The Clinton Riddle: Perspectives on the Forty-second President.

The Clinton Riddle: Perspectives on the Forty-second President. Edited by Todd G. Shields, Jeannie M. Whayne, and Donald R. Kelley. Foreword by David H. Pryor. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2004. Pp. xviii, 310. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 1-55728-780-5.)

Bill Clinton is on pace to be one of the most written-about presidents of the twentieth century. Articles and books, including Clinton's own oddly underestimated memoir, continue to appear at almost the same rate they did at the height of his presidency. The Clinton Riddle: Perspectives on the Forty-second President is a collection of scholarly essays that originated as conference papers delivered at the University of Arkansas in 2002. As the "eclectic and interdisciplinary group of scholars" who contributed to this volume well understand, anyone currently trying to come to grips with the Clinton presidency begins with two disadvantages: a lack of perspective and, with the bulk of the Clinton papers still closed to scholars, a lack of sources (p. xii). So it is not surprising that this volume has no overarching themes or startling new information. That said, most of the contributors are basically sympathetic to Clinton and his policies, and they seem to suggest he did about as well as anyone had a right to expect given his weak political base, the implacability of his Republican opponents, and the absence of crises that would allow him to play the hero.

The ten major essays that make up this collection roughly fall into three categories. One category addresses Clinton's domestic leadership, where the reviews are mixed. Darlene Clark Hine offers the most positive assessment, arguing that he connected with African Americans better than any president in history, due, among other reasons, to the diversity of his political appointments, his steadfast support for affirmative action, and his official apologies for such past governmental wrongdoings as the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Critics may have scoffed when Toni Morrison described Clinton as the first black president, but Hine makes it clear that many African Americans believed him to be the least prejudiced of all American presidents--someone who genuinely believed in their equality and humanity. Clinton's strong support among women is the subject of an essay by political scientist Dorothy McBride Stetson, who argues that Clinton's public policies outweighed his personal transgressions. Stetson even counts welfare reform in his favor, blaming the harsher aspects of the final measure on the Republicans and not Clinton. Two other political scientists, David Brady and D. Sunshine Hillygus, who devised a model for evaluating a president's effectiveness with Congress, award Clinton high marks for his legislative leadership.

But another political scientist, Betty Glad, chides Clinton on the "character issue," although not in the expected way. She agrees with defenders of the Clinton impeachment that the proper measure of a president' s character is his public life and not his personal. On this score she gives him high marks. But she also argues that Clinton was too transparent--that he revealed too much of himself in public and thereby diminished the mystique that can make a leader more effective. Ken Bode draws upon his own experience covering Clinton for CNN to assess Clinton's relationship with the media. Bode does not neglect the excesses of his guild's coverage of Clinton, but he does suggest that Clinton did much to curry ill favor with the media by refusing to own up, early on, to his personal transgressions.

The second category of essays attempts to place Clinton's presidency into historical perspective. In a wide-ranging piece, Dan Carter views Clinton within the context of the modern conservative movement. Thirty years in the making, that movement both shaped Clinton's policy choices and limited their success. By the 1990s, Carter argues, conservatives held the upper hand, ideologically, politically, and economically, and there was little Clinton could do about it. For Randy Roberts the dominant reality of the 1990s was not conservative control but the emergence of a celebrity-crazed culture that required presidents to entertain above all else. Within the realm of American culture, Roberts argues, the Clinton presidency represented a "radical departure ... [and] signaled the coming of age of the postmodern, celebrity president and presidency" (p. 213).

Three of the strongest and most focused essays deal with foreign policy, the third category. Randall B. Woods discusses the influence of Clinton's onetime mentor, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. In a critical piece June Teufel Dreyer traces Clinton's zigzag course toward China, arguing that he ended up where his predecessor, George W. Bush, had. In perhaps the collection's most substantive essay, Robert Levgold analyzes Clinton's stance toward Russia and Eastern Europe. Since September 11, 2001, commentators have been scouring Clinton's record for information on how he dealt with terrorist threats. But Levgold reminds us that Russia, not Al Qaeda, was the most important threat to international stability during the 1990s. On balance he gives Clinton high marks for the way he dealt with Russia and its former satellites in the post-Cold War period.

No collection of this type can be comprehensive. Economic developments receive short shrift, and Clinton's supporting cast, notably Hillary Clinton, seldom come out of the shadows. But if The Clinton Riddle lacks the broad coverage of such other scholarly collections as Steven E. Schier's excellent The Postmodern Presidency: Bill Clinton's Legacy in U.S. Politics (Pittsburgh, 2000), it is more freewheeling and provocative. For general readers and non-specialists it is an especially good introduction to the Clinton presidency.

PATRICK MANEY

University of South Carolina