Whoa- if any of you are claiming that the Cinton’s replaced the travel staff in a standard “out with the old, in with the new” approach, keep in mind that employee Billy Dale was not only fired, but also prosecuted for embezzlement (for which he was acquited). THAT’S what bugged me.
And as to the Mark Rich pardon (which I said didn’t bug me as much as the Mel Reynolds one) and the comparisons to Bush Sr.'s pardons, remember that I said that I voted for Clinton the first time, partially because I didn’t like Bush Sr.'s policies. Saying “the guy before him did something similar” won’t cut it- I voted for him because I expected better.
In re-reading the OP and this thread, I think there’s an intense hatred of Clinton by people who were predisposed to disliking him. Because of this, most anything he did to them was seen in the most cynical light. If he did something to help some group, it was cast as pandering for votes. This isn’t solely a Clinton thing- note that a lot of Clinton’s most rabid supporters on this board do the same thing to Dubya.
[sub]And I still say Clinton had my support and totally squandered it. I don’t rabidly hate the guy but I have absolutely no trust in him.[/sub]
Interesting question. I don’t think anything was so bad about Clinton. He had the same stupid affair most presidents had except Carter. That was the extent of his crimes. All the other stuff was dropped, discredited or simply laughable from the start. He had exactly one staff member convicted of a crime as compared to Bush and Reganhop had many…look at the public record.
To answer one of the posters here…
Ruby Ridge happened in august 1992, what did that have to do with Clinton?
The terrorists responsible for the first WTC bombing were caught and are in prison.
Mojo, I agree completely that saying “Bush did it too!” does not excuse Clinton’s doing it.
I was simply pointing out that people who rabidly hate Clinton (a designation which categorically excludes you) should consider moderating their hatred when they learn of similar things done by others whom they don’t hate.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by F. U. Shakespeare *
**Texican, I’m confused as to why you brought up Clinton’s historically high popularity among blacks. Are you saying that any politician who plays to their base is ‘trying to increase his love quotient’? Do you whine like that when Bush goes to an NRA rally in Texas? Like all politicians, Clinton’s job depended on winning sufficient public approval to stay in office and effect his policies. While I’m sure you would have preferred for him to have fought these battles with one hand behind his back, you don’t make the rules.
I take issue with this.
The minorities have been force fed the montra that the republicans favor the rich. If you want to keep your hand-outs coming then vote for the democrats. The media knows this but they wont admit it. Dems know this but they wont admint it either. You cant let them know your using them or you risk loosing some of your base. Clinton USED the backs of the blacks to get elected. Lip service and nothing else, what did he do in his eight years as president to aid the inner city blacks? What policies have helped the stricken inner city schools? How did Clinton help reduce the high percentage of black single moms, high crime rates, and rampant drug use and violence? Did he do anything to help the black community establish leaders so they could create solutions to the problems that money wont fix?
No, the economy was going strong. He created jobs, so he said, he did the best he could. Did he?
In reality, the Democrats want to keep the minorities and the blacks right where they are. In their back pocket. If the Democrats arent needed by the minorities anymore then they loose some of their base and they dont get re-elected. As a person becomes more open minded and knowledgeable they tend to start thinking for themselves. Then all of a sudden the democrats are looking around for new victims to prop up.
Happens all the time, minorities, women, seniors, etc. They have an uncanny ability to make people feel like they need them. They create victims, and in this manner they create a base for themselves. How crude!! They feel no shame as they trample right over the people that got them elected! We cant help you, well make it look like we are but were not, otherwise you wont need us anymore and you might vote for the other guy next time. Well throw a little money your way just as a good faith measure. Even though we know it won`t help.
Oh, by the way, taxing the wealthy is not a solution to the problem. Throwing money at something does not mean that a solution has been found. Creating a beaurocracy and then sitting on your hands does not accomplish much either.
Having made my formal, thoughtful response to the OP, I’m liberated to offer a few random comments.
I’m a Clinton-lover. No doubt about it. And love sure do make a person blind.
