Regarding this morning’s post, What Bill Clinton Hath Wrought?, a reader writes:
In all fairness to Clinton and Gore, Gore wasn’t the first presidential candidate to put self-interest before the good of the nation. Aaron Burr had that dubious distinction in the presidential election of 1800. But it is notable that it was exactly two hundred years before another man decided to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis rather than graciously concede defeat for the greater good of his country.
Small correction: Burr was the candidate for vice president, not president; so I guess it is fair to say that Gore was the first legitimate presidential candidate to plunge the country into constitutional crisis. Although, come to think of it, wasn’t there some controversy surrounding Hayes’ election in the nineteenth century? Maybe every hundred years, give or take, we’re simply burdened with public figures who cannot put the good of their country before the temptations of power.
She also provides two very helpful links:
ONE TO A DISCUSSION OF THE ELECTION OF 1800
AND ONE TO A DISCUSSION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
Read ’em! They’re good!
I should perhaps explain the nature of the thesis I was proposing, though. It wasn’t that Al Gore was the first presidential candidate to plunge the nation into a constitutional crisis or that Bill Clinton was the first such candidate to put self-interest ahead of the good of the nation.
Unfortunately, American history is tumultuous enough and populated with enough rogues that neither of these men were first of their kinds.
Previous presidential (and, as the reader points out, even vice-presidential) candidates, including some very famous ones, have put naked ambition and self-interest ahead of the country, both in ways that led to previous constitutional crises and other grave disasters for the country.
My thesis is therefore rather more restricted. It is that, (1) after a period in which several presidents and presidential candidates displayed the statesmanship to put the good of the party and the country ahead of personal ambition, we now have entered a period in which once again the nation is being harmed by naked ambition and self-interest being put ahead of the common good, and (2) Bill Clinton may have played a key role in the historical genesis of this era.
In other words, we’ve regressed.
