Clark: People find the need to villify someone or something when they are disatisfied with their own life. I was around to watch the proceedings for Nixon and Clinton. I found the partisanship in both cases an example of BAD government! People these days prate on and on about tolerance and stereotypical thinking and then turn right around and say, “Those nasty Republicans” or “Those nasty Democrats”. People are people, there are good people and bad people in BOTH camps. Yet, people will believe that which serves their purpose.
Yes, but at least he is our traitor! Poor Billy.
shema yisrael adonai eloheynu adonai echad
And, uh, how exactly is this different from, say for instance, Reagan selling weapons to Iran to get money to run an illegal war or, maybe, Tricky Dick running Watergate? Oh…wait…never mind…those were REPUBLICANS.
Feh! By actual count, there is precisely one good thing about Clinton. He has driven more Right Wingers into cardaac arrest than any one in history. On balance, he comes out ahead.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delicatorum Votis
Clark,
You make a good point and one that I have observed over these last eight years. Just why is it that a spectrum of the population has decided to personally vilify Clinton? I mean, back during his initial campaign, he never made any bones about being ‘a politician.’ He was, he admitted it, he knew how to work the system, and that was why he claimed he’d be a very effective president, because he knew/knows how to play the political games. And like it or not, he had been pretty effective at getting what he wanted.
Is he any more crooked, selfish, etc. than any other politician? I am personally inclined to say no- they’re all about the same. I suspect that ANY politician who has undergone the same depth and detail of examination that Clinton has would have AT LEAST the same number of disreputable actions in his history. But that’s my opinion.
You’re absolutely right, Felice. We could spend all day cataloging lists of illegal/unethical/immoral activities by elected officials, whether confirmed or not. But Clinton seems to be more vilified than any president in my personal memory. Folks thought Ford was an idiot, but few sought to crush him. Carter was destroyed politically, but vey few called him a traitor. Reagan got away with murder (IMO almost literally). Bush’s history of misinformation and illegality with the CIA (can you say Allende, boys and girls?) was completely ignored by the voting public.
Hell, for that matter, how long did Gingrich act like a total sleazeball before people finally called him on it? The book deal, his treatment of his wife, his call girls . . . And oddly, not many people have jumped on McCain yet for his involvement in the Keating S&L scandal.
True, Willy has gotten busted a couple times. His behavior with the Lewinsky matter was inexcusable and reprehensible. But I still don’t know if that fully explains the vehemence of the partisan opposition to him. So many people (Gertz included, it seems) appear to be starting with the postulate: “Clinton is a traitor,”, and then finding (and fabricating) corroboration of that postulate.
Go fig.
-andros-
andros: When we say someone is more vilified than another we are making a subjective statement and one that is essentially not provable.
I think that many saw Bill as a white knight on a white horse charging in to the white house. He lead us to believe that. The video tapes I was sent when I was a local campaign manager for him in our area showed the clips of him as a young man shaking Jack Kennedy’s hand. What was THAT supposed to make us think? I won’t state the obvious. He wasn’t Jack, Jack the President who served his country in military service, Jack the Giant Killer because he didn’t “kill” any giant, but there is a similarity to Jack, the Ripper because he effectively killed the dreams in us he sought to evoke when he ran for office.
When people put faith in you, look to you for solutions to their problems, and you let them down, THEY GET ANGRY!
The shame that he brought to his family!
The shame that he brought to himself!
The shame that he brought to the Democratic Party!
The disgrace that he brought to the Oval Office and the Presidency!
All of those are worse than any I<-BOLD have in recent memory!
The kinds of things that he did do just give conservatives fuel for the fire.
I think he is in for another first (he had many). I think Hillary is going to dump his sorry a** after this is over. That will be another first for him and our country.
Just my opinion.
Ken
Phaedrus, your point regarding people who have turned from admiration to scorn (e.g., David Brodeur) is probably accurate. However, Clinton was being bashed and the Falwell/Robertson/Wildmon clique was spewing hateful lies about Clinton before he was even inaugurated.
Perhaps it was simply that he had a track record of sexual activity and those folks consider sex the greatest sin. I dunno.
When Reagan was elected, most of my associates were liberals and there was a fair amount of derision heaped on him for his obvious lack of intelligence and his inability to tell the truth throughout an entire partagraph.
When Clinton was elected, most of my associates (different job, different state) were conservatives. They didn’t mock Clinton or even scorn him; they hated him. They had a visceral reaction to Clinton that went far beyond any outrage about gays in the military or national health plans. They simply hated for the sheer pleasure of the hatred.
Tom~
Guess you’re too young to remember Watergate, huh, Phaedrus?
What about the Iran-Contra affair?
Yes, Clinton committed adultery.
Yes, he lied about it in a vain and stupid attempt to save himself and his family from humiliation.
So?
