Just making sure I understand: Reagan had the moral clarity to lay the groundwork for the terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan in the name of weakening the Evil Empire, so that W. Bush could come along after the E.E. succumbed and kill thousands in the name of cleaning up what his predecessor helped build? If this morality were water, I’d have to be really thirsty to take a sip of it.
Well, among other reasons already stated here, I think Der Slickmeister should be prosecuted for crimes against innocent tobacco products. And for having poor taste in women. Eck!
:o
"The people look to the President to get cues on what is acceptable. "
If they do, they’re damned fools.
Presidents are calculating, manipulative, egotists who would, by and large, sell their grandmothers to win office. They would have never risen to the heights they have by being any different, and, by that measure, they can be said to be successful in their chosen profession (such as it is).
This is pretty much what your post boils down to, and tghe problem with it is, lots of other presidents are KNOWN to have cheated on their wives, but no one hates their guts for it. When’s the last time you heard someone get on Eisenhower’s case as a slimeball horndog?
So, bzzzzt. Wrongo. Does not compute.
I think Repubs hated Clinton because the cons control the media now, and they orchestrated a good ol’ fashion Nazi-style hate campaign against Clinton, and it worked. Lordy, did it work.
Well, I started out liking him and, by the end of his presidency, was disappointed by him. He just, too often, seemed unwilling to stand up to the Republicans. He signed DOMA and the welfare bill. I’m still pissed at his treatment of Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, and I’ll admit it, the whole Monica Lewinsky thing bothered me. I still like him better than GWB or Reagan, but he’s not my dream president.
ElJeffe wrote,
Here’s a cite for Jeff and anyone in danger of believing him:
http://www.fair.org/activism/post-expulsions.html
(Yes, the airstrikes did happen; here’s another good cite
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec1998/n12171998_9812171.html .)
Perhaps certain right-wingers selectively forget this because it goes against their deeply-held belief that someone who got a draft deferment cannot decisively use military force. I doubt it, though. I think it is because they don’t want to remember how much the right criticized Clinton’s use of force at the time. Dick Armey said
Armey wasn’t willing to make charges, just to insinuate them.
Trent Lott revealed himself as the pussifying liberal he so obviously is*.
( http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/12/16/ )
Yeah, somehow I think it’s safe to chalk up the “Clinton never directly responded to Saddam demoralizing UNSCOM” as another bit of rabid - and ahistorical - Clinton-bashing.
Out of curiosity, do you guys think his timing of the Ruby Ridge action was designed to distract attention from the scandals?*
- sarcasm
ElJeffeDo you really see no difference between trying a few suspects in US criminal courts, and using our military to try to tear down the entire terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan? Further, while we haven’t gotten bin Laden, we have still nabbed a helluva lot of al Qaeda bigwigs.**
Sure. The difference is obvious. I’m not sure exactly which government you would have had us overthrow in the wake of WTC '93, and exactly how this would be done if there weren’t a convenient multi-ethnic coalition holed up on the frontier of said itching to take control if only someone gave them some weapons and intelligence.
As far as the relative importance of the people convicted after the 1993 attack and the people captured in the Afganistan campaign, I don’t really know.
ElJeffe,
OK. Explain how “putting things in simple terms, rather than muddling everything up with morally relativistic shades of gray” is a good thing. The current resident of the oval office gets a similar compliment from many and I fail to see how it is a positive. The world is not now, nor has it ever been black and white. It not only has many shades of grey, it has an entire spectrum of color that makes it such a challenge to understand.
Besides not making your brain hurt with too much strenuous cognition, why should I be comforted by inane labels such as “evil empire” and “axis of evil” (and I mean “your” in the general sense, not a direct attack)?
This bi-chromatic view lead us to the mess we are in today IMHO. We treated other countries as pawns, they know it, and they rightfully resent it. We supported heinous regimes and organizations such as the the Shah in Iran, the Mujaheideen in Afghanistan, and later the Taliban, the Marcos regime in the Phillipines, etc., etc., ad infinitum (I believe that our support for these regimes and the rationale behind it are common knowledge, but I will provde cites upon request).
