Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-lrf7s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-31T14:47:19.727Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Instant History and the Legacy of Scandal: The Tangled Memory of Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, and William Jefferson Clinton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Phillip Payne
Get access

Extract

William Jefferson Clinton evoked considerable admiration and hostility as a public figure. More so, perhaps, than other recent presidents, Clinton has sparked an intense debate as to what his legacy will be. The Clinton biography found on the White House web page hints at the difficulties facing those who wish to interpret his life. After summarizing the nation's economic success during Clinton's two terms and mentioning major biographical events, the author writes:

In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president.

Type
Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 28 , October 2004 , pp. 597 - 625
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Skowronek, Stephen, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (1993; rept. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997), 228Google Scholar.

2. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html.

3. Fine, Gary Alan, Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 10–11Google Scholar

4. Bodnar, John, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 13Google Scholar.

5. Schier, Steven E., ed., The Postmodern Presidency: Bill Clinton's Legacy in U.S. Politics (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press), 15Google Scholar.

6. Schwartz, Barry, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), ixGoogle Scholar.

7. Fine, defined reputational entrepreneurs as to “include family members, friends, and political associates of famous people, and editors and biographers. Each reputational entrepreneur has an interest to advance by making claims about the target — even if that interest is only to tell a compelling story or to create a smooth conversation. We need not assume that interest is always consciously strategic, economic, or political” (Difficult Reputations, 21)Google Scholar.

8. Fine, , Difficult Reputations, ch. 2Google Scholar: “Warren Harding and the Memory of Incompetence.”

9. Jonathan M. Schoenwald, “Review of Andrew E. Busch, Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom,” H-Pol, H-Net Reviews, April, 2002; http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=188671020269379. He wrote that among the “American presidents he [Reagan] has had a quintessential twentieth-century American life — from growing up in a small Midwestern town, to a career in radio, film, and television, to corporate spokesman, to public servant and holder of the nation's highest office.”

10. Stoddard, Henry L., As I Knew Them: Presidents and Politics from Grant to Coolidge (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927), 474Google Scholar.

11. Ferrell, Robert H., “The Death of President Harding,” Timeline, 15, no. 5 (09-10 1998): 2–17Google Scholar; Fine, , Difficult Reputations, ch. 2Google Scholar; and Payne, Phillip G., “Mixed Memories: The Warren G. Harding Memorial Association and the President's Hometown Legacy” Historian 64, no. 2 (Winter 2002): 257–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Russell, Francis, The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding and His Times (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), xiv, xv, xviGoogle Scholar.

13. Russell, , Shadow of Blooming Grove, xiv, xv, xviGoogle Scholar.

14. Ferrell, , The Strange Deaths of President Harding (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996). viiGoogle Scholar.

15. Skowronek, , Politics, xvGoogle Scholar.

16. Adams, Samuel Hopkins, Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding (1939; rept. New York: Octagon, 1979), 188–90Google Scholar.

17. Hicks, John D., Republican Ascendancy: 1921–1933 (paperback, 1963; rept. New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 27Google Scholar.

18. This was particularly true after the appearance of Ferrell's Strange Deaths and Hersh, Seymour M.'s, The Dark Side of Camelot (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997)Google Scholar.

19. Adams, , Incredible Era, 169Google Scholar.

20. Fine, , Difficult Reputations, 76Google Scholar; and White, William Allen, Masks in a Pageant (New York: Macmillan, 1928), 388Google Scholar.

21. “What Makes A Good President?” a widely circulated story based on Steven Rubenzer, Deniz S. Ones, and Tom Faschingbauer, “Personality Traits of U. S. Presidents,” American Psychological Association, August 5, 2000; http://www.newswise.com/articles/2000/8/PRESINDEN.PSY.html on September 28, 2000.

22. Brinkley, Douglas, The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (New York: Viking, 1998), 4Google Scholar; and “Warren Gamaliel Harding: 29th President of the United States, 1921–1923”; http://redbud.lbjlib.utexas.edu/eisenhower/28.htm (September 16, 2000).

