The 1990s are being relitigated, and for the most part, coming off rather badly. It has taken place in the realm of politics, where Hillary Clinton has had to edge away from some of her husband’s policies, some of which have provoked angry confrontations on the campaign trail between the 42nd president and activists denouncing his racial legacy. And it has also taken place in the realm of culture, where television has revisited the Clarence Thomas hearings and (in a dramatization and then again in a documentary) the O.J. Simpson trial. These events intersect with one another more closely than we may assume. The racial legacy of the Clinton administration was forged in a context these poisonous dramas helped to construct.
It’s impossible to understand Bill Clinton’s political strategy without appreciating the desperation of the circumstances he and his party faced when he ran for office. CONT.
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine