William Jefferson Clinton, a Centrist?

Yesterday, Dennis Prager said "Bill Clinton was a centrist". To his credit, he immediately added "except for his first two years" in the White House.

I have come to expect such revisionism from the decreasingly mainstream media which have tried to tone down the regressive elements of the Clinton legacy, but Dr. Prager's label needs to be more consistent with the ideology he conveys in his analysis of current issues, or at least more accurate.

Stuart Rothenberg, via CNN, describes the first two years as "more or less liberal". Since that time, President Bill Clinton did nothing to stop federal funding of abortion or even restore the limits on abortion spending that he removed his first day in office. Rather, he increased federal funding of abortion and other socialistic activities. He even vetoed legislation to stop one procedure that kills children at birth.

Even someone in the ideological "center" should at least remain bound to the Bill of Rights, which he swore to uphold. However, this was not the case throughout Bill Clinton's career. As late as his last term, his appointee Janet Reno used SWAT teams to perform a warrantless search and seizure. He did nothing to correct this offense. Ask Lazaro Gonzales.

CNN, the Washington Post, and their talking heads have repeated their claims of a move from radical left to center by President Clinton. They might be able to make a case that his rhetoric changed. In talk Bill Clinton may have glanced rightward, but in policy and performance he continued moving left.

The media's misrepresentative marketing of Bill Clinton's ideology obscures the harm his legacy inflicted upon the pocketbooks of Americans, the integrity of our Constitutional republic, and those "deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law" (see U.S. Constitution, Amendment V).

We should not forget the immediate and long-term effects of Clinton's legacy of liberalism. It appears that CNN, the Washington Post, and other liberal "news" services have ignored these, and Dennis Prager apparently has forgotten.