Michael Tomasky

As part of the American Presidents Series, this book has been a long time coming. The author who originally was designated to write the Bill Clinton biography (Harold Evans, who is in his mid-80s) never came through. Michael Tomasky is a worthy replacement. He has written a book on the history of progressive politics in the US, and another on Hillary Clinton's 1999 senatorial race. He also is a contributor to The Daily Beast and The New York Review of Books and past editor of The American show more Prospect and Guardian America.

Tomasky's account of the Clinton presidency is fair and impartial, and as balanced a perspective as one might hope for. He documents the presidential successes as well as the failures, and does not whitewash the personal failings that marred Clinton's otherwise successful life and presidential tenure. As for successes, he can point to the incredible tripling of the Dow Jones average, the 22 million jobs created, the balancing of the Federal budget with the creation of a surplus, and the incredible 11% growth in median family income.

Having been written in 2016, Tomasky's account is sufficiently removed in time to acknowledge the "withering reexamination" of Clinton's terms in office by a younger generation of voters, for whom his "compromises on crime, welfare, and other matters were anathema" (p. 2). What's more, given the passage of a quarter of a century, he (and the reader) can look back dispassionately at the pseudo-scandals ginned up by his opponents. These included the White House travel office firings, his Whitewater investments (which, as his critics like to obscure, lost money), the time his staff scheduled a haircut while on Air Force One (causing a slight delay of other airplanes), and the suicide of Hillary's friend Vince Foster (which the irresponsible Wall Street Journal claimed -- against all evidence -- was a murder in which the Clintons were somehow involved). And of course there was the Lewinsky matter. As is well known, Bill had a few consensual intimate encounters with a female assistant who had targeted him for seduction. These voluntary encounters, and Clinton's reluctance to acknowledge them were what his rabid opponents tried to use to end his presidency.

Tomasky's account is no hagiography. For example, regarding the controversial trade agreement NAFTA, Clinton supporters often assert that the agreement was entirely the responsibility of GW Bush, Clinton's predecessor. To the contrary, Tomasky's account recognizes that the Clinton administration lobbied hard for it against labor unions and progressives in his own party. Likewise, he acknowledges the foreign policy failures, notably the myopia that allowed the mass slaughter in Rwanda to proceed unchecked. But against such failings are the reinstatement of Duvalier in Haiti following the military coup, and the UN intervention in Bosnia.

Tomasky's book breaks no new ground -- there are no revelations here, at least to those familiar with Clinton's presidency. That's to be expected of this sort of work. As a brief (150 page) summary of Bill Clinton's presidency and Hillary's public and private role, Tomasky's account is excellent. A dispassionate evaluation will find little with which to quarrel.

Note: The delay in publication of this work (due to age/ health of the originally chosen author) has led commentators at Amazon.com to claim that the book was somehow suppressed by Hillary Clinton. No evidence is offered for this bizarre, conspiratorial assertion. However, it shows that "Clinton derangement syndrome" -- fueled by "hate radio" and its print counterparts, lives on. Future historians will likely be utterly perplexed at the off-the-charts vitriol this engaging, likeable politician engendered from the rabid right wing, and will probably view with disgust the unprincipled attempts to remove him from office on a pretext. show less

If I told you that America today is deeply polarized, you could remind me that America has always been deeply polarized. You could point out that the current rural/urban divide is not so dissimilar from the Jeffersonian/Hamilton divide at the country’s founding. Or that the racial divide was never greater than during the Civil War, or that class division and conflict between labor and business was never greater than during the first Gilded Age and into the Great Depression. And you’d be show more right.

But what you’d be missing is the fact that polarization today is very different in a subtle way. As Michael Tomasky points out in his latest book, If We Can Keep It: How the Republic Collapsed and How it Might Be Saved, while we’ve always been a polarized country, our polarization has always consisted of both conflict between political parties and within parties. The fact that you used to have, for example, several liberal Republicans and several conservative Democrats meant that bipartisan coalitions could form to negotiate, compromise, and actually pass worthwhile legislation.

Today is a different story. Both left and right have drifted from the center. Radicalized versions of each party find it increasingly difficult to talk to each other, and, as a result, very little gets accomplished. This is what’s different about today.

