"Can the President Think?"...Continued

Readers respond to REASON's November cover story, and author Edith Efron responds to the readers.

From the March 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 8)

Edith Efron offers some convincing explanations as to why she considers Bill Clinton odd. Unfortunately, in doing so she loses track of the really interesting question, namely why so many people considered him so normal for so long. As an early and well-battered critic of Clinton's I was repeatedly reminded that whatever characteristics he possessed were not his alone, but resonated comfortably throughout the city's establishment.

What might be considered rational behavior by Efron or myself is regarded as archaic stodginess by postmodernists such as Clinton. In fact, to a true postmodernist, for whom words are merely tools of transient symbolic utility, the whole idea of a magazine called REASON is absurd. Again, Clinton is unfortunately not odd, but only an extreme product of the situational values, unremitting hubris, and manipulative skills taught by the nation's law and management schools in the 1980s. I have run into Clintonesque types who are university presidents, ministers, museum directors, and even farmers. I have, I confess, come to believe that you shouldn't trust anyone within a five-year standard deviation of Bill Clinton's age.

In describing Bill Clinton as crazy, we let our political and social culture off the hook. I think it more important to face up to the really sad truth that once again our electoral system gave us what we wanted. The good news is that we seem to have
discovered our mistake and that the failings of the Clintonadministration may have finally killed that excrementitious decade whose only service to the world was the invention of the minivan.

Sam Smith

Editor, The Progressive Review

Author, Shadows of Hope

Washington, D

As a libertarian subscriber to REASON, I have many reasons to lament Clinton's presidency, even to enjoy reading an accurate account of the clinical causes of its decline. But as a subscriber to REASON because I am enlightened by its analysis of policy, I was disappointed that you chose to sacrifice 48 columns (!) and cover status to an article that had nothing to do with policy.

Only in the last column of her article does Efron begin to touch upon questions which would have been interesting for us to explore more fully--namely, is there a systemic fault in our electoral process which permits, possibly even promotes, the election of idiots into higher office?

Boris Starosta

Charlottesville, VA

I was very disappointed by the fact that this magazine published a 24-page article purporting to present a psychological profile of Bill Clinton. As an economist I find such a topic inherently uninteresting. As a matter of fact, it makes very little difference to those suffering the adverse effects of Clinton's policies how those policies came to be formulated.

But more importantly, this article perpetuates the current media myth that the presidency is a powerful political institution in the formulation of domestic policy. Modern presidents have found themselves hampered by congressional budgetary powers and by the fact that their constituency includes many powerful interests on both sides of important policy debates. This latter fact often leads to paralysis in the executive branch. Congress, in contrast, deals with such special-interest conflicts on a piecemeal basis. The fact that Congress extended the committee system in the early 1970s by allowing subcommittees to proliferate is evidence of its desire to improve its dealings with special interests. If libertarians are interested in reducing the political power of those in Washington, they need to stop focusing on Bill Clinton (tempting target though he may be) and start thinking about a radical reform of the way Congress does business.

George S. Berger

Economics Department