Bernie and I watched a fascinating documentary about Bill Clinton on PBS last night. It is always interesting, I think, to learn what went on the White House during a presidency. This one was really intriguing because it put out there Clinton’s ambition and his fears and self-doubts about important decisions and about himself. Equally fascinating was the story of Hilary.
I also found it enlightening to see the story of the political climate, the goings on of the congress and investigations and press. It was definitely dejavous multiplied.
Last year, we watched a series about John Adams and that was also enlightening, but in the Clinton story, I kind of expected to see similarities between that era and our present political climate. It was so recent and the Clintons are still with us. But I was really startled to see the similarities in the Adams story. Those events occured over 200 years ago during the founding of our nation and the presidency was still an experiment.
When I was a kid, history was all about memorizing dates and facts, mostly about wars. It was boring and irrelevant. I love learning through media and in our travels about the origins of our democracy and so much more. With all the complaining I do about modern media, sometimes, like this morning, I have to stop and appreciate it.