We yanks a yappy and sometimes strange bunch, but i’d really be interested in non-americans’ thoughts on the clinton era, and our election of George W. Bush as president.
I’d like to know which country you hail from, what you thought of the clinton policies, what you thought of our impeachment of him, and what you think of our new president.
Okay, I am an American, but I live in Germany. I have noticed that in the American Army Housing here, the amount of anti-American graffiti has stepped up since Bush was elected. Based on the handwriting, I’m sure it’s German teens who are doing it. Most of it seems to say “Americans you have elected a mass murderer” along with the usual “Yankee go home”.
Based on what I’ve picked up in the German media, Bush is not a popular choice with the Germans.
But I’ll wait and see what the Non-Americans on the board have to say about this. I was just suprised at how strongly some Germans feel about our choice of a leader.
I’m from England.
My views on Clinton:
Economy: the US economy has obviously done extremely well under Clinton, and I think he should probably take some of the credit for that although it might be shared with others (Greenspan and Congress, principally).
Foreign policy: Mixed results. Some bad (CAP bananas, Helms-Burton, sanctions against Iraq), some good (NAFTA & Mexico), some mixed (the intervention in the Balkans was mis-timed and his involvement in the NI Peace Process has had some success, but wasn’t an out-and-out triumph).
Social policy: I think his health care proposals were A Good Thing and Congress should take the blame for scuppering them (though I understand that attitudes to “socialized” health care are different in the US). On the other hand, I think the introduction of TANF was probably A Bad Thing, and the attempt to use welfare beenfits as a tool of social policy is doomed.
Impeachment: As far as I can see, a political campaign against him thinly disguised as a legal process. I do not personally think that he comitted perjury, since he was basing his answer on the stupid definition offered by Jones’s lawyers, by which he was perfectly justified in denying it. Also, I cannot see how the interests of justice were served by proceeding with the impeachment in the case of somebody who was alleged to have comitted perjury as the defendant in a civil case. I don’t believe that it’s common practice to prosecute everybody who loses a civil case in the USA, although that would constitute some prime facie grounds for assuming they might have perjured themselves.
My views on Bush:
I have very little to base any opinion on, since he’s not even been sworn in yet, but he is generally portrayed in the UK media as:
a moron,
a right-wing extremist,
an execution-happy sadist, as tatertot points out (which is disingenuous since, as far as I can see, all prominent US politicians are in favour of the death penalty),
having stolen the Presidency (politics dressed up as law, again), and
being in the pocket of various vested interests, especially the oil industry (given the recent debacle over the US’s Kyoto targets, this is particularly worrying).
I don’t necessarily accept that all (or any) of the above are true, but that is how he is being represented over here at the moment.
tatertot said,
I think the death penalty thing goes down very badly in Europe. It is the official policy of most European governments that the death penalty constitutes a human rights abuse and Bush has a reputation for being particularly pro-death penalty. Like I said, I think this is a little unfair because Gore and Clinton were also pro-death penalty; and my understanding is that Bush was not in a position to have intervened in many of the Texas killings anyway.
This is the part that confused me, but then again I get the feeling that Clinton and Gore’s pro-death penalty stance was not as widely publicised in Germany as was Bush’s. Is this true of other European media as well?
Australian.
Over here people know that economically Australia will do better under Bush, but most people wish that Gore had won and feel that he rightly did, if only because we find it hard to believe that people would be dumb enough to vote for Bush. There’s a general feeling of foreboding as we wait to see what he gets up to.
I’m also an American living in Germany. I’m surprised to hear that Anti-U.S. graffiti is on the rise over there. But come to think of it, we practically don’t have any graffiti like that here in East Germany, and I do notice it whenever I go to the West.
Otherwise, most Germans I know sort of liked or at least respected Clinton, and didn’t understand what all the Lewinsky fuss was about. As for Bush, they generally agree with what TomH said was in the British press – although the language barrier tends to water down opinions like that here, since most people here can’t understand GW’s famous mad utterances anyway.
Very soon, I’m going to start a thread about all the positive and good things I like about the US because, frankly, it’s about time I did. Anyway:
Clinton – Quite possibly the luckiest President in history having, without any input himself, presided over the most sustained economic growth in history. He can thank Greenspan and the Internet ‘New Economy’ for much of that.
