendencies.

The importance of a president’s psychology is augmented by the fact that few presidential behaviors are formally mandated. The more general descriptions of the president as commander-in-chief, titular head of his political party, or, more recently, as “interpreter-in-chief” (Stuckey 1991) describe role constructions that leave a great deal of personal leeway to a president as to whether, to what extent, and how he chooses (or is able) to carry them out. Moreover, the fact that Clinton’s presidency is unfolding in the midst of complex and uncharted shifts in domestic and international circumstances oblige us to consider his psychology more seriously. Contextual ambiguity and a lack of clear norms increase the importance of a leader’s psychological attributes (Greenstein 1969, 50-51).

Few circumstances that a president faces dictate one, and only one, response. Even among narrowly constrained options, a president’s choices make a difference. These choices ultimately rest on the man—his vision, convictions, and ideals. The adequacy of his choices rest on the powers of his social and political analysis and, ultimately, on the quality of his judgment. His ability to translate his choices into policies rest on his political skills—his capacities to mobilize, orchestrate, and consolidate public acceptance of his views of what needs to be done. Ultimately, his ability to lead and govern rest on his ambitions, courage, and integrity. In short, a president’s capacity to shape circumstances, even those he has inherited, into Opportunity, and opportunity into accomplishment, is powerfully affected, though not fully determined, by his psychology.

CLINTON’S CHALLENGES

On gaining office President Clinton faced a substantial array of problems. In foreign affairs the basic question is how exactly the United States should

6 *x INTRODUCTION view and respond to its responsibilities and interests in a paradoxical environment where it is the remaining superpower in an increasingly interdependent world. Domestically, the question is whether, and on what basis, government can effectively carry out its responsibilities when its very legitimacy to do so is in public doubt, and when its traditional solutions to social problems have not worked.

Each of these issues is enormously complex and important. Together they represent the most profound set of challenges to a president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and even Roosevelt had to deal first with an economy in severe decline, and only later with the gathering storm of European fascism that resulted in World War II.

President Clinton faces extraordinary challenges in both areas at the same time. Even under less trying circumstances, the modern presidency requires of its occupants strong, well-refined political skills, a temperament able to deal effectively with the frustrations and demands of the office, and a strong characterological foundation for the psychological resources that he brings to bear on his presidential responsibilities. Times of great challenge require of a president that he have more, not less, of these characteristics. Exceptional challenges require of presidents who come to office during those periods exceptional attributes.

The question before us, therefore, is not whether Clinton’s psychology affects his presidential performance. It undoubtedly does, but, as Iwill show, that in itself is only the first step in answering two more compelling questions: Does President Clinton possess the requisite qualities of political judgment, vision, character, and skill to meet the daunting challenges he faces both domestically and internationally? And if he has these qualities, does he also have the capacity to utilize them?

A MAN OF PUZZLING CONTRADICTIONS

These questions are not as paradoxical as they might first appear. Clinton is a man of enormous appetites—for information, for attention, for food, for activity. Consider two of Clinton’s “most frequently uttered words”:

What else. What else. What else. He was always working the telephone in search of outside information. ... Clinton wanted the latest reading on Clinton’s political futures, up or down.... He was a young man of oversized appetites. Any aide who spent time with him could tell stories of his inhaling apples in a few massive bites, swallowing them core and all.

Hot dogs went down so fast they barely touched his teeth . . . what else. What else. What else. (Maraniss 1995, 383)

Clinton’s appetites made him an exciting man to work for. Many found the experience exhilarating. “Life around him seemed more vital, closer to the edge, less routine, more physically and intellectually challenging” (Maraniss 1995, 382). Clinton is clearly a man with a substantial psychological presence; the question has always been whether he brings with it equally large psychological flaws.

There is considerable consensus that Clinton brings substantial personal and political talents to his presidency. One unfortunate by-product of this consensus is that his undeniable talents have often been taken as a given. As a result, they are more often the subject of admiration (when he succeeds or among those for whom his success is important) or lament (when he fails to live up to what is seen as his promise) than analysis.

Why do his talents need closer examination? Because for all the substantial talents he possesses, he has too frequently been on the brink of failure or busy recovering from it. While many agree he is extremely talented, many of his major setbacks seem primarily an avoidable result of his own behavior.

Clinton’s personal and political strengths have often been overshadowed and undercut by his character and psychology. His strengths cannot be adequately considered in a psychological or political vacuum. They coexist with other elements of his psychology, some of which reinforce, others of which may inhibit, his capacities.

Political strengths are geared toward accomplishing specific purposes. Are Clinton’s particular skills, however impressive, the talents necessary for a successful presidency in this political period? Are the skills and talents that might allow Clinton to pass new expansive government programs necessarily responsive to what Americans are asking of their president in this historical period?

