THE NEW YORK TIMES
Tuesday, January 21, 1997
ON MY MIND
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A.M. ROSENTHAL
WE HARDLY KNOW HIM
For the oppressed of the earth, the victims of dictatorships and religious tyrannies, the most important sentences in President Clinton's Inaugural speech came toward the end. "Our hopes, our hearts, our hands are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom," he said. "Their cause is America's cause. "The passage is a matter of American belief, history and value, yes.
But long before the Inaugural he put it forward as also the essence
of American self-interest. With lucidity he had explained that governments based on political and religious freedom for their people have to consult their citizens on matters of importance. So they are
less likely to go to war or build economic and propaganda blackmail into their relations with other nations. Mr. Clinton's foreign-policy aides gave it a name: democratic realism, as contrasted to the old Realpolitik that caused so many wars. But Mr. Clinton, we hardly know you. It was four years ago that he delivered that passage, in his first Inaugural. In his second, he had the decency not to repeat it or its substance. After he was elected in 1992, he killed his own policy oh tying trade with Communist China to progress on human rights - not real democracy and freedom, just some easing of the arrests, torture, slave labor, religious persecution and forced abortions that the Communists use to control China and occupied Tibet. Without a U.S. human rights policy, the oppression of dissidents in China and Tibet increased sharply. Mr. Clinton responded by inviting to the White House the very general who ordered the slaughter a Tiananmen Square. Talk of democratic realism and U.S. support for the causes of fre
edom became ugly to the ear. How long should it take to know a man you encounter every day by listening, thinking, hearing about him? Four years and we do not know him. He does a variety of good things abroad - sometimes in action, as in Haiti, sometimes through influence, as in the Mideast. And sometimes in word. He preaches the religious and racial harmony he plainly believes necessary for the peace of the individual soul and of nations. But the same man permits the clandestine sale of weapons to the Bosnian Muslims by Iran. This helps give the enemy of religious harmony a foothold in a slice of Europe that can never live in peace without it. He talks about helping the poorest children of America. But he goes along with a welfare revision that would allow states to reduce help to dependent children before their parents have a job. He lectures on the imperative need to stop proliferation of weapons of mass death but looks away when China sells missiles and nuclear technology to other dictatorships. The Pres
ident believes in diversity. But as new inspiration he puts forward the vanillaization of American politics - the blending of spicily different Republican and Democratic philosophies into a bland milkshake. He talks about fighting drugs but never has the energy or desire to lead the struggle. The same is true about individual responsibility, a theme of the second Inaugural Address. Mr. Clinton blames only his aides for scandals from the purloined F.B.I. files to the payments by foreign businesses to the Democratic treasury. I voted for Mr. Clinton. Twice. The first time was with enthusiasm, for two reasons. Democratic realism is my political passion. And to Saddam Hussein's astonishment. President Bush left him alive and in power. The second time I voted with grump. The Republicans gave me no choice I could accept. Bob Dole on Chinese human rights and welfare kids seemed a Clinton clone - and was also against decent gun control. Anyway, in my late teens I discovered I could not name the exact day of my arriv
al from Canada at the age of 4. That made me an illegal alien. I was allowed to finish a free college; nobody suggested otherwise. The thought did occur to me that if Mr. Dole had had his way I would have been thrown out of kindergarten. I figure the President owes me something, me and the others who voted with grump, so that after eight years we might say, pleasantly, that we know the man. Constancy is the word I am thinking of.
