The Clinton Legacy was the topic on Forum on Wednesday, January 17th, 2001. The first hour was dedicated to domestic politics. I listened for a while as all the standard things that people bring up came up. Lani Guinier, Jennifer Flowers, health care reform, the impeachment. I got the feeling that if I didn't bring up something else, that was all we would hear.

I called in. It took fifteen minutes to wait through the the queue, but when I got on the air I said "I think the biggest accomplishment of the Clinton Presidency is going to turn out to be the State quarters program." "I think this because it has done more to expose normal people to American History in a fun way than anything else I can remember." "It's a nice change."

Michael Krazney wanted to know what the state quarters program was. I explained that for the past two years the Treasury has been putting out quarters commemorating the states. I finished by mentioning I had a Virginia quarter in my hand. He laughed and hung up, going on to the next caller.

Later in the show, one of the guests, a Political Science Professor from Stanford said "I love what that caller who talked about the State quarters said." "In twenty or thirty years, the Internet will turn out to have been the big change of the nineties."

I consider Lincoln to be something like the patron saint of the Republican Party, much as I consider Roosevelt to be something comparable for the modern Democratic Party. It is interesting to me that they were both wartime Presidents, and that they were both dead long before I was born. For whatever reason, they have been icons in my world my whole life.

Tian Harter

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