That was a pretty good post, Smegma.
BTW, maybe it was just the camera angle, but with that nose, Clinton is starting to look like W.C. Fields.
Agreed… that was a very good post, Smegma. It’s what I would have said if I was… you. Or something.
Seriously, good stuff.
Bill Clinton has the right to talk, and as long as the press and people find him interesting he will continue to show up on tv.
He’s a popular figure with a great many people who are interested to hear his opinions.
T’aint no big thing, Bronco.
december: As a result, [Republicans] came out smelling like a rose, having taken a principled stand against racism.
There may be a bit of partisan wishful thinking in that remark, though I agree that Republicans who spoke out against racism/segregation ought not to be tainted by the association with Lott and his positions. Nonetheless, I think the public perception of “Republican racism” caused by the Lott flap is not smelling quite like a rose yet. Do a search on “Republicans racism” if you don’t believe me:
I hope this won’t end up doing undeserved damage to non-racist Republicans—I’ve got a good Republican Senator myself, and I’d like us to keep him—but I think your notion that the Republicans are currently “smelling like a rose” on the racism issue is over-optimistic.
What Beer said. Well spoken, Smegma.
You mean the surplus cooked up in an era of rotten corporate bookkeeping and scandals like Enron, Worldcom, et al? When the name of the game in the stock market was laddering, which was designed to inflate stock prices to give Wall Street insiders billions in profit at the expense of the common man?
That “Surplus” was never guaranteed. Indeed, it never really existed.
The angering part of this situation is the statements made not the person making them. I don’t care one whit that it was Clinton who made those statements. They would be just as offensive coming from neighbor-Jack down the street. The fact that it was Clinton making them has hijacked this thread into a Clinton/Reagan/Pubs/Dems bash fest. We should all just forget about the fact that Clinton said those words because it makes absolutely no difference to the substance of his statements. Clinton is a has-been. A nobody. Who cares what drivel he spouts off? I, as a republican, certainly don’t.
A basic summary of his statements is this: “I’m being intentionally hyperbolic as I demonize millions of people as bigoted racists. This I do without regard to the accuracy of my statements or the people I’ve decided to target.”
They’re offensive coming from anyone. But you know what? Pfffft! I’m not losing sleep over it.
Grim
[hijack]
What’s this thing with Anne Coulter and footnotes? All through her Slander promo she kept talking about footnotes this, footnotes that, look up the footnotes, footnotes! footnotes! footnotes! like she invented the damn thing.
[/hijack]
[hijack]UncleBeer and Avolonian, thanks! Does that mean you’ll teach me the Secret Clique Handshake[sup]tm[/sup] now? Huh? Please?[/hijack]
Joking aside:
The previous post was a bit’o’rage directed against those pols and talking heads who have been whining for some time about the "cynicism’ of the U.S. electorate.
In short: Sorry, pols and pundits, but your truly cynical manipulation tries the patience of citizens who bother to think for themselves. I suggest you take (or re-take) Psych. 101 to learn about the phenomenon of projection.
'Nuff said.
ElvisL1ves:
It tells us that you’d rather attack the messenger than try and actually find factual fault with the message. As I said: the “none of his business” argument I was addressing is not true, because the 3-judge panel set up by the Independent Counsel law OKed the expansion, and did so for the reason I stated. Never mind Coulter - she gives a damned fine explanation of just how the whole Whitewater thing worked, why it was worth investigation, and how each step of the investigation led to the next, but you don’t NEED to read her book to get a sense of it. The fact is, Starr investigated nothing without getting an OK from a 3 judge panel which had to be convinced that the new item was connected to his mandated investigation. Period.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Hell, I’m not privy to it either.
I was never able to manage the double toe-cross at the end.
Uh-oh, I’ve said too much…
cjhoworth
“…but I don’t believe he’s the Anti-Christ incarnate as some of you seem to.”
No, but neither is he the lily-white (ooooops, I’m sure that’s politically incorrect…) heart-as-pure-of-gold, walk-on-water perfect as some of YOU seem to think.
… trying to match flights of fancy…
Come on…if it’s reasonable to attack Lott for his representations of years ago (in addition to castigating him for his recent remarks), then why isn’t it right to attack Clinton for his representations of years ago? IIRC, Clinton was sued years ago by the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund for failing to enforce the Voting Rights Act in Arkansas, when he was Governor. He then suggested to a group of pro-segregation whites that they were being unfairly targeted by civil rights laws…this according to Lani Guinier in her 1998 memoir, “Lift Every Voice.”
