Daily Inspiration Quote by Sidney Blumenthal

“Clinton took very tough decisions on the economy” is the kind of Washington compliment that doubles as a legal brief. Sidney Blumenthal isn’t offering a neutral appraisal; he’s laundering a political record through the language of reluctant necessity. “Tough” does the heavy lifting: it implies pain, trade-offs, and backbone, while quietly pre-empting the obvious follow-up question - tough on whom?

In context, this is the post-1990s argument for Clintonism as grown-up governance: deficit reduction, welfare reform, NAFTA, a faith in technocratic triangulation. Blumenthal, a journalist-turned-insider and Clinton defender, frames these moves as decisions made under constraint rather than choices shaped by ideology. That’s the subtext: don’t mistake pragmatism for capitulation; don’t read compromise as moral drift. It’s a narrative designed to cast market-friendly policy as courageous rather than convenient.

The line also functions as a rebuttal to two different critics at once. To the left: yes, some constituencies got burned, but history demanded it. To the right: Clinton wasn’t a soft liberal; he could do austerity, discipline, and “responsibility.” Notice what’s missing: outcomes. There’s no mention of wages, inequality, deindustrialization, or the political aftershocks. The sentence asks you to admire the posture of decision-making itself - the seriousness, the grit - and to let that substitute for a messier accounting of who paid the price for those “tough decisions.”