To my mind, what was comforting about Clinton is that he showed that he recognized that things were complex, discussed them with facts a citations off the top of his head, and admitted that there were no clear answers. I liked knowing that someone was noodling this stuff through.
Honestly, can you really be stating that Reagan was great because he put things simply? This whole “moral clarity” thing? I honestly didn’t think that anyone really fell for that. :eek:
CTB
The role of the president as a moral compass is not written anywhere in the Constitution, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. “Role Model” probably isn’t in the job description of pro-athletes, yet children still look up to them, and as such athletes have an implicit responsibility to act as good role models, as well.
Jeff
I think that the hatred of Clinton is based on the fact that Clinton was the first President from the post-WWII generation. WWII was the last time in our history when America could really feel great about itself in the heroic sense, at least according to popular mythology.
The post WWII era has been a time of self-doubt, anxiety and defeat, and for certain republicans (the Scaife type can serve as a symbol) Clinton epitomized all of that. Combine that with Clinton’s obvious sex appeal and “loose morals” and you have a target for a lot of loathing.
Anybody wanna take a crack at Jeff’s selective use of moral outrage about personal conduct, depending on the party of the politician involved? It can’t be my turn yet, can it?
.
Translation: the facts are against me, but I’m still right. So, nanny-nanny-boo-boo.
ElvisL1ves: He’s alllll yours.
light strand:
Maybe, maybe not. I don’t deny that 9/11 is probably what put “Wipe out al Qaeda” on the top of his to-do list. The thing is, it’s politically more difficult to respond to threats several years after the fact. I believe, though, that GWB’s response to the terrorist attacks would have been very different - and more effective - than Clinton’s. For example, if Bush had been the one who was handed bin Laden on a silver platter, he would’ve taken him.
Evil Captor:
No, “cheating on his wife” is only one part of it, and not even the biggest part. It was his entire attitude regarding the matter, both during and after. He never even tried to appear remorseful, and he broke the law repeatedly in trying to cover his ass. He showed a lack of respect for the public, and for the laws he’s supposed to uphold. Just because you choose to ignore my reasoning for disliking the man doesn’t mean you can summarize it as “he cheated on his wife”. I think adultery is a horrible thing that is still possible to atone for. Clinton never bothered to atone. He didn’t care to, and he didn’t need to, as far as the dems were concerned. This greatly disturbs me.
CTB:
Gladly. Do you deny that the Soviet Union was an awful entity? You think the gulag was just fine and dandy? The USSR was, quite literally, an “evil empire”. It’s very existence was a threat to the world, and it needed to be dismantled, and its people freed. This was not subject to debate, it was a given, and Reagan had the good ol’ fashioned cojones to stand up and say so. The USSR was evil. Period. Being wishy-washy about the fact helps nobody. Asserting it loudly to the world does.
Similarly, being wishy-washy about the nature of terrorists does nobody any good. Those who would massacre thousands of innocents are evil, end of story. Saying so is admirable. The Reuter’s official line about “one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom fighter” is abject bullshit.
Granted, the world is a place full of shades of gray, but there are black-and-white issues. Rape is always bad. Murdering innocent people for the sake of terror is always bad. Western democracy is fundamentally better than Communism, fundamentally better than Islamic fascism. In a world full of grays, it is helpful and - indeed - critical to be able to point to the few instances of black and white we can find. It is these few cases of definitive right and definitive wrong that serve as the guide by which we can ascribe meaning to all that gray. And those who are willing to stand up to the intellectual left and say, “I don’t care what you say, this here is just plain evil,” should be looked up to.
Sorry, but sometimes there are simple answers - just not easy ones. Someone who’s never willing to admit that there is a simple answer is no better than someone who believes everything has a simple answer.
Believe it, brother.
Jeff
Oh, please. Reagan!? And what is with the litany of dicto simpliciter?
Reagan so bloated government that its belly exploded. He (like Bush) created a whole new bureaucratic department out of whole cloth. He assisted in the tyranny of whole nations of people. He oversaw the military occupation of land in more than half the nations on earth. He lied about underhanded dealings with enemy states. He blew money on speculative military posturing. He strangled the life out of space exploration.
