Why is this a brain teaser for you newscrasher? Puddleglum’s post pretty much sums it up.
In addition with few exceptions Clinton had great approval numbers with women across the board until the whole Lewinsky business started unraveling. Clinton’s appeal to women was both intellectual and highly physical/emotional. He was smart and dynamic and had an empathetic connection ability (even over televison) that stands alone ot this day, and one on one even some conservative women were utterly charmed by him as a person. Whatever that “thing” is that women really wan’t down deep in their psyche’s that normal men puzzle over endlessly, Clinton had, and he had “it” in spades.
Dude, if you don’t think peace is in any way affected by a President’s actions, then we’re all wasting our time here. If you don’t think the economy is in any way affected by a President’s actions either, then what the hell do you think a President does all day?
Well, during the Clinton years- and more or less exactly during the Clinton years- the Economy was great. Can anyone prove that Clinton made it so? That seems to be what you are asking. And, no, of course not. I can’t prove that Bush has ruined the economy, either. But the co-incidence is pretty darn strong, and Clinton worked to keep the economy on track. Thus, IMHO- and the opinion of many others- including economic experts- Clinton was responsible- at least in part- for the great economy. S- the answer is- he did great things for the economy, paid down the National Debt, and ran the budget at a surplus rather than a huge Republican type deficit. Maybe the only thing he did right is not screw it up- which is more than I can say about any Republican- and far too many Dems.
Then there was the whole extreme hatred of Bill by those I have no respect for- the extreme religous right. Any man hated so much by those dudes must be doing something right.
Of course there was Whitewater- this garnered support for Bill as it was clear to most of the American public that it was an expensive witchhunt. All Starr could come up with is a blow job. And you know- I really have no problem with- in fact a sneaking liking for- a guy who gets a hummer at work. Of course- this is inconceivable to the Religous Right, who think Oral sex is a sin- or rather, any sex that isn’t with your wife for the purpose of having far too many babies is a sin. And yes- Clinton lied about the BJ in Civil Court, during a bogus harrassing Lawsuit. And- I respected him for doing so, because a Real Man doesn’t “kiss & tell”.
Specifics? Welfare reform. A budget with a surplus. Reducing the National debt. Keeping us out of war.
So- what SPECIFIC act has Bush done that makes you admire & support him?
Actually I do understand the appeal of peace, what I don’t understand is your attributing it to the Clinton years. Are you willing to argue that during his presidency the US military had no involvement on wars? That the US military did not attack other countries?
He is intelligent, he believes in working well with others, and he wanted to lead the country in a direction that I think we needed (and still need) to go. I could care less about folksy charm and aw-shucks gymcrackery; give me a President who knows what he’s doing and can intelligently convince me why his plans are good.
Once again (and this time I’m not comparing him to anyone), he understood the way an economy works. It just so happens that we were going through unprecedented growth. He could’ve cut or raised taxes, and he could’ve increased or decreased government spending. But he didn’t (at least not substantially) because they weren’t appropriate for what was going on. This takes a lot of maturity. Most politicians would do something just for the purpose of achieving a legacy. He was truly a selfless man in this regard.
He took appropriate measures in foreign policy. He didn’t use a sledgehammer to kill an ant. He simply brushed the ant aside and kept an eye on him. This is why he was so beloved by foreigners everywhere.
And I believe that he was treated more unfairly by the press than any previous president. And yet he still handled himself with charisma and dignity. For 8 years, the goal of the Republicans and the right-wing press was to make him look bad. In the end, the only thing on his record is a BJ. Sure he lied about it, but these are things that you’re supposed to lie about. That’s why it’s called cheating (not that I condone cheating, but if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to lie about it).
Clinton did not bring about the prosperity of the 1990s; he inherited a rising economy from Bush I. HOWEVER, his tax increase (much ballyhooed on the Right as the “largest in history”) along with his fiscally conservative approach to spending got us out of the persistent deficits of the previous administrations and went a long way toward eliminating the debt–despite such additional burdens as the inherited S&L bailouts.
The fact that the U.S. government was making money, and not competing with the commercial sector to borrow funds, was one strong component of the lowered interest rates that drove the economy throughout his term.
Clinton made a sincere (if flawed and ineffective) effort to ease racial tensions in the U.S. after the divisive actions by Reagan and the indifference of Bush I. I fault Clinton for not approaching the subject realistically–touchy-feely meetings were not going to accomplish much–but at least there was an effort.
I didn’t like Clinton at first. I always felt like his style was to pander to the majority, and I got a certain feeling of insincerity from hearing him speak. (Remember how he was called the “waffler”.) But I have to say that he pretty much proved me wrong. I think he did a good job as president. There’s a large segment of the population who really feel that personal indiscretions are not that important in the big picture, and what is really important is not if he got a b.j. in the Oval Office, but whether he did his job well.
I keep hearing conservatives asking for proof that he was responsible for the country’s prosperity. Shouldn’t the burden of proof be on those who claim he was not responsible? Even if you just can’t bring yourself to admit that he helped the country prosper, at the very least, you have to admit that he didn’t get in the way. He preached fiscal responsibility and the importance of reducing the defecit and the national debt, AND actually made some progress in that area. IIRC, he was the only president in awhile to actually reduce the White House staff.
The short answer is that we enjoyed a stretch of unprecedented relative peace and prosperity during the Clinton years. If you want to argue that he had nothing to do with it, the burden of proof is yours.