I think this is what Airman’s gripe is about mostly…that Clinton is attacking Lott for basically the same kind of activities that he himself participated in.
Hmmm… where to start. I know. I’ll start with Stoid.
What works me up about you is that you rarely point to a specific instance, you just post propaganda. That aggravates me to no end. The Bush Theme Song, for instance. Yuk yuk yuk. Also, the “I am terrified of what’s gonna happen to the country if Bush is re-elected” rhetoric. Right. We could have Hanoi Jane and H. Rap Brown in the White House and life would go on. Just because he doesn’t agree completely with your outlook doesn’t make the man wrong. Or right. I think he’s more wrong than right, but I would hardly call him all that is evil. That’s just absurd.
I would like to point out, for the record, at NO point did the name Bush appear in my OP. I long ago gave up defending the man, as I think he’s wrong about many things. I identify as an Independent, however I do have some conservative leanings. I am sometimes guilty of knee jerk reactions, and this may have been one of them. So be it, though. What’s done is done. So, let’s rehash the Clinton impeachment again, since I brought it up.
minty, I am awestruck that someone such as you, who is very well read and informed in matters of law, could defend Bill Clinton. The man lied under oath. Perjury, as you know, is a crime. I can’t understand how you can justify throwing that under the rug. The State of Arkansas Bar didn’t. They threw Clinton under the rug, and rightfully so. It’s a question of the man’s character. I think he was a douchebag. Your opinions clearly vary.
Also, it may have appeared that I was defending Lott. I most assuredly was not. I see now that the man has stepped down. Good, I say. He’s a douchebag, too. He lost any authority as soon as he said what he said.
My point of the whole thread is this: What Lott said was unwise, but not criminal. What Clinton did WAS criminal. Yet the Republicans attacked Lott for saying it, and the Democrats backed Clinton to the hilt for committing a crime.
Clinton is not in a position to say anything about matters of character. Ever. Yet he chose to voice an opinion that questioned the character of a majority of Congressmen, and by extension, and large percentage of the populace. It would be as if Nixon did public service spots about breaking and entering, or lying. Or Charlie Manson being a family counselor. It just isn’t done.
I have no intention of diverting attention from Bush and his policies. Have at him. You’ll find that if you cast away the rhetoric and try to have a reasoned discussion about Bush with me, I’ll agree with a good bit of what you have to say. I also don’t think that Clinton did a terrible job as President. The politician in him is superb, even though I rarely agreed with what he did. It’s the character of the man that I find appalling, and that’s where my outrage came from.
He really needs to go away and let people who matter have at it.
Kimstu, you’ve got to stop hanging around december so much, you’re starting to develop his “methods” of argument.
You string together a bunch of Internet-collected quotes from God knows who as proof that the public thinks Republicans are racist?
I’m sure that december could cherry-pick a whole bunch of quotes from like-minded pundits to show that Democrats are perceived as nasty hypocritical racists, and it would carry just as much weight - i.e. none.
Give us poll numbers or some other measure to prove your point, but enough with the anonymous quotes already.
Partisan wishful thinking, indeed.
Dammit, that was unbelievably sloppy of me. Please disregard.
762.
To me it is obvious that if Clinton still provokes so much interest, positive or negative, in what he does and says, that he is one of those people who matter.
No, it tells us that you’d rather believe anyone who will tell you what you want to hear, regardless of any amount of disproof of so many other things that the person has said, and no matter how many other views of the same situation are equally available to you.
Coulter and her footnotes are a running joke, especially on this board (you can do your own search if you like), and to take anything she says at face value is asking for trouble. Claiming pride in doing so will gain you only derision.
Airman, for all the times that it has been asserted as obvious fact that Clinton lied under oath, it should by now be just as commonly known what the lie was. Got a cite, or just repeating the mantra that your favorite commentators (perhaps the same as Chaim’s) tell you?
As for Clinton’s comments about Republicans and racism, there are too many examples to simply dismiss the charge. For one, Lott’s own background has been known for many years, but that hasn’t kept the GOP from continually re-electing him as their Senate leader, has it? If not overt support, it’s tacit acceptance, but is that really any better?
Ace, when you were a kid and you told a lie, did it matter whether it was a little white lie like where you were last night, or a big one, like “No, ma, I didn’t wreck the car, someone hit it”?
The magnitude of the lie doesn’t change the fact that it’s a lie. Many people have been put away for much less. So let’s not deflect the fact that he lied by saying it wasn’t a big one, because it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that by every objective standard, he committed a crime and should have been punished.