Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Bill Clinton Comes Home to Georgetown

On Wednesday, the former president Clinton came back to Gaston Hall to say that America had moved in that direction under his administration – but is now dominated by a Republican leadership that governs according to narrow partisan interests.

Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd, Clinton said that when he first developed his campaign platform, he was trying to move away from a politics that forced people to choose between two extremes.

“It’s not that we want a bland, mushy, meaningless politics,” Clinton said. “But we want it to be connected somehow to the real lives of real people.”

As an example, he cited the passage of the 1996 welfare reforms. Clinton vetoed the first two bills sent to him by the Republican-controlled Congress, but signed the third version into law despite objections from some of his closest advisors who said the bill’s work requirements were too stringent.

By contrast, Clinton said, Republicans in power today see themselves as the heirs to an ideological movement that began with Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign and came to dominate national politics following the election of Ronald Reagan as president. The Republican movement seeks to consolidate wealth and power “in the hands of the right people – right in both senses,” he said.

Clinton’s address was the featured event at a conference sponsored by the left-leaning Center for American Progress called “Securing the Common Good,” which also included addresses by Clinton’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.).

But the former president’s remarks drew repeated comparisons between his administration and that of President Bush at a time of heightened political interest. Less than three weeks before midterm congressional elections, Democrats hope voter dissatisfaction with Bush will propel them to control of one or both houses of Congress.

Clinton also touted his administration’s economic record, and assailed Bush’s policies. He said that the economic plan he pushed through Congress by the slimmest of margins in 1993 had benefited the middle class, wonkishly rattling off figures on hourly wages and job creation.

The Bush administration, he said, passed tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of projects that could serve the general welfare, like college aid and implementing the reforms suggested by the 9/11 Commission.

“To achieve the common good, you have to believe in equal opportunity,” Clinton said.

A panel discussion on the common good preceded Clinton’s speech, and included several of Clinton’s former advisors, as well as Washington Post columnist and Georgetown Public Policy Institute Professor E.J. Dionne.

Clinton offered praise for his alma mater, saying that Georgetown had shaped his political philosophy and pursuit of the common good.

“I really believed more strongly when I left here than when I came that ideas matter,” he said. He urged students in the audience to take away from their education what he had.

“Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or an independent, I ask you to remember the tradition that you learned here,” he said. “This is an institution, which believes in the life of the mind.”

Clinton closed his remarks with an analogy. He noted that, when scientists successfully mapped the human genome, they discovered that 99.9 percent of the human genetic structure is identical for everyone. He said that while it is common to focus on that .1 percent of difference among human beings, people have much more in common.

After the speech, which drew prolonged applause from the audience, Clinton answered a few questions written by Georgetown students and faculty. At one point, he launched into a detailed discussion of political strategy that could foreshadow the type of advice he might give his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), if she chooses to run for president in 2008.

Asked how candidates should respond to negative advertisements from their opponents, Clinton said that, if the ads were untrue, candidates should respond with their own spots that include clips of the other ad. That way, he said, candidates would discredit the false information and turn the ad into a positive asset for their campaigns.

“That’s what I would do,” he said. “But what do I know? I’m not running for anything anymore”.

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