Even if we were to find a good match between Clinton’s talents and what present political circumstances appear to require (domestically or internationally), the question remains whether he has applied, or is fully able to effectively apply, his talents. This is not a splitting of conceptual hairs. There are very intelligent people who would be able to lead far more satisfying and productive lives were it not for other elements in their psychologies. Presidential talents and skills are embedded in, influenced by, and even grow out of an interior psychological constellation. Sometimes a president’s psychology reinforces his talents; sometimes it inhibits their full use.°

This helps explain some puzzling anomalies in Clinton’s pattern of learning. There is a generally held view among political analysts that Clinton is a man who learns from his mistakes. Assessing the Clinton presidency after a difficult first year, one observer noted, “Bill Clinton is incapable of sustained error, as some say, and I tend to agree, he will learn the lessons” (Brummett 1994, 273; see also Greenstein 1995, 143). But Clinton can also be a slow learner. Two years into his presidency, for example, after his battle over the nomination of Lani Guinier for attorney general, Clinton was again struggling with a controversial performance in nominating Dr. Henry W. Foster, Jr., for surgeon general. Writing in the New York Times, R. W. Apple (1994a) noted that many Democrats were blaming the Clinton administration for “bungling” the appointment.’ Representative Tom Sawyer of Ohio, who won a tough reelection fight in 1992, complained that the administration “has a long, long learning curve.” Senator J. Bennett Johnson, a four-term Louisiana Democrat, said, “What people are saying about the Foster thing is: There he goes again. Can’t he learn how to run his office, even after two years? Why can’t he be more competent? He has such towering strengths, but also such appalling faults.”

The complaints about Clinton’s performance, however, appear alongside accolades to his enormous talents. John Brummett, a reporter who covered Clinton for many years in Arkansas, writes that, he was the best politician of his era and a man of dizzying brainpower and awesome policy command. There was his disarming charm; he was almost impossible to dislike in a personal meeting. There was his mind-boggling accomplishment; he rose from the middle class and a backwater culture to become a Rhodes Scholar, a governor by thirty-two, and a president by forty-six. (1994, 4)

Meredith Oakley, an Arkansas reporter and author of a recent political biography of Clinton, asks,

Do you want to see a political genius? Turn on the television and watch the evening news. Chances are you'll be looking at him. Here in Arkansas it happens all the time: Bill Clinton dominates the broadcast and print media, but then that has been the case for most of the last eighteen years. (1994, xi)

Ernest Dumas, who covered Governor Clinton as a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette, and who recently assembled a compilation of remembrances of Clinton by those who knew and worked with him, wrote,

Few Americans have ever had the exterior gifts of a politician in such abundance.

Bill Clinton was handsome, loquacious, and tireless. He always exhibited a boundless optimism. He met people with grace and facility, and a prodigious memory never let him forget them. He had what seemed to be a compulsive need to meet people, to know them, to like them, to have them like him.... Bill Clinton is a case where a man’s deepest human instinct perfectly matched, maybe even gave rise to, his most abiding ambition. (1993, xvi)

According to Dumas (and others), there seems to be a remarkable fit between Clinton’s talents and ambitions and the capacities needed to be a good, if not extraordinary, president. These talents, extracting from the above list, would include his brainpower (intelligence, memory, verbal facility), his knowledge of policy, personal energy, optimism, and ability to reach out to and engage people (charm, need to like and be liked). Given these talents, several commentators (Alter 1994; Franklin 1995) feel that President Clinton’s successes have not been given enough credit.

Others are not so sure. Throughout his public life many have come to distrust and dislike him. During the presidential campaign, he evaded and dissembled when asked about his avoidance of the draft during the Vietnam War, his smoking of marijuana, and his extramarital relations. One year into his administration, Bob Herbert (1994) characterized President Clinton as a “truth sculptor,” while Charles Peters (1994) noted “a history of difficulty with the truth.” The title and content of Floyd Brown’s book, “Slick Willie”: Why America Cannot Trust Bill Clinton, suggest that admiration for Clinton’s capacity for greatness is not universal.® Elizabeth Drew concluded her study of Clinton’s first two years in office by suggesting that “to the end, Clinton’s presidency would be a war between his ambitions and his flaws” (1994, 421).

Nor is the idea that Clinton is a political genius universally shared. Brummett, whose glowing characterization of Clinton was noted, wrote of Clinton’s first year in office,

The real story of this horrible beginning is that Clinton wasn’t quite the governing genius as had been portrayed. . .. The Congress was seeing the Bill Clinton I had seen in Arkansas: an over-compensator and a strategic blunderer who spent half of his time during state legislative sessions walking a tightrope, wheeling and dealing widely at the end to pass something reasonably bold and meaningful. (1994, 62, 106)

Clinton’s record of academic and political accomplishment attests to his strong intellectual abilities, as does his capacity to give detailed, intelligent answers to complex and controversial questions. Moreover, Clinton’s capacity to reinvent himself, both over time and within the same campaign, suggests a strong intelligence at work. However, even some of Clinton’s talents, like his strong intelligence, are on closer inspection not all that they appear to be. The question begs itself: If Clinton is so smart, why does he take such large and in many cases unnecessary risks, as he did with his health-care plan, or his early moves away from the political center?

UNDERSTANDING THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY

What light can the theories of political psychology shed on the contradictory nature of Clinton and his performance as president? What light can they shed on his talents and limitations and the psychological and behavioral patterns that give rise to them? The answer in brief is that theories of political psychology, especially those that focus on individual psychology, can clarify the nature of Clinton’s psychology and help explain his talents, his limitations, and the circumstances in which each are likely to appear.

The psychological analysis of Clinton that follows provides new understandings of his character and his controversial political leadership. That is an important function of any analysis, but it is especially so when the “conventional wisdom” has faltered. But the importance of psychologically framed analysis is to be found not only in its uncovering of new ideas, but in its ability to alter our accepted views when they are mistaken, or to show how some of Clinton’s traits, like his supposed need to be liked, are actually much better understood as something quite different.