The Clinton Legacy

For 75 minutes on Feb. 15, it felt like Bill Clinton was still president. Clinton's Chief of Staff Mack McClarty shared his memories of the administration with students in a video teleconference arranged by C-SPAN.

McLarty seemed eager to tell stories about the Clinton years. He recounted in detail the night of the 1992 Democratic National Convention, as well as the night Clinton asked him to be Chief of Staff.

Some students were frustrated by McLarty's anecdotes. "Because of his rambling, we were unable to even begin asking more relevant questions anchored in today and not in a past administration," said George Mason student Dane Styler. "He is president of a strategic advising firm that has both national and international companies as clients, some of which employ illegal immigrants, yet he helped foster the writing of NAFTA."

Though his tenure as Chief of Staff was the primary focus of the conference, McLarty's comments were not limited to the past. As George Mason student KT Trotman observed, "now Hillary is running for president and Al Gore is a rock star. Bill Clinton is as relevant as ever."

McLarty offered that Hillary Clinton can easily establish a political identity independent of her husband. He called Gore "capable . . . suprising in some cases," but doubts the former vice president will return to politics.

McLarty pointed to Clinton and George H. W. Bush's visibility on behalf of relief efforts and charitable causes as exemplary of Clinton's legacy.
"People . . . really want bipartisanship," he said of what he called a "very genuine friendship" between the two former presidents.