He’s narcissistic. He devotes a lot of time and effort to “positioning” himself so as to look good no matter what happens. He evidently thinks it vitally important never to have to admit real guilt or personal imperfection. Even when he says, “Yeah, I blew it,” I imagine him thinking “it wasn’t my fault, but I gotta look humble.” If it’s not clear, by the way, I’m saying he REALLY BELIEVES IT.
Which doesn’t mean that every self-serving comment is contrary to the truth. I don’t find it hard to believe that he might stick a joint in his mouth and not inhale. And there’s something kinda touching about a guy who would SAY that he didn’t and expect that people will take him at his word.
There was nothing aberrant about “loathing the military” during the Vietnam War era. It was the sort of thing young college guys said.
Few people–even his many detractors–dismiss Bill as an “idiot”. He’s clearly a smart, well-educated guy who’s curious about the world and interested in ideas-as-ideas. Though that may make a person a better presidential advisor than President, it surely deserves some respect.
What people call “decisive action” is often accomplished at great cost of human life–usually the lives of foreigners. Staying the vengeful hand of the world’s sole superpower may be objectively the right or wrong decision (and we never get to know, definitely, whether it was right), but it may well be morally, ethically, and even pragmatically justified much more often than we realize. Given the bias in our system toward Presidential cowboyism, Clinton’s relative resistance to military solutions suggests a degree of moral courage for which he gets NO credit, anywhere.
Talking to various political and bureaucratic windbags while getting a BJ strikes me as the perfect postmodern comment on political-ism in general. How much respect does one owe swollen bloviators like Newt Gingrich, or morally perverse politicos like Jesse Helms or Trent Lott?
Bill perjured himself. That’s bad. He flat-out lied to the American people. That’s worse. I have no quarrel with those who advocated investigating the matter to determine whether an impeachable offense had been committed. But the GOP blew it by connecting the process to some very unsympathetic characters who made it look like a rabid partisan witchhunt–rolling it in with other investigations that really WERE partisan witchhunts. Was no one smart enough, or patriotic enough, to suggest turning the perjury matter over to a nonpartisan commission headed by some respected senior DEMOCRAT? (Why Not The Best?)
The perjury/lying matter deserved, not impeachment, but certainly some kind of formal censure. Not a “penalty,” just the adoption of a resolution of censure. The Rabid Republicans (which are not all Republicans, surely) made this impossible by pushing for maximum damage. In doing so they ill-served the nation.
I disagree with those who deny the premiss that the President ought to be a moral leader for the country. Whether they like the burden or not, Very Visible People have a degree of obligation to those to whom they are visible–as a special case of the obligation we all have to teach (what we individually regard as) good moral conduct, by illustration. There is disagreement as to whether sex outside of marriage is acceptable, but I think few people approve of casually breaking a vow of faithfulness to another. It’s not impeachable, but it’s hardly defensible in and of itself. (In truth, many vows are empty forms imposed upon persons whose ability to keep them varies over a wide range. But one can express a degree of human understanding while AT THE SAME TIME condemning the fact of the offending action.)
WJC’s legacy?
–the end of casual toleration for rule-by-coup in the Western Hemisphere (re Haiti)
–the “mend it, don’t end it” alternative to affirmative action
–promulgating the “legal, safe, and rare” approach to the abortion issue
–a sea-change in our expectations of welfare recipients, and our formal understanding of the purpose of welfare
–open acceptance of gays and lesbians as members of the American political community
–a model of how to tame the previous untameable budget deficit, and how to engineer and manage national prosperity
–spreading our cultural values (a mixed blessing) via “free” trade and business, rather than by military imposition
–quashing savage civil wars via multinational action (NATO operations in the former Yugoslavia; the Dayton accords)
–his personal involvement in the peace processes of Ireland and the Middle East
–reinvigoration of the Democratic party at the national level by showing that a Democrat can win and retain the White House even in the face of a supposed “national right turn”
Time out. How many of these things were his idea and how many were forced on him by the Republicans? The ones about welfare and managing the economy, etc.
I’d love to post in more detail, but I have a Super Bowl party to get to. Clinton didn’t really “make a difference.” He was no Harding or Grant, to be sure, but neither was he a Truman or Roosevelt. Again, I’ll post more later tonight or maybe tomorrow, depending on how the party goes.
I don’t love creating new taxes.
Does anyone