the unintended consequence

(1) He writes at length about his awareness that terrorism was a growing threat, but does not grapple with the unintended consequences of his administration's decisions to pressure Sudan to expel Osama bin Laden in 1996 (driving sent the al Qaeda leader to Afghanistan, where he was harder to track) or to launch cruise missile attacks against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the embassy bombings in 1998 (an act that some terrorism experts believe fueled terrorists' conviction that the United States was an ineffectual giant that relied on low-risk high technology).

I think in the context above,
the unintended consequence = the unintended bad result. Right?

(2)

Context:
Part of the problem, of course, is that Mr. Clinton is concerned, here, with cementing - or establishing - his legacy, while at the same time boosting (or at least not undermining) the political career of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. He does a persuasive job of explicating his more successful initiatives like welfare reform and deficit reduction, but the failure of his health care initiative, overseen by Mrs. Clinton, is quickly glossed over, as is the subsequent focus of his administration on such small-bore initiatives as school uniforms and teenage smoking.

initiative = the power or right to introduce a new legislative measure?

But if it meant "right", I don't think "explicating his more successful right" sounds persuasive; instead, it sounds rather stilted.


（3） The nation's first baby-boomer president always seemed like an avatar of his generation, defined by the struggles of the 60's and Vietnam, comfortable in the use of touchy-feely language, and intent on demystifying his job. And yet the former president's account of his life, read in this post-9/11 day, feels strangely like an artifact from a distant, more innocent era.

Touchy-feely? Slang for "touchy feeling"?
Baby-boomer: a baby who was born in the baby boom of the US?