Reagan. Gah.
That is your opinion, that doesnt mean we shouldnt expect or demand it.
light strand, I’ll have you eat those words, by gum!
Don’t you know what Reagan did in response to that bombing? He invaded Grenada!!
See, the Great Communicator knew how to send a message. 
ElvisL1ves:
Can you please point out something I’ve said that ignores the personal conduct of someone? Please identify both the person, and a specific act of conduct about which you feel I’m being “selective”.
CaptMurdock:
I guess you don’t mind if politicians are complete sleazewads, as long as they do their job. I do, inasmuch as they’re public figures, and their behavior influences that of the rest of us. But please, let’s try to act like grown-ups here, shall we?
Jeff
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ElJeffe *
**The people look to the President to get cues on what is acceptable. **
Then it’s acceptable for kids to be poor students who lie about drunk driving convictions and get Daddy to get them off the hook and set them up in business with his friends? It’s acceptable to admit you really don’t enjoy reading long books? It’s acceptable if use family influence to stay out of the draft but not if you earn exemption through exemplary schoolwork? Or should we impeach Bush Too too?
**And they look to the President, and they see the paragon of human achievement. **
I thought that was what messiahs were for to the religious and Nobel prizewinners were for to non-believers.
They see the man that all people should strive to be - someone to be respected, someone to be emulated. He is the ultimate role model.
Andy Griffith?
**As Role Model Number One, the President has certain responsibilities. One of these is to not be a lecherous, deceitful slimebag. **
“deceiful slimebag” is subjective, but if you define lechery as having sexually improper thoughts or behaviour then you just eliminated George Washington (hated his mother and lusted for his best friend’s wife), Thomas Jefferson (Sally Hemings of course, as well as the very married Ms. Cosway), Franklin Pierce (killed a woman while driving drunk), James Buchanan (almost without question gay), Lincoln (just what was that Joshua Speed thing all about? or that atheist phase?), James A. Garfield (very possibly bisexual), Grover Cleveland (admitted fathering an illegitimate son he didn’t support, married his ward, and was according to some sources was a wifebeater), Benjamin Harrison (began dating his wife’s niece almost immediately after his wife’s death), Theodore Roosevelt (abandoned his oldest daughter for years after the death of her mother), Warren G. Harding (womanizer [also probably lied about black ancestry]), FDR (womanizer married to a lesbian), Eisenhower (womanizer), JFK (get outta heah), Nixon (adulterer, then that Watergate thing was kinda bad too), Reagan (divorce’ and deadbeat dad whose much younger second wife was pregnant at their marriage), Bush, Sr. (probable adulterer who delayed investigation of banking scandals until after an election so as not to receive flack from his son Neil’s involvement), and all of those are just off the top of my head. I’m sure you could go president-by-president and pull up enough information that their Mama would slap 'em with a catfish.
**In addition to lying about it to us, the people, the ones who get their moral cues from him, he told Monica to lie under oath. He himself lied under oath. **
The most ardent Clinton supporter (which I’m not) would agree that his handling of the Lewinsky business was wrong and amazingly unwise for a man of such political skills. OTOH, it never should have been public knowledge in the first place, and to quote the wisest political pundit out there, Mr. Chris Rock: “Be honest… if you had a choice of pissing off a God that you can’t see and who’s supposed to be forgiving, or a wife that you can see and who’s not forgiving, which way would you go?”
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ElJeffe *
**I don’t deny that 9/11 is probably what put “Wipe out al Qaeda” on the top of his to-do list. **
Ya think?
I’m still trying to understand how moral univision’s a good thing. Or, not to violate a Godwin’s Law style premise, but how that would make us the moral superiors of the Taliban or the Nazis.
RTFirefly I know he did, that’s why I specified “in Beirut”.
Jeff, when exactly was bin laden handed to Clinton? If I remember correctly he bombed Afghanistan when he had intellegence information that bin laden was there, and I will say, once again, that after this bombing he was accused of “wagging the dog”.