Media Promote Myth of Clinton Golden Years, Hype His New Economic Book

By Paul Wilson | November 11, 2011 | 15:25

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Former President Bill Clinton is making headlines again, this time touting his liberal prescriptions to fix the economy. Those remedies are laid out his new book Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy. The news media is doing their part to promote Clinton's work and his economic legacy, portraying him as the economic savior of America.

This should come as no surprise, since Clinton is still beloved by liberal journalists. New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani called Clinton's book "a lucid one-man rebuttal of the Tea Party's anti-government agenda." Kakutani also summarized Clinton's plan, saying "Mr. Clinton serves up a succinct common-sense argument, why both spending cuts and increased tax revenues are necessary for addressing the debt problem."

Carolyn Kellogg of the Los Angles Times touted the book as "a rallying cry for Americans to see beyond partisan politics" and "a blueprint for a return to prosperity."

At times, the adulation of Clinton reached absurd proportions. On Nov. 7, NBC's Ann Curry gushed "thank you for caring so much about America to write this book."

Clinton's book provides reliably liberal solutions for the economy, attacking the Tea Party's suspicion of government and advocating tax increases on the wealthy. The book mildly criticized President Obama for failing to adopt more liberal policies on the debt ceiling and taxes. (Clinton later backed off his criticism of Obama on the debt ceiling.)

Media praise for Back to Work is the latest installment of the narrative that Clinton was the sole reason for the prosperity of the 1990s, while Bush destroyed a thriving economy. In 1996, former president of NBC News Michael Gartner praised Clinton in a USA Today op-ed saying: "The country has been in a controlled boom ever since he bludgeoned through by one vote his first economic package."

In 2000, then-CBS anchor Dan Rather told Al Gore: "You've been part of an administration that one can argue has provided over the greatest economic, sustained economic boom in the history of the country." In 2004, the MRC's Business & Media Institute (called the Free Market Project at the time) found that the media spun Clinton's economic numbers positively, even as they blasted similar economic data under Bush.

In reality, as John Berthoud wrote in 1997 when he was vice president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Foundation, Clinton was fortunate enough to be president when the Internet boom of the 1990s took place, and benefited from the effects of the end of the Cold War and the defeat of his health care package. In 2010, George Melloan of the Wall Street Journal also pointed out Bill Clinton's role in creating the housing bubble that instigated the 2008 economic crisis.

But for the left, the thought that Clinton could have harmed to the economy is veritable heresy. Due to their willful economic ignorance, they perpetuate the fantasy that Bill Clinton was the architect of 1990s prosperity.

About the Author

Paul Wilson is the Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media for the Media Research Center's Culture & Media Institute and Business & Media Institute. Click here to follow Paul Wilson on Twitter.

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I wonder if anyone

Submitted by zenman1661 on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 3:34pm.

remembers or acknowledges that Clinton's "golden years" began when the Republcans took control of the House and Senate.

Shhhh, zenman, you'll rouse the liberals.

Submitted by UpNorth on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 3:45pm.

That will be followed by cries of "not true", "no, no, BJ did it all by himself", and other tripe.

To re-elect Obama would be like the Titanic backing up and hitting the iceberg again.

In fairness...

Submitted by retrocon on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 4:17pm.

Newt and friends just kept government out of our pockets.

The dotcom bubble is what really made the economy boom.

Remember, within months of Bush being elected, the market crashed. Of course, it was all Bushes fault back then, too.

Clinton is a piece of human

Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 5:56pm.

Clinton is a piece of human garbage, anyone who defends him is no better.

Non, je ne regrette rien. "You aren't angry because I might be a racist, you're angry because you know I'm right".

Clinton's plan

Submitted by Mutantone on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 9:10pm.

Buy more cigars while Hillary is over seas

Clinton economics - nothing by hype and myth, in the end.

Submitted by Gary Hall on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 9:21pm.

But for the left, the thought that Clinton could have harmed to the economy is veritable heresy

Harmed? Harmed? Well, just what does the left - the far left - have to say about Clinton's effect on the economy?

From the leftist rag tag New Yor, "The Village Voice," Wayne Barrett's piece might open a few eyes in their Aug. 5, 2008:

Andrew Cuomo (D) and Fannie and Freddie - How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis.

Andrew Cuomo was Clinton's HUD Secretary, and here's what Barrett laid out:

Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

How about what the progressive/socialist and favorite economist of the MSM, Dean Baker of CEPR? Here's how he described the financial leadership and the results of the Clinton era, looking back in March of 2001:

"The decline in the stock market was an entirely predictable event for anyone familiar with basic arithmetic . . . As a result, millions of families have seen their dreams of a secure retirement or their children's college education vanish with the stock market bubble. The level of negligence of the nation's political leaders in ignoring the stock bubble exceeds anything since the days of Herbert Hoover."

Now - let's move over to a West Coast leftist rag tag magazine, "Dissent." In it's Aug. 2008 issue, Timothy A. Canova, the Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California, penned a lengthy analysis of what Clinton left behind. In, The Legacy of the Clinton Bubble, Canova summarized that:

Chickens Come Home to Roost

and

HISTORY SHOULD deal harshly with Bill Clinton.

The last comment in in Paul's post is::

Due to their willful economic ignorance, they perpetuate the fantasy that Bill Clinton was the architect of 1990s prosperity.

Well, whether or not Bill Clinton had something to do with drawing up the 1990's era of bubble greed and fraud, or, as Baker noted in his November 10 2008 piece, The high priests of the bubble economy. .

It is important to separate Clinton-era mythology from the real economic record. [..]
There was nothing resembling an investment boom until the dot-com bubble at the end of the decade funneled vast sums of capital into crazy internet schemes. There was a surge in productivity growth beginning in 1995, but this preceded any substantial upturn in investment. Clinton had the good fortune to be sitting in the White House at the point where the economy finally enjoyed the long-predicted dividend from the information technology revolution.

. . . it really doesn't matter does it? For all that Clinton created came crashing down in March of 2000, as his bubble collapsed. Everything that had been celebrated, came cashing down - including all of the paper projected budget surpluses.

In the end, this all comes down the the usual - a set of standard liberal biases in our national main stream media. Even when their own favorite experts see it the way it is, our national media will censor that view from their broad audience, the American people, in their determined want to protect their Democrat Party from any exposure to the truth.

Summary - don't expect to see Piers Morgan interviewing Dean Baker, Tim Canova, or Wayne Barrett and asking them about what Clinton actually left behind.

(;`/ gary

Trying to make him into a Democrat Ronald Reagan.

Submitted by drsamherman on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 9:21pm.

Of course, Ronald Reagan had the sense to drop the Democrat party years before he became an elected official. Trying to make Monica-man into Ronald Reagan is like trying to make Obama into Lincoln - won't work.

Sticking his - nose - in

Submitted by usinkorea on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 6:15am.

Have other previous presidents written books on contemporary policy?

All I can think of are books by president's covering their own years in office to justify their policies.

Is Clinton going to be another Jimmy Carter? Sticking his nose into contemporary issues trying to sway the electorate and/or world opinion...

Integrity

Submitted by tomaspain on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 7:01am.

President Clinton and his opportunist spouse have demonstrated on many occasions that they are pathological liars. The simple observation that the MSM continues to treat them with respect and admiration says a lot about the Integrity of the MSM.

Tomaspain

Oymoron

Submitted by RickCaird on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 3:37pm.

"Smart Government" is an oxymoron. Hence, Clinton's title does not even work.

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