Clinton questions credit for arch plan and Kennedy Center naming

By Sandra Rhodes (/journals/sandra-rhodes)

Former President Bill Clinton is criticizing President Donald Trump’s perceived need to receive credit for things he’s done.

This includes at plans for a triumphal arch and the efforts to put his name on the Kennedy Center.

Clinton said global challenges would be more easily dealt with if leaders “didn’t care as much about who got the credit.”

Clinton spoke at the opening of the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York Tuesday.

Clinton some of Trump’s recent announcement that plans for a massive arch bridging Washington and Virginia would incorporate a “top grade military complex” and store drones.

“I think it’s important to take a few minutes to assess where we are now and the environment in which we are meeting,” Clinton said.

“I suppose I could take my entire allotted time to discuss the self-evident wisdom of building an Arc de Triomphe in Washington to hold all our drones,” Clinton said as the audience laughed.

“Some of this stuff — it’s hard to make up,” he continued.

“Over the course of a lifetime, there are only so many real opportunities to make decisions that we know will shape our personal history and the history of those we live with and care about for a long time to come. This is one of those moments,” he said.

He then mentioned the Kennedy Center board’s attempts to inscribe Trump’s name on the historic Washington building.

“I personally think that the way we’ve argued about what’s going on at the Kennedy Center and all that kind of stuff — I think we’ve been majoring in the minors,” Clinton said.

“You really think 100 years from now anybody’s going to care very much about whose name’s on what building?” he asked.

“Isn’t it more important what happens in the building? And what happens outside the building?” he continued. “I feel so strongly — as I did 30 years ago-plus when I ran for president as a virtual child — that diversity is a positive thing, not a negative one.”

“You really think 100 years from now anybody’s going to care very much about whose name’s on what building?” he asked.

“Isn’t it more important what happens in the building? And what happens outside the building?” he continued. “I feel so strongly — as I did 30 years ago-plus when I ran for president as a virtual child — that diversity is a positive thing, not a negative one.”

“That cooperation works better than conflict, and that we could actually deal with just about every challenge we face, if we didn’t care as much about who got the credit, and we made sure that we took care of the least of these,” Clinton, 80, said. His remarks largely focused on dealing with the development of artificial intelligence and criticizing “zero-sum thinking” by the country’s political leaders.

“I believe that on the 250th anniversary of this country, we can’t have a politics driven by zero-sum thinking: In order for me to win, you have to lose,” he said.

“Nevertheless, I do understand why so many leaders around the world have chosen this zero-sum approach. Think how richly they have been rewarded for it in every sense of the word, and this payoff has been more apparent in the United States than any other country,” the former commander in chief said.

“Some days I can hardly believe what is happening in this country that I love so much. People in charge have created one set of rules for themselves and another set for everyone else,” Clinton said, without mentioning Trump by name.

“They’ve weaponized government to settle personal scores, prosecute enemies, stamp out free speech. They’ve even made the federal government a new profit center for themselves and their allies,” he said.