So last night I’m watching a program on baby-boomers hosted by Tom Brokaw and he’s interviewing Bill Clinton. Naturally, given the subject matter, the issue of marijuana came up. And Clinton had the gall to sit there and claim that he was only joking when he said he didn’t inhale and that he’s had to live ever since with people trying to make it look like he was serious.
Poor Bill! Poor, innocent Bill, victimized once again by the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Now anyone who’s ever seen a clip of Cliinton’s marijuana statement knows better. I haven’t been able to find a video clip but I did find a quote that matches my recollection: “When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.”
Bwahaha! Man, that guy’s a laugh a minute! Ya gotta love him!
Ahem, anyway, he’s sitting there lying to our face as usual and Brokaw, who I know damn good and well knows better, just sits there silent and lets him get away with it, also as usual. (I couldn’t help but think of the presidential primary season when Clinton claimed that Hillary only made her Bosnian sniper comments once, late at night after a long tiring day, when she was on record saying it over and over again during her campaign stops. The press never challenged him on that either.)
Now these are admittedly rather minor lies and you’re probably thinking “Big deal”, and you would be right if it weren’t for the fact that the press allows him to lie to our face time and time again with no challenge and no refutation from the media despite the fact that clear evidence exists to the contrary.
Still, it must be tough being Bill Clinton and having to tell one lie after another to try to convince people that you’re a better person than you really are.
Because of course, no other politician has EVER gotten away with a bald-face lie and not been called to task by the press. Just Bill Clinton. :rolleyes:
The media has a nice, decades-long record of letting politicians lie and contradict themselves without calling them on it. See the entire Bush administration and more or less everything that has ever come out of Palin’s mouth.
It has nothing to do with party affiliation or personal charm, and everything to do with our gutless, rating-whore media.
I agree that our media isn’t tough enough in general when it comes to challenging politicians on their lies and inconsistent statements. I think it’s a pity that this phenomenon only bothers you when it benefits Democratic politicians.
The guy who really thought Clinton was looking for the Weapons of Mass Destruction under a Chair, when the man was obviously toking like a SOB on freaking Oregano?
No, no. I see your point. The point is that you still have a hard-on about the Big Dog, even though he has no official position and has no power whatsoever to do anything but endorse candidates.
Hell, I have my differences of opinion with the stuff that happened in Bill Clinton’s tenure in the WH. I hate that he signed DOMA. I hate that DADT was instituted under his watch. I think he was stupid in allowing the fling with Lewinsky to happen instead of waiting a couple of years until he was out of the spotlight. I think lying about the fling was a serious misstep, given the enduring witchhunt that had been circling around him since his candidacy was announced.
But, my god, man! Give it a rest! The man hasn’t held an official government position in a decade. He’s been more or less laying low (with the occasional pop-up, as when Hillary was running for the nomination, and the recent Haiti relief effort). Isn’t it about time to go “Gee, that was a silly question when they asked it the first time, almost two decades ago, and it really didn’t deserve a serious answer in the first place, so maybe it’s time to let it the fuck GO!”?
You may thing many people are paying attention to you, SA, but you don’t take into account that there are thousands of members on this board who write you off every time you post and don’t even take the time to respond.
I’m just sayin’. Don’t take the fact that you get any attention at all as evidence that you are somehow relevant.
Oh, I’ll take the OP seriously, because I think Clinton was the best president of my lifetime, and I do remember him on Arsenio Hall explaining just how true it was that he didn’t inhale, and why we should all believe him.
I would be disappointed to find out Clinton is rewriting history like that. However, Starving Artist, given your history here, I’m going to need to see a clip of this before I believe your version of the interview. What did Clinton actually say to Brokaw?
The worst part is all the people that died and the money wasted because Bill lied about marijuana. A real American tragedy. Too bad we didn’t elect a Republican because Bush couldn’t have turned a surplus into a defect of Clinton hadn’t given him a surplus to begin with If you think about it it’s really Clinton’s fault.
Just for the sake of background, this lie (and it’s an obvious lie) appeared in Tom Brokaw’s Boomer$ special. Since I didn’t watch, I don’t know the context of the conversation or what might have been left on the cutting room floor, but it was not a feature on Clinton and it was really not the right venue for an argument over the intent of “but I did not inhale.”