23. Britton, Nan, The President's Daughter (New York: Elizabeth Ann Guild, 1927)Google Scholar; see also her sequel, , Honesty or Politics (New York: Elizabeth Ann Guild, 1932)Google Scholar.

24. Patrick J. Buchanan, “Now Let Us All Praise Warren G. Harding,” July 9, 1997, Internet Brigade: Articles, Letters, and Speeches; http://www.buchanan.org/pa-97-0709.html.

25. Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Vegetable or from President to Postman (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923), 54Google ScholarPubMed.

26. Adams, Samuel Hopkins, Revelry (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926), 92–93Google Scholar.

27. Adams, , Revelry, 96Google Scholar.

28. Anonymous [Klein, Joe], Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics (New York: Warner, 1996), 1–2Google Scholar.

29. Adams, , Revelry, 273–74Google Scholar.

30. Klein, Joe, The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 27–28Google Scholar.

31. Adams, , Revelry, 266Google Scholar.

32. Adams, , Revelry, 280Google Scholar.

33. Adams, , Revelry, 311Google Scholar.

34. Thacker, May Dixon, “Debunking ‘The Strange Death of President Harding’: A Complete Repudiation of a Sensational Book by Its Author,” Liberty 8 (11 7, 1931): 8–12Google Scholar.

35. Aldrich, Gary, Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1998.), ixGoogle Scholar.

36. Toobin, Jeffrey, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal that Nearly Brought Down a President (New York: Touchstone, 2000), 5, 83Google Scholar.

37. Means, Gaston B., The Strange Death of President Harding, as told to May Dixon Thacker (New York: Guild, 1930), 56Google Scholar.

38. Means, , Strange Death, 165Google Scholar.

39. Means, , Strange Death, 260Google Scholar.

40. Adams, , Incredible Era, p. 107, 253Google Scholar.

41. Murray, Robert K., The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1969), 491Google Scholar.

42. Payne, Phillip G., “The Shadow of William Estabrook Chancellor: Warren G. Harding, Marion, Ohio, and the Issue of Race,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 83, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 39–62Google Scholar.

43. Murray, , Harding Era, 400Google Scholar.

44. Harding, Warren G., “Address at Birmingham, October 26, 1921,” in Speeches of the Late President Harding, 1920–1923, comp. Louis C. CramtonGoogle Scholar.

45. Morrison, Toni, “The Talk of the Town,” New Yorker (10 5, 1998): 32Google Scholar; and McElya, Micki, “Trashing the Presidency: Race, Class, and the Clinton/Lewinsky Affair,” in Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest, ed. Berland, Lauren and Duggan, Lisa (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 156Google Scholar.

46. Suzy Hansen, “Why blacks love Bill Clinton,” http://www.salon.com/books/int/2002/02/20/clinton 5/12/03.

47. Wickham, De Wayne, Bill Clinton and Black America (New York: Ballantine, 2002), 6Google Scholar.

48. Wickham, , Bill Clinton, 20Google Scholar.

49. Sapiro, Virginia and Canon, David T., “Race, Gender, and the Clinton Presidency,” in The Clinton Legacy, ed. Campbell, Colin and Rockman, Bert A. (New York: Chatham House, 2000), 170Google Scholar.

50. Fine, Gary Alan, Reason 28, no. 6 (11 1996): 55Google Scholar.

51. King, Florence, “The Misanthrope's Corner,” National Review, 10 26, 1998Google Scholar.

52. White, William Allen, Masks in a Pageant (New York: Macmillan, 1928), 432Google Scholar.

53. Owens, Mackubin Thomas, “Warren Gamaliel Clinton,” Providence Journal (08 28, 1998)Google Scholar; claremont.org http://www.claremont.org/publications/ownes7.org.

