Did Jones not put Clinton dropping his pants in front of her in the lawsuit? Or did she retract that claim?
Everyone knew there was a better chance of the Browns winning 10 Super Bowls in a row than Clinton getting removed from office.
I doubt that anyone really thought Clinton stood a chance of being removed. The Republicans were probably just looking to make the Democrats stand with the perjurer and portray them to middle America (i.e., the swing states) in 2000 as an unreliable, dishonest bunch. Looks like the strategy worked, too.
Actually, it didn’t Approval of Republicans declined during impeachment, and Bill Clinton’s approval rating went UP after the impeachment vote, before stabilizing back to where it had been throughout most of his Presidency - mid 60’s. Trump can only dream of such approval ratings.
From Paula Jones’ testimony:
Not buying flowers, huh?
Agreed. After the Trump impeachment, I am reexamining my position on the Clinton impeachment, however it is ridiculous when people on the left continually say that Clinton simply lied about a blowjob.
That is terribly insulting to women in the #metoo movement. First, Paula Jones claimed that she was sexually harassed on the job and that Clinton pulled his dick out in front of her. If the defendant was anyone not named Bill Clinton, everyone on the left would have taken her word as gospel.
But, she certainly had a right to go to court for compensation. And previous to that trial, she had a right to take depositions, and due to rules of evidence which were enacted by the left and applies to every other defendant not named Bill Clinton, she had the right to ask him about consensual sexual acts with other people on the job. And she had the right to truthful answers.
So, in effect, the support for Clinton is support for frustrating the redress for a woman who was sexually harassed in the workplace which the left is also against unless the man’s name is Bill Clinton. It is not “lying about a blowjob” or keeping adultery hidden from your wife. It denies women their equal opportunity to participate in the workplace without being treated like sex objects.
Sam Stone:
Clinton was a charming fellow, and managed to woo the public to see him as a poor, poor persecuted fellow. But when Gore ran for president two years later, he paid the price for his support of Clinton’s dishonesty and sleaziness. And sixteen years after that, that same support undermined for Hillary any moral high ground she might have hoped that the Trump-Billy Bush thing would give her with voters in swing states.
Clinton’s high approval ratings are probably reflected in that fact that both Gore and Hillary won the popular vote. But having California and New York very very deeply on your side doesn’t help when you need Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania to win the presidency. And no doubt the Republicans of the time knew that (though I’m sure they weren’t thinking about 2016 at all at that point, only 2000).
Umm, maybe. Or it could have to do with campaign mistakes by Gore. Keeping the popular incumbent Bill Clinton away. The inexplicable pick of Lieberman for VP who added nothing. Nader running to his left flank. Bush’s brother being the governor and Florida having a Republican controlled assembly. The SCOTUS with a bizarre partisan ruling.
The whole mess did cause Gore distance himself from Clinton in the 2000 election, which meant he couldn’t really use any of that approval rating for himself. You know the rest.
Indeed.
Most of that approval rating was because we were at peace and the economy was smoking. Like all presidents, Clinton got the credit for the economy whether he was responsible for it or not.
I remember that the late 90s were a great time. The internet was supposed to mean good paying high tech jobs for the remainder of time and because the Soviet Union had collapsed, the world was going to be at peace forever because the U.S. and Europe were going to be the New World Order that kept everyone in line. We had a budget surplus and a plan to pay off the national debt in ten years. Plus, I was in my early 20s and could still get an erection on command. There was nowhere to look but up.
However, and more to the point, people were indeed tiring of Clinton, IIRC. Even the people who didn’t think that he should be removed from office viewed him as personally very flawed and were happy to be moving on from him personally. They liked his policies and hoped that Gore would continue them, but the swing voters fell enough for Bush in large part because he was a conservative Christian and it was sort of nice to see a guy in the White House that you could like personally. I mean, things were so good, you could allow yourself the luxury of being concerned with what now seems like a minor thing.
True (and you’d probably call me a leftist). Perjury is indeed a big deal.
You’ve lost me. How are the rules governing civil trials, the rules of evidence and the rules allowing a plaintiff to take depositions, in the federal district courts of Arkansas “enacted by the left”? And those rules *did *apply to defendant Bill Clinton, who *was *deposed. That’s how he got into trouble.
Seriously – what are you talking about?
Now you’re really lost me. One can think perjury is a serious matter, and yet still believe that, in this particular case, it wasn’t an impeachable offense, and still support legal avenues for women (or men) who have been the target of sexual harassment to seek redress.
Perjury is a crime. But it is not a “high crime” if it does not relate to the affairs of state. Crimes that one can commit only because of their position of power are what impeachment was intended for.
I’m not sure how the right-leaning folks on this board can correctly point out that Clinton’s behavior was very serious and merited impeachment, and then turn around and say that Trump’s behavior – which, unlike Clinton’s, involved alleged misuse of public money and impacted foreign policy – does not.
(I mean, besides IOKIARDI.)
I was worried at the time that Republican Senators would vote to convict so that they could be rid of him.
Isn’t that kind of the point? Why else would they convict?
I am solidly Team Democrat, but this is definitely 100% true, and Democrats do themselves/ourselves no favors by pretending otherwise.
Bill Clinton was neither a good person nor a good policy-maker. Though we can say the same (and worse) of his accusers, he shouldn’t get a pass because of that.
I’ve been thinking about this, and the parallels with today’s landscape.
There’s no doubt that, in the 90s, I eagerly dismissed and overlooked the evidence of Clinton being a scumbag, because I was excited about the Reagan/Bush years finally being over and the prospect of more progressive policies being enacted. I considered the Whitewater investigation to be nothing but a partisan effort to come up with something – anything – that could be used against the president the GOP loathed.
These days, Republicans eagerly dismiss and overlook the evidence of Trump being a scumbag, because they are excited about the Obama years finally being over and the prospect of less progressive policies being enacted. They consider the Mueller investigation and the current Ukraine investigation to be nothing but partisan efforts to come up with something – anything – that can be used against the president the Democrats loathe.
The difference is that, despite his character flaws and execrable treatment of women, Clinton was a superb statesman and an effective president. And the behavior Trump’s supporters are willing to ignore would have had Clinton impeached and convicted several times over.
I agree with this but I would quibble over it being just about the loathing. When I got the full measure of Trump, I realized the man was outrageously unfit and capable of doing literally anything to further his interests, and would likely be on a continuous crime spree from day 1.
Clinton was of course not that bad, but in hindsight I think the Republicans correctly got the measure of him. He committed crimes in office to cover his present and past sexual misdeeds.
Because Clinton was a skilled orator and persuader, and the Republicans are such transparently hypocritical comic-book villains, I think we give Clinton way more credit than he deserves. I can’t think of another modern Democrat so willing to bargain away his own party’s priorities and values to secure his own survival and legacy.
Taking it as a given that Trump is several orders of magnitude worse than Clinton, I can now see why Clinton inspired such loathing and, furthermore, how that loathing metastisized into today’s climate.
Time travel back to 1992, and GOP voters not only see their establishment guy beaten like a rented goalie, but the guy beating him is a smooth-talking philanderer and accused sexual assaulter. *Those Democrats will back anyone so long as it gets them power – they’re utterly amoral and their policy proposals must be, too! * No wonder Limbaugh and Gingrich found an audience.
Not that this in any way excuses today’s disgusting, reality-averse GOP and their supporters. But we might have a little better foothold to fight back with if we stop defending Clinton.