In the first part of the book, Tomasky describes how the country arrived at this point, and it’s not pretty. It has a lot to do with the recent concentrated effort of the conservative movement to build a massive media outlet and pump a lot of money into the political process. But it also has more than a little to do with the left’s morphing into its own version of the right, employing some of the same tactics the right is known for, like suppressing speech and inciting violence.

Regardless of how it happened, we are living during a time where two ideologically opposed parties are drifting farther apart with no countervailing forces within each party to reel them back in. So what, if anything, can be done?

That’s where Tomasky’s 14-point agenda to reduce polarization comes in, which is covered in depth in the book’s final chapter. While even Tomasky is unsure whether his plan would actually work, he’s identified the political and social fixes that give us our best shot.

In terms of political fixes, some of his ideas seem to be feasible and could be implemented immediately, and some are, as Tomasky admits, unlikely to be adopted. But the extreme political environment we’re in requires extreme solutions, and a bit of thinking outside of the box is necessary if we’re going to make a serious effort to dig ourselves out of the partisan hole we’ve dug over the last quarter century.

Tomasky’s first idea seems to be a good one, supported by many: eliminating political gerrymandering. Done right, this would both ensure that political parties are not over- or underrepresented in Congress (based on the political composition of each state) and that elections could become more competitive.

His next best idea is the introduction of ranked-choice voting, which, among many other advantages, would produce more moderate politicians and less negative ad campaigns as politicians would now have to worry about appealing to all voters, so as to avoid being ranked last by a significant part of the voter base. This is the suggestion I would most like to see instituted. Of course, every policy has its tradeoffs, and ranked-choice voting can produce some bizarre outcomes mathematically, but it’s worth looking at, and the benefits seem to outweigh the costs.

Another idea that could be implemented immediately is the elimination of the Senate filibuster, which is not part of the Constitution and is simply a procedural tradition we should probably do away with. Eliminating the filibuster will put an end to the very undemocratic supermajority it requires to pass anything in the Senate.

Finally, getting rid of the Electoral College, or forcing the states to commit their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote (in addition to installing ranked-choice voting) would force presidential candidates to cater to those outside of their own base, incentivizing more moderate and civilized behavior.

As for social fixes, the overarching goal is to get people to talk to each other and work together, since it’s easier to hate someone you don’t know, or to hate the idea of someone you have in your head that may or may not reflect reality. To promote this kind of collaboration, Tomasky is recommending high school and college “foreign exchange” programs within the United States, so that northern liberals can work with southern conservatives and vice versa. He also suggests that college be reduced from four years to three years, with the final year dedicated to civil service. I’m not so sure about that one (sacrificing a full year of class-based learning), but the exchange programs seem to be a workable idea.

Tomaksy also recommends expanding civic education in high schools, recognizing the obvious fact that college exchange programs will have no effect on the 60 to 70 percent of Americans who end their formal education at high school.

The idea is that, rather than focusing on preparing students for the workforce, as merely cogs in a larger economic machine, schools should make more of an effort to prepare citizens for responsible civic participation. This includes an expanded history curriculum, as Tomasky suggests, in addition to an expanded curriculum in critical thinking and philosophy, which Tomasky does not suggest.

This is a crucial oversight; the teaching of critical thinking and philosophy—which is almost completely absent in high school education—is just as, and probably more so, important than expanding the history curriculum. If you are susceptible to manipulation, and lack the requisite skeptical thinking skills, then no amount of factual information will protect you from the people who want to manipulate you.

Finally, Tomasky suggests, in terms of political approach, that the left stop turning into the right (and providing ammunition to the right in the form of political correctness, speech codes, and violent acts) and that business leaders start prioritizing something other than short-term profit.

