Bill Clinton’s official online biography, courtesy of the White House website.
Out of 10 paragraphs, only one is dedicated to only the second impeachment process ever of a President. One of the most important political happenings of the 20th Century, and it gets one matter-of-fact sentence. The rest is all the lovey-dovey stuff that people like to credit him with, like the economy, which of course he single-handedly made vibrant and booming, as if the dot.com boom had nothing really to do with it, which of course never would have happened had Gore not invented the Internet. :rolleyes:
What did it say in Reagan’s bio about Iran Contra? Hmm, there isn’t even a single sentrence about the worst abuse of Executive Power in the later half og the twentieth Century. People actually got convicted for what happened there.
I wasn’t aware there were any convictions or resignations stemming from “Monicagate”
Airman Doors, USAF, I think we’re probably on the “same side” but what in the world prompted this? 1/2 the people think he was an incredible jackass, the other 1/2 don’t. Or is this an attack on whitehouse.gov? I’m confused.
A few questions, if anyone cares to tackle them: 1) who actually wrote the Clinton blurb? 2) Would the copy not have to be approved by someone or other in the, uh, Republican-controlled White House? 3) which is more significant event: a failed, White-House-controlled attempt to throw a presidential election (re: Watergate) or a failed, politically-motivated impeachment proceeding?
I think you lost count somewhere between one and two.
El_Kabong, I would agree with you that Watergate was a big deal, even though it was just as politically motivated as Clinton’s impeachment. Doubt me? Nixon won in 1972 with 60.8% of the vote (or so, I’m going from memory). He didn’t even have to try to throw the election, he won it big. As a result, it was really just a minor, insignificant breaking-and-entering. The real big deal was the coverup, and if the Democrats hadn’t smelled blood and started circling the White House, it wouldn’t have gone as far as it did. Same circumstances (those being politically motivated attacks on the President), yet Nixon’s expose was far more lurid, compared to Clinton’s.
Furthermore, Nixon’s bio, viewed in full, comes off as pretty “fair and balanced” (d’oh!!!):
Doesn’t sound like a hatchet job to me. Tell me, Airman, do you think that any historical overview of Nixon’s presidency that didn’t mention Watergate as a defining event would be accurate?
Airman, you really need to brush up on the full extent of “Watergate” before you embarrass yourself any further. There are many good books on the subject. Watergate also included the official White House enemies list, and ordering the FBI and IRS to harass its members, along with a range other lesser abuses of power that were not known to the public until after the 1972 election. You might also note the rock-bottom approval ratings Nixon had by the time he recognized that he had lost “the consent of the governed”. Certainly his failure to end US involvement in Vietnam, as promised back in 1968, played a factor in that.
It was the only time the process has been used against a President for the reason it exists - to protect the nation from an official whose continued presence in office presents a danger to the state that is so great that the next election cannot be waited for. The cross-party unity on that point in the Nixon hearings was remarkable. It is not a special criminal court for defendants who happen to be federal officials, although that brand of spin is necessary to keep the Clinton impeachment from being laughed at.
You might also acknowledge, when you get over your snarkiness, that the Clinton impeachment wasn’t really about a manufactured perjury charge or a blowjob, but about simple political vengeance, just like the voted-down Andrew Jackson impeachment effort, which you might also have listed. The Clinton bio you listed did not note, for instance, that the House vote was strictly partisan, in a lame-duck session, without a functioning Speaker, including by members who had already been voted out by an electorate who was specifically telling them not to do it, and hurried to get it done before they had to leave. Any chance that future historians will see any of that as legitimate? None. Get a grip.
Frankly, I’m upset that it didn’t mention Clinton’s numerous appearances on the Conan O’Brien show. Clearly, there’s an anti-Conan bias within the LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBeral media.
Aw, I dunno, Munch—I’d say a crazed Republican cabal hijacking the entire country and impeaching a President over absolutely nothing was pretty damned important.
Then frankly I can’t see your beef with the Clinton bio, fellow Steelers fan. Surely Clinton’s impeachment was not as important as Nixon’s resignation. There were three sentences in the Clinton bio about the impeachment, six sentences in the Nixon bio about the resignation. That doesn’t seem an unreasonable ratio to me. Sure, the Clinton bio (necessarily) left out some information, but so too (necessarily) did the Nixon bio.
Airman, not that the impeachment wasn’t important or unique in any way, but naming this as one of the most important political events of the century is absurd.
And when are we going to get over the “Gore claimed to invent the internet” urban legend?