Hugely disappointing on domestic social policy, especially given the surplus: The Health Care plan failed to get off the ground, the gap between rich and poor widened significantly, gun control opportunities after Colombine not taken up…you asked for a non-American perspective !
Foreign Policy – A feeling he genuinely is interested and cares. That is important because the President carries significant powers, actual and persuasive, to mediate and bring factions together. I think Bosnia probably stills haunts him although at least he, and some European Nations tried to employ the lessons they learned for the Kosovo campaign.
Northern Ireland has been, so far, a success. In the Middle East, having got them talking real issues, he tried to push the sides together before they were ready – a big mistake - but that’s still not completely a lost cause. Worked well with the traditional allies – slight trade war problems with the EU but otherwise fine and dandy. No real understanding of his position in relation to Iraqi sanctions and insufficient knowledge what he did in relation to N.Korea, China and Somalia.
Biggest disappointment for me was in not raising the profile of the Environment issue in the US conscience and then shafting the rest of the world on the implementation of Kyoto. Very, very disappointing and given the election of Bush, the Environment issue will be lost for some time to come.
Lewinski will be but a footnote.
Bush – Son of his father with strong Reaganite tendencies. One only hope he leaves foreign policy to his advisors but bothers to actually buy a passport (yes, I know he doesn’t need one as President).
Setting any progressive domestic agenda back a decade, naturally inclined toward isolationism, will completely fuck the environment and side with big business, not the first idea on foreign policy nor naturally inclined to use the powers that come with the office.
As with Reagan, one hopes his advisors get things right and, certainly, Colin Powell is a huge relief to many non-Americans.
A man with little experience and a very retro, ill-informed perspective of the wider world – one borne of little or no experience of that world outside his class and immediate geographic location. Probably a ‘John Wayne American’ who will try to justify 1960’s social and political philosophy with increasingly radical and irrelevant rhetoric. Already out of date by a couple of decades, hope I’m wrong.
I think wherever you have US bases, there is going to be some anti-US graffiti. But I found it interesting that we started having a major problem with it here during the election problems and that it is so anti-Bush. I don’t recall ever seeing anti-Clinton graffiti.
Although this proves nothing, I just thought it was interesting and wondered if others had noted the same.
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!
Badtz Maru what do you mean by that?
Why is that? I’m not doubting it, I just have no info either way.
I’d give Clinton a bit more credit than merely the "luckiest President in history "
Historically Australian interests have got a better hearing under Republican Presidents and while he never dumped on us, we didn’t get many favours either. However, he helped us with the lifeline in APEC that’s critically necessary for our engagement there.
His foreign policy overall was from better than average to very good. Concur that he probably pushed the Middle East settlement too hard but I think the Israelies will regret not being able to close the deal during his tenure.
Domestically, a lost opportunity to reform.
The incoming Bush administration have closer ties and deeper understanding of Australia than any for the last 2 decades.
Australia’s interests are in the US keeping it’s markets open to imports and supplying the raw material to the makers of these goods. So it’s all about free trade.
Feel that his preference will be to isolationism and Fortress America. Expect that China in particular will be enclined to push the envelope and test his legitimacy. The Australian nightmare is to have to choose between the US and China over say Taiwan. This will be an acid test on the quality of his advisors. Very comfortable with Colin Powell as Secretary of State.
Domestically, the legislature is so tightly balanced that it will be largely steady as she goes. Expect that a significant economic downturn is imminent. This will leave the Fed Reserve with the choice between the US exporting a recession to the rest of the world or to reignite the inflation dragon.
During his victory speech a local radio station here claimed that he banged the patriotic drum with the words “America”, “Country”, “Nation” and “American People” something like 36 times in a three minute speech. Am concerned that this will be indicative of his focus for the next four years.
I think it’s probably a good thing that he focuses on the country that he is actually the president of… He wasn’t elected president of the world, but of the US. His responsibilities are first to his country.
Another thing to consider. Possibly the biggest reason his Dad lost to Clinton was because many thought Bush Sr focused too much of foreign policy, while his own country sank into recession. An overcompensation wouldn’t be too surprising.
Bases, graffiti & such: Where there’s a military base there’s friction between locals & soldiers. I don’t think the average graffiti smearer reacts to anything else than the US being prominent in the media, with the votecount and such.
