"At the same time, Clinton was doing a lot things right, like the economy"
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Blumenthal’s line has the telling clumsiness of a political insider trying to sound clinical while still sneaking in a verdict. “At the same time” is doing heavy lifting: it’s a preemptive shield against whatever indictment is about to be mentioned or already hangs in the air. The phrase suggests a moral ledger, not a narrative. You can almost hear the balancing act: yes, there was scandal, yes, there was controversy, yes, there was partisan warfare, but also - look over here - “the economy.”
The syntax is revealing. “Doing a lot things right” is casual, even sloppy, which makes it feel less like a crafted defense than a reflex. That informality is the point: it’s an attempt to normalize a contentious presidency into a common-sense assessment, the kind you’d get from a pragmatic voter. Then the kicker: “like the economy.” Not “economic policy,” not “growth” or “jobs,” but the broad, household-word metric that tends to absolve everything else. In American politics, the economy isn’t just an issue; it’s a permission slip. If the numbers are up, the country is invited to downgrade its outrage.
As a journalist steeped in Clinton-world, Blumenthal is also capturing the era’s core argument: performance versus propriety. The subtext is that governance can be audited like a quarterly report, and that competence - especially economic competence - can outweigh character debates. It’s less a celebration of Clinton than a reminder of how power survives: by translating messy history into a single, undeniable graph.
The syntax is revealing. “Doing a lot things right” is casual, even sloppy, which makes it feel less like a crafted defense than a reflex. That informality is the point: it’s an attempt to normalize a contentious presidency into a common-sense assessment, the kind you’d get from a pragmatic voter. Then the kicker: “like the economy.” Not “economic policy,” not “growth” or “jobs,” but the broad, household-word metric that tends to absolve everything else. In American politics, the economy isn’t just an issue; it’s a permission slip. If the numbers are up, the country is invited to downgrade its outrage.
As a journalist steeped in Clinton-world, Blumenthal is also capturing the era’s core argument: performance versus propriety. The subtext is that governance can be audited like a quarterly report, and that competence - especially economic competence - can outweigh character debates. It’s less a celebration of Clinton than a reminder of how power survives: by translating messy history into a single, undeniable graph.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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