I can find little to criticize about Tomasky’s suggestions (although I would have added a section on expanding critical and skeptical thinking education in high schools), but the real question is if any of these changes will ever be implemented. In that regard, we should keep one fact in mind. As Tomasky notes, political change always follows social change. That means if we really want less divisive politics, we have to demand it, and start organizing around the changes that will lead to greater cooperation, more dialogue, and eventually less polarized political behavior. show less

As part of the American Presidents Series, this book has been a long time coming. The author who originally was designated to write the Bill Clinton biography (Harold Evans, who is in his mid-80s) never came through. Michael Tomasky is a worthy replacement. He has written a book on the history of progressive politics in the US, and another on Hillary Clinton's 1999 senatorial race. He also is a contributor to The Daily Beast and The New York Review of Books and past editor of The American show more Prospect and Guardian America.

Tomasky's account of the Clinton presidency is fair and impartial, and as balanced a perspective as one might hope for. He documents the presidential successes as well as the failures, and does not whitewash the personal failings that marred Clinton's otherwise successful life and presidential tenure. As for successes, he can point to the incredible tripling of the Dow Jones average, the 22 million jobs created, the balancing of the Federal budget with the creation of a surplus, and the incredible 11% growth in median family income.

Having been written in 2016, Tomasky's account is sufficiently removed in time to acknowledge the "withering reexamination" of Clinton's terms in office by a younger generation of voters, for whom his "compromises on crime, welfare, and other matters were anathema" (p. 2). What's more, given the passage of a quarter of a century, he (and the reader) can look back dispassionately at the pseudo-scandals ginned up by his opponents. These included the White House travel office firings, his Whitewater investments (which, as his critics like to obscure, lost money), the time his staff scheduled a haircut while on Air Force One (causing a slight delay of other airplanes), and the suicide of Hillary's friend Vince Foster (which the irresponsible Wall Street Journal claimed -- against all evidence -- was a murder in which the Clintons were somehow involved). And of course there was the Lewinsky matter. As is well known, Bill had a few consensual intimate encounters with a female assistant who had targeted him for seduction. These voluntary encounters, and Clinton's reluctance to acknowledge them were what his rabid opponents tried to use to end his presidency.

Tomasky's account is no hagiography. For example, regarding the controversial trade agreement NAFTA, Clinton supporters often assert that the agreement was entirely the responsibility of GW Bush, Clinton's predecessor. To the contrary, Tomasky's account recognizes that the Clinton administration lobbied hard for it against labor unions and progressives in his own party. Likewise, he acknowledges the foreign policy failures, notably the myopia that allowed the mass slaughter in Rwanda to proceed unchecked. But against such failings are the reinstatement of Duvalier in Haiti following the military coup, and the UN intervention in Bosnia.

Tomasky's book breaks no new ground -- there are no revelations here, at least to those familiar with Clinton's presidency. That's to be expected of this sort of work. As a brief (150 page) summary of Bill Clinton's presidency and Hillary's public and private role, Tomasky's account is excellent. A dispassionate evaluation will find little with which to quarrel.

Note: The delay in publication of this work (due to age/ health of the originally chosen author) has led commentators at Amazon.com to claim that the book was somehow suppressed by Hillary Clinton. No evidence is offered for this bizarre, conspiratorial assertion. However, it shows that "Clinton derangement syndrome" -- fueled by "hate radio" and its print counterparts, lives on. Future historians will likely be utterly perplexed at the off-the-charts vitriol this engaging, likeable politician engendered from the rabid right wing, and will probably view with disgust the unprincipled attempts to remove him from office on a pretext. show less

This “clear-eyed” incisive examination of Bill Clinton’s presidency is perfect for the reader so inclined not to want to wade through the extensive autobiography My Life, or even the scholar not enough enamored with our 42nd president to devour a more verbose historical assessment compiled by others. Michael Tomasky is a talented and engaging writer who avoids any indictment possibly accusing him of carrying forth his own agenda. In light of the current election cycle in which a show more larger-than-life reality TV star wins the presidency over Clinton’s own wife Hillary, this book affords a rather insightful review of the ongoing drama and scandal that perpetuated and defined the Clinton years of 1993-2001. By book’s end I was exhausted, but somewhat relieved in knowing our country would not be again going through another round of the typical daily Clinton crisis that would have begun in January of 2017 had Hillary been elected. That is not to say the Trump years will be any better, but at least Donald’s opulent and vulgar occupancy will be more likened to a grandiose circus under the big top, a bombastic ringleader with orange hair, and a wide array of clowns galore. show less