54. With Clinton, it was, of course, the Vince Foster suicide and, with Harding, it was the suicide the “financial bagman for Harding and Daugherty who carried out many criminal assignments for friends and officials.” Phillips did not mention Jess Smith's suicide, which is more frequently cited in conspiracy stories.

55. Anthony, Carl Sferrazza, Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President (New York: William Morrow, 1998), 24–25Google Scholar.

56. Phillips, Howard, “A Tale of Presidents and their Sexual Escapades,” Insight on the News, 10 19, 1998Google Scholar.

57. Anderson, Christopher, Bill and Hillary: The Marriage (New York: William Morrow, 1999), ixGoogle Scholar.

58. Toobin, , Vast Conspiracy, 83Google Scholar.

59. Hunter, James Davison, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic, 1991)Google Scholar.

60. Klein, , The Natural, 209, 210Google ScholarPubMed.

61. Dershowitz, Alan M., Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr, and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis (New York: Basic, 1998), 154–55Google Scholar

62. During the 2000 Democratic National Convention, I vividly remember Eszterhas and his book getting a good deal of attention on television, including Tom Brokaw making repeated references to Clinton as a “rock and roll” president.

63. Eszterhas, Joe, American Rhapsody (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 65Google Scholar.

64. Eszterhas, , American Rhapsody, 36–37Google Scholar.

65. Fine, Gary Allan, “Warren G. Harding and the Memory of Incompetence,” Difficult Reputations)Google Scholar; Ferrell, Robert H., The Strange Deaths of President Harding (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

66. Eszterhas, , American Rhapsody, 62Google Scholar.

67. Eszterhas, , American Rhapsody, xiiiGoogle Scholar.

68. Eszterhas, , American Rhapsody, 70–71Google Scholar.

69. Bennett, William J., The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals (New York: Free Press, 1998), 3Google Scholar.

70. Bennett, , Death of Outrage, 5Google Scholar.

71. Fine, , Difficult Reputations, 5Google Scholar.

72. Bennett, , Death of Outrage, 24Google Scholar.

73. For example, see Bennett, William J.'s two edited works: The Moral Compass: Stories for a Life's Journey (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995)Google Scholar and The Spirit of America: Words of Advice from the Founders in Stories, Letters, Poems and Speeches ((New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998)Google Scholar.

74. Bennett, , Death of Outrage, 25Google Scholar.

75. Bennett, , Death of Outrage, 25–26Google Scholar.

76. Bennett, , Death of Outrage, 39–40Google Scholar.

77. Bennett, , Death of Outrage, Appendix, 156–70Google Scholar.

78. Campbell, and Rockman, , Clinton Legacy, ixGoogle Scholar.

79. Campbell, and Rockman, , Clinton Legacy, xGoogle Scholar.

80. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 448Google Scholar.

81. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 449Google Scholar.

82. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 450–51Google Scholar.

83. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 451Google Scholar.

84. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 455Google Scholar.

85. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 458Google Scholar.

86. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 460Google Scholar.

87. Skowronek, , Politics Presidents Make, 462Google Scholar.

88. Summers, John H., “What Happened to Sex Scandals? Politics and Peccadilloes, Jefferson to Kennedy,” Journal of American History 87 (12 2000): 825–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89. “Clinton's Love Child Scandal,” National Enquirer, 05 21, 2002, 34–35, 37Google Scholar.

90. “Perspectives,” Newsweek, 05 26, 2003, 23Google ScholarPubMed.

91. Fine, , Difficult Reputations, 2Google Scholar.

92. Jack Kemp, “Debating the Clinton legacy,” January 15, 2001; http://www.empoweramerica.org/stories/storyReader$199 on May 5, 2002.

93. For example, see David Von Drehle, “Clinton Gives DLC a Plan for '04”; http://www.washingpost.com/as2/wp-dyn/A62035-2003May15; and Klein, Joe, “How to Build a Better Democrat,” Time: From the Magazine, 05 11, 2003Google Scholar http://www.time.com/time/magazine.