LIMBAUGH COMMENTARY: LUSTING AFTER A LEGACY

Branding me a "leftist," a hostile e-mailer summarily stripped me of my conservative credentials for failure to assert in a column about Kosovo that Clinton's sole motive to intervene was to divert attention from and deter investigation of the China scandals. Though I believe Clinton is morally capable of wagging the dog and may have even done so a few times recently, I don't believe this is his motivation with Operation Allied Force.

No, his lifelong history of escaping full accountability for his actions, culminating in his impeachment trial acquittal, has surely given him a feeling of invulnerability.

Though Clinton has paid lip service to launching this offensive in furtherance of certain indescribable national interests, his primary stated purpose in ordering the United States to lead the NATO intervention in Serbia was humanitarian: to end ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbs.

The Washington Post reported, though, that weeks prior to the NATO air campaign, CIA director George Tenet warned that NATO bombing would likely accelerate ethnic cleansing. U.S. military leaders simultaneously advised Clinton that if Milosevic indeed launched such an assault in response to the bombing, air power alone would be insufficient to stop it. Clinton, however, was determined not to introduce ground troops.

"For waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers." -- Proverbs 24:6. So what could possibly be so important to Clinton that he would ignore his advisers and engage in such a high-risk strategy?

Almost everyone agrees that from the time he started breathing, Bill Clinton had aspirations to become president of the United States. But just being president would not be enough for Clinton, since in this country presidents are not monarchs either in terms of their power or their tenure in office. So the drive for power must ultimately give way to something more enduring. The only thing that will endure for Clinton, as with other presidents, is his record, for better or worse. Bill Clinton is a man in pursuit of a legacy.

Before his impeachment, Clinton must have been confident that he was well on his way to enshrinement in the presidential hall of fame. The major short-term benchmark of presidential performance, the economy, has been humming along on autopilot growth mode, despite his best efforts to smother that growth with the largest tax increase in history in 1993. And even though he has undermined, depleted, misused and grossly overused the military, he has largely escaped accountability so far for his rudderless foreign policy.

While he denies any shame for his impeachment, he would have to be bereft of all five senses not to realize that many people don't agree with his self-assessment and that his coveted legacy is in serious jeopardy. He has already publicly lamented his feelings that circumstances during his presidency have not afforded him an "FDR opportunity" to truly shine in foreign policy in his quest for presidential greatness. But for the "Republican-fomented" scandals, he surely believes he had locked up a position in the presidential top 10.

As this quintessential politician surveyed the landscape for that one Hail Mary play to pull his presidential chestnuts out of the fire, he focused on the only area dramatic enough to do it: foreign policy generally and a righteous war, specifically. Clinton apparently figured that his only possible ticket to lasting greatness was to put on his commander in chief hat in a real and just war.

Clinton's desperate lust for a legacy must have also caused him to miscalculate Milosevic's resolve to withstand an air attack. He was counting on his capitulating after a vigorous round of bombing, like he supposedly did in Bosnia. He ignored U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's assessment that Milosevic only backed down because at the time of the bombing Croat and Muslim ground forces were pushing him back into submission.

In addition to his propensity for scandals, Clinton shares another attribute with Richard Nixon: his penchant for self-destruction. Clinton's Achilles' heel has always been his quest for instant gratification (including public approval), oftentimes at great risk. A few examples that we're aware of are: his alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick while climbing the ladder of state politics; his activities with Monica; and now, his decision to launch a military attack destined to fail because of his unwillingness to sacrifice the narcotic of public approval by sending in ground troops.

How ironic, yet how just, that by his insatiable craving of short-term gratification Clinton has voluntarily forfeited his presidential legacy and, at this point, any hope of restoring it.

~David Limbaugh of Cape Girardeau is a columnist for Creators Syndicate.