Maybe this doesn’t make sense, but whether there was unprecedented peace or not, it seemed like peace. Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia, they all happened, but they didn’t really touch people here…it didn’t seem frightening. Now, with 9/11, and Afghanistan, and the terror alerts, and Iraq, things seem scary. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Reagan frequently used anecdotes in his campaign speeches (mostly false, but always preceeded by “I remember…” or “I saw…”) that talked about poor people “abusing” the system in ways that were pretty well understood to be caricatures of poor black people. When pressed by various black groups to take the initiative in fighting racism (usually by no more than using the Presidential “bully pulpit” to convey the idea), he rebuffed them, then publicly claimed that they were simply trying to stir up trouble and that “he remembered” when he was growing up in rural Illinois that everyone worked together without anyone raising issues of racial unfairness. (Of course, this cleverly ignored the fact that Illinois, during his youth, was a place where blacks had been subjected to race riots and lynchings and where the Klan was nearly as strong as in Indiana. Those nice colored people he was talking about knew better than to complain and his disingenuous claims that they were all happy folk was about on a par with earlier claims by plantation owners that their slaves were happy.
He created a climate in which the President of the United States was both blaming poor (black) people for their poverty and claiming that any effort to address the issue was simply troublemaking.
He was not an overt racist and he never pushed any explicitly discriminatory laws (beyond some of his “war on (people who happened to be using) drugs” nonsense), but he created an atmosphere that told blacks they did not matter and told whites who might be prejudiced that they had no reason to change their minds.
The first Supreme Court reversals of Affirmative Action occurred before he was elected. He was elected with almost no black votes. He had the opportunity, therefore, to approach the black leadership and say “I’m in control. What should we do to address the real problems in the country?” Instead, he said “I don’t care about you, I’m going to pretend there are no problems, and I’m going to tell the rest of the country that there are no problems.”
Allright - point taken. Geez, you don’t have to bite my head off. I was hoping to respect the OP’s request not to make it a Clinton vs. Bush thing, but I’m not sure how to word it other than to say that in my opinion, Clinton’s approach to foreign policy was more moderate and reasonable than either Reagan’s or George W’s. In your examples, I see mainly direct responses to aggression, not pre-emptive attacks. I can’t imagine Clinton defying the UN in the way that George W. has.
Besides, I still think it was a time of relative peace, compared to WWII, Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War, Cuba, and Iran in the past, and what’s going on now. Obviously you can’t give credit to Clinton for that, but at the very least you can say that he didn’t make any major blunders that caused problems.
Well, Bayonet- you make a good point. I’ll have to modify my statement to “keeping us in COMPARITIVE peace”. Lots of low level “incidents” have happened in every administration. However, Desert Storm, and the Invasions of Afganistan & Iraq are on another level of warfare entirely. We didn’t see minute by minute life feeds on CNN from “Operation Desert Fox”, nor did many of our boys come home in body bags from the firing of cruise missles.
I’m not a fan of Clinton (I’m too liberal for my own good), and I don’t view these as necessarily being accomplishments, but many people do, so I’ll list them:
Welfare Reform
While I think the jury is still out on whether this has had a substantial benefit to either government costs or the general benefit of poor people, I think that this created a general positive psychological effect in the country. Prior to this, I believe welfare clearly wasn’t working, and poor people were constantly being demonized (terms like “Welfare Queen”). I think after this reform passed, people were less likely to view the government as simply “stealing” their money to give to people who somehow didn’t deserve it. Hopefully, we can revisit the issue again and see what’s actually working and not.
All happened under Clinton’s watch. I personally find these things reprehensible, but it’s clear many people think they were good, and I don’t think a more liberal democrat would have allowed these to pass. Clinton’s shift to the center certainly helped pass a lot of this type of legislation that many people view as having substantial economic benefit.
NAFTA, GATT
Once again, not something I agree with, but I think Clinton should definitely get the credit for moving these things along to their current state. Here, Clinton had to navigate many objections from the liberal wing of the Democratic party, and I think he did it successfully.
In addition to what others have mentioned before I’ll throw a few more out:
He was able to speak about any topic at any time, almost like a walking & talking policy encycolpedia. Whether you agreed with his position or not, you had to respect his grasp of the issue at hand. This gave the impression of a man in command of the position he held. I think Bush the Elder had the same ability, but his communication skills were nowhere near the same as Clinton’s, and this helped him lose in '92.
Accessability. He held a ton of press conferences, and went out amongst the people on a regular basis. I’ll admit this is a thinly-veiled criticism of W, but it’s just something that is magnified due to W being almost the direct opposite of his predecessor. Ultimately I don’t think it means anything substantial, however, except that it shows a certain “respect” for the electorate (or the negative spin: once a politician, always a politician).
Treating the rest of the world like they matter. Multilateralism up the wazoo. If Clinton hadn’t been so internationally involved I think there is a very good chance that the foreign investment in the 90’s (remember folks: that boom was not just American money making your wallet fatter, a significant amount came from outside) would have been less than it was. He’ll probably never get credit for it, but he was the best salesman of American products/services abroad that we’ve probably ever had.
Making Newt Gingrich look like the ass he really is.
In the end, with all his pros and cons, I think he’ll just be seen as one of the better caretaker presidents, so don’t expect to see him added to Mt. Rushmore.