I’m a bit hesitant to answer the OP because my ignorance will probably shine through, but for what it’s worth and keeping in mind that I’m shooting from the hip here:
Clinton looked like an OK US president to me - he even visited Copenhagen, how can I not like him ? His work in foreign policy didn’t always succeed, but it’s hard to broker a peace where both sides would actually prefer to keep on fighting. Northern Ireland was a very good job, the Middle East was more of a very good attempt.
The Balkans - speaking as a European, I felt bad about dumping that into the US’ lap in the first place. We should have taken more of a leading role there. The Kosovo bombings might not, in the final analysis, have saved thet many Albanian lives, but they certainly played a part in toppling Milosevich, IMHO.
I was sad to see the Bin Laden & Sudanese bombings.
The Kenneth Starr affair was surreal. My reaction - and I know I shared the sentiment with others - was one of puzzlement. Why on Earth would anyone want to waste time on finding out exactly what sort of intercourse the President had when ? And then corner him on it and then complain that he lied ?
Apart from that, I’m regrettably ill-informed about American domestic policy.
As for Bush, I don’t know what to expect.
Isolationism is an unpleasant perspective, I’d much rather have the US as an active player. We might bitch about the US intervening, but at least we have a pretty good understanding of motives and ideals.
The Balkans are going to be trouble for a lot of years to come, and I can understand if the US would rather have the Europeans run that.
But I’d rather wait & see - after all, he had to get elected in the US and what he had to say was not targeted at me. We’ll presumably have to wait for the first crisis and hope it’s not a major one.
S. Norman
Revtim,
I take your point unreservedly. Having Oz as happy campers with benevolent foreign policy initiatives won’t, as you might say, count for a hill of beans in 2004.
Hear, hear and no argument with that. Just remember to factor in that for the mantle of “leader of the free world” as well that you can’t be exclusively domestically focused.
I suspect that you are correct.
This is my worry.
As stated previously, I like the team he has put together, as it affects us. I just haven’t got a handle on the man himself. Is the team an indication of his philosophy or a moderating counter balance?
Did many non-Americans ever really think of the President of the United States as the leader of the free world?
And do they still believe this after the end of the Cold-War?
“I’ll take Questions I Am Interested in for 100, Alex”
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For those of you who don’t know (which is probably most of you, considering), Israel is holding a special election for Prime Minister in two and a half weeks. In the polls published in today’s Maariv, incumbent Ehud Barak is trailing right-wing candidate Ariel Sharon by 20 points. In the same poll, they asked the public a “fantasy question” - what if Bill Clinton immigrated to Israel, converted, and ran for office instead of Barak.
The survey showed that Clinton beat Sharon by 8%.
As for George W, he’s George Bush’s son, and Israelis didn’t really like Bush all that much (not to mention that most of us were really looking forward to working with Al Gore). On the other hand, he’ll probably be tough on Iraq, which is always a good thing.
For Bush mentioning America alot, yesterday the daily show made fun of him mentioning Texas alot in Texas. So its probably just the style of his speeches.
From what I see, no non americans really care:)
Seems as though Bush is protrayed as lacking in areas of diplomacy in international matters, maybe even bordering on the ignorant and stupid.
I think that we have not had much basis for this belief, but there does seem to be the feeling that the only asset that Bush has that qualified him for the post was his parentage rather than any intellectual or worthy moral achievements.
People here catch the news on US affairs and it seems dominated by religious or right-wing pressure groups intent on controlling the lives of others, such as on abortion ro nationalistic tendencies.
They associate Bush with the right wing but his connections with such organisations are probably flimsy.
I think we in Europe are too keen to generalise without analysing and understanding US politics, an irony since US politicians are often accused of the very same thing by Europeans.
I am english and just watched Bush being sworn in. I have to admit there is something odd about the guy. Ok, i know clinton couldn’t keep his pants on but honestly you did kinda feel you could trust him on the big stuff.
I have great faith in the fact that you Americans managed to create a system where no one has too much power so that the president, congress, senate etc. have to really fight it out to make things happen.
I would rather Gore had won, he seems boring but reliable, lets face it, we have Tony Blair who is MR BORING and saintly but well, its like voting for your maths teacher, don’t you want someone who is like er, reliable ?