I wasn’t around for Watergate, but I think we’re talking about a level of alienation and anger that goes much deeper than a healthy distrust of the powerfull.
Yes, but it was Clinton who put himself in a position to get in trouble for it. So it was still his bad decision.
That may be the worst analogy I’ve ever seen on the Straight Dope.
Abe had no serious idea that he was going to be shot at Ford theater. While any logical person who is President of the United States is a professional politician that knows getting an extramarital blowjob in the Oval Office is going to turn into a scandal if it ever comes out.
No mention of Lincoln’s suspension of Habeus Corpus during the civil war? A little more historically imortant than a blow job (IMHO).
Blaming the victim. Remember how the Pubbies took Linda Tripp’s revelations and worked them into a scandal? Sorry, we all know about the blowjob impeachment, what a piece of shit it was and who was responsible, and it wasn’t Clinton. Sure, he cheated on Hillary, but that was his, Hillary and Monica’s biz, and no one else’s.
I agree it was George and Clemenceau who most wanted Germany to suffer, but I’ve read accounts by historians that say that if Wilson has been more on top of his game, he could have, and should have, gotten George and Clemenceau to back down.
Then you’re just not paying attention, Martin.
Should he have? A lot of Presidents have had mistresses while in offices, some of them (Jack Kennedy) a LOT of them. But nothing like the blowjob impeachment ever happened. How could Clinton have known that the Republicans had completely lost all moral sense?
Eh, I’d blame Clinton, not for having an affair, but for having an affair with someone who worked for him. THAT was incredibly stupid of him.
Bill Clinton doesn’t belong on the list and I don’t think it’s accurate to say that he “embtroiled” the country in the scandal. It was a partisan political Whitewater investigation led by Kenneth Starr which, after years of investigation failed to uncover any other wrongdoing, eventually led to a desperation attempt to trap the President into prevaricating about his sex life during a civil deposition. It was Starr who embroiled the country in a meaningless, partisan sex scandal, not Clinton.
Bush’s decision to lie his way into an illegal war should be somewhere in the top 5.
I didn’t disagree with you about whose business it was. He still put himself in a situation where he could get blasted for it. Did past Presidents get away with it? Yes. Does that mean Clinton should have just assumed he could do the same thing without consequences? I don’t think so. (I don’t know much about J. Edgar Hoover, by the way, but couldn’t JFK have also paid a price in blackmail for his affairs?) I rarely agree with Martin Hyde, but it’s a horrible analogy.
The point is, the damage to the nation wasn’t caused by Clinton’s blowjob. It was caused by the Republican response to it, and the wide ranging special prosectuor investigation. If the scandal hadn’t come out, or the Republicans had no chose to persue it, no harm would have come to the nation. This is opposed to someone like Nixon who did damage the country by undermining the election process, and abusing the powers of office.
In my opinion, yes. He had every right to assume that his private sex life would remain private.
Hear, hear.
Presidents have been having affairs long before Clinton. (Ever head of “John F. Kennedy?”) The circus that happened to Clinton was not his fault. And I’d say that the horrific outcome of Bush’s idiotic decisions have had a far worse effect on this country and on the rest of the world.
I fully understand that. The topic is Presidential blunders, and I think that includes more than just damage to the nation (although, wisely, the makers of the list reserved the top couple of spots to errors that did damage to the country). Giving ammunition to one’s political enemies is certainly a blunder.
Yes, I suppose that is true.
One I’m surprised about is Hoover’s total lack of an appropriate response to the Great Depression. Not only did it hurt people, it put Democrats in power for 20 years. That seems far worse than Clinton, or even the War of 1812.
Saying the Clinton’s adultery was damaged the country is certainly going too far. But saying the Clinton was blameless is going even farther in the opposite direction. Clinton did knowingly choose to have an affair; pretending it was something that just happened to him, like Lincoln being shot, is ridiculous.
You say he wasn’t “blameless” as though his private sex life was anything criminal or he had to apologize for.
At the very least, it certainly is not a significant enough “blunder” to warrant placement on a list above any presidential mistake which has led to loss of human life. Clinton’s blow job didn’t kill anybody.
Yeah, right. And I suppose you’d say the same thing about Cheney’s hunting accident? Weren’t you the one objecting to my calling that a “non-story”?
As for Bush and Iraq. Yes, that will likely make the top 10 list eventually, but I think these guys are purposely not looking at him because it’s not quite yet “history”.
I also agree that the interment of Japanese during WWII should be up there. And maybe Nixon’s impostion of wage and price controls, too.
I think it’s only supposed to be historical stuff, and we’re still living through Bush’s nightmare.
Besides, I’m scared if we put it there, he’ll do something even worse.
I think Iran-Contra should be higher.
I think there is just a slight difference in the amount of privacy one should expect for getting a blow job and for shooting someone in the face. I never said the Cheney shooting was a crime, by the way. I just said it was funny and that the comic nature of the incident was part of what made it a “talker” for a week.