"While the staff can be blamed for some of the confusion, even his closest advisers insist that Clinton is a big part of the problem. 'A lot of it can't be laid at anyone's doorstep but his own,' said one last week. Democratic Party elders admit to being stunned by Clinton's judgment lately. Having his $200 haircut and allowing a Hollywood producer to work out of a White House office and then intervene on behalf of friends to win White House air-charter business have done serious damage to his public standing. 'The best politician the Democratic Party has turned up in a long time turns out to have a tin ear,' said a longtime friend. 'He has squandered his moral authority with a lot of this stuff. It leads people to say, 'This man isn't really a populist; he is a phony, a fraud.' And though this perception is completely wrong in substance, it is enormously damaging and has to be dealt with. He has to regain the moral authority to call people to sacrifice.'"
I found this while looking for something else. If it is not an excerpt from a book, then I'm very confused, since it is written as though it is within the first year of the Clinton Presidency, but the date on the article shows as June 1, 2001 (hence my guess that it is from a retrospective book).
I had actually forgotten a lot of this (or I wasn't paying attention). What I do remember, and this verifies it, is that a lot of day-to-day activities in the Whitehouse were not getting done and my recollection is that this lasted almost through his first term.
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