Opinion Editorial | |
| Wednesday, August 5, 1998 | |
The Ominous Parallels with Nixon |
As Bill Clinton fights the various scandals he has become embroiled in,
he is looking more and more like Richard Nixon every day. On the surface
he seems secure, but it is all superficial; underneath, termites are destroying
the foundation of Clinton's viability. Although Watergate ultimately was the cause of President Nixon's downfall,
there were many supporting factors as well. Among them were the deteriorating
condition of the economy and his efforts to expand presidential power through
the use of executive orders. The former eroded Nixon's political base in
the country, while the latter threatened Congress as an institution, undermining
Nixon's support even among Republican legislators. Consider the polls. We forget that at a similar stage of his presidency
Nixon was just as popular as Clinton is today. In February 1973, Nixon
had a 65 percent job approval rating; as late as April it was still well
above 50 percent. And remember that the basic facts about the Watergate
break-in were already well known at this time. What was not known was the
extent of the coverup. As those details became known through the summer
of 1973, Nixon's popularity nosedived. By October, his approval rating
was down to just 27 percent. A major contributor to this collapse was deterioration of the economy.
In the first quarter of 1973, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product
(GDP) grew an astonishing 11 percent. By the second quarter, however, it
had fallen to just 2.8 percent. Nixon's economic advisers said that this
was just a return to trend from an abnormally strong first quarter. But
it was not. By the third quarter of 1973, real growth was negative and
the economy soon slipped into recession. Also in 1973, Congress became alarmed over Nixon's use of executive orders
to implement policies it refused to legislate. A series of articles in
the New York Times in March 1973 detailed the growth of what came to be
called the "imperial presidency." Among the charges: Nixon declined
to spend appropriated funds as Congress directed; in foreign affairs, he
refused to send treaties to the Senate for ratification, as the Constitution
requires, implementing them instead through executive agreements. And as
we well remember, Nixon took an expansive view of "executive privilege"
in order to hinder investigations into Watergate. Turning to today, we see ominous parallels. Although Clinton's poll
ratings are still high, around 63 percent, the public has yet to be fully
informed about the extent of his efforts to coverup wrongdoing in the Monica
Lewinsky case. If Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr sends a report to Congress
with incontrovertible proof of Clinton's suborning of perjury and obstructions
of justice, his poll ratings could collapse as quickly as Nixon's. Already
Clinton's polls are showing weakness as increasing numbers of Americans
have come to believe he is lying about the Lewinsky affair. What is holding up the polls is the belief that economic conditions are
still robust. But here also, there are warning signs. The stock market
has fallen sharply in the last two weeks and real GDP growth has dropped
from a torrid 5.5 percent rise in the first quarter of 1998 to an anemic
1.4 percent in the second. Although Clinton's economists, like Nixon's,
see this as a temporary falloff, increasing numbers of private economists
are starting to use the "R" word: recession. Finally, like Nixon, Clinton has greatly expanded presidential power
through the use of executive orders that infringe on the Congress's legislative
power. Historian James MacGregor Burns calls it the greatest expansion
of presidential power in history. It is too soon to say if Clinton will be driven from office like Nixon.
But the parallels are becoming too similar to ignore. Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis,
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