Is that in the same league as breaking and entering? Illegal wiretapping? Selling weapons to America’s enemies in direct violation of the law?
And Tom makes a good point that people have been hating Clinton since long before the sex scandals became acknowledged fact. Why is that?
Felice
“Everything, once understood, is trivial.” -WES
Guess you’re too young to remember Watergate, huh, Phaedrus?
What about the Iran-Contra affair?
Yes, Clinton committed adultery.
Yes, he lied about it in a vain and stupid attempt to save himself and his family from humiliation.
So?
Is that in the same league as breaking and entering? Illegal wiretapping? Selling weapons to America’s enemies in direct violation of the law?
And Tom makes a good point that people have been hating Clinton since long before the sex scandals became acknowledged fact. Why is that?
Felice
“Everything, once understood, is trivial.” -WES
Tom: “When Clinton was elected, most of my associates (different job, different state) were conservatives. They didn’t mock Clinton or even scorn him; they hated him. They had a
visceral reaction to Clinton that went far beyond any outrage about gays in the military or national health plans. They simply hated for the sheer pleasure of the hatred.”
That is sad indeed Tom. I think it is an evidence of how blind people can be. I have known the same about Republican candidates though. In that regard Clinton ain’t nothin’ special.
I think too many people let their “party” do their thinking for them. I NEVER have and never will. Your associates are people who seem lead too easily. People like that scare me. Ewww!
Ken
Felice:
“Guess you’re too young to remember Watergate, huh, Phaedrus?”
I said recent, didn’t I? To me 28 years isn’t recent.
“What about the Iran-Contra affair?”
Shameful!
“Yes, Clinton committed adultery.
Yes, he lied about it in a vain and stupid attempt to save himself and his family from
humiliation.”
Bill cares about himself and NO ONE else. Read “Partners in Power”.
“Is that in the same league as breaking and entering? Illegal wiretapping? Selling weapons to America’s enemies in direct violation of the law?”
No, he and his cabinet just gave away military secrets to countries that are communist and our enemies. I think it’s worse, but that is MY opinion.
Ask Hillary if what her husband did to her was as bad as what Nixon did to her.
"And Tom makes a good point that people have been hating Clinton since long before the sex scandals became acknowledged fact.
Why is that?"
Tricky Dick didn’t pretend he was Jack Kennedy. If you ask me the two of them should be put out on a boat with no paddles to see if they can swim.
Also, Felice, people are ignorant as a rule. They are like sheep many times. I have been in public office and I know.
All in all it’s a sad day for America. When will we have a good President? I have NO idea. The people that run strike me as power hungry ego maniacs, I think it must be a qualification written down somewhere.
Ken
Well, duh. That’s why I said “seems to be.”
And if you truly thought that A) JFK was a White Knight, and that B) Bill Clinton from Bumfuck, AR, was going to be his successor, you have less of a clue than I thought.
And yes, that’s subjective too. Cope.
-andros-
Doing my best! 
Ok, Phaedrus, you asked (and I’m both irritable and over-caffeinated today):
When will we have a good President?
Well, perhaps a good man (or woman) would have a better chance of becoming President if the American media and public decided to grow up about a couple of subjects, one of those being sex.
Mr. Clinton fooled around with an intern - now, that’s a serious problem for him and Mrs. Clinton, but why should anyone else give a damn ? He lied about it - well, who doesn’t lie about sex when cornered ? And his political enemies made damn sure he was cornered.
I think it’s safe to say that a lot of non-Americans, including yours truly, was laughing at USA during the investigations. But what I was laughing at was Kenneth Starr and the entire concept of dragging your head of state throgh a process like that.Mr. Clinton, on the other hand, came out a winner in most people’s eyes, while Starr’s name remains a joke.
So, to answer your question with another question: What good man (or woman) is going to want the job, if part of it is standing up to that kind of scrutiny ?
What good presidents in America’s past could have survived this process ?
If the media directed their attention to the political issues and didn’t focus on who took their clothes off when, you just might get a better grade of candidates.
Well, you asked.
Being worried is the thinking man’s form of meditation.
Which raises an interesting question. Let me pose an issue.
Given that the high-visibility, high-power position of President attracts the ‘wrong sort’ (as described above), how should the American governmental system be restructured to support putting those into office ‘the right sort’, those who are both qualified and dedicated to doing a good job for the country?
Felice
“Everything, once understood, is trivial.” -WES
Felice: Perhaps we should tighten the restrictions. Make it so a person would have to hold Ph.D’s in economics, political science, history, philosophy, and psychology and then offer it at no pay other than basic necessities during and after their tenure.
Raise the bar.
Or make it so there is no “gain” so that only humanitarian types need only apply. Full psychological work-up on the contestants with lie detectors, etc.
My favorite was always the Philosopher/King.
Just a thought.
Ken
My favorite bumper sticker:
Clinton doesn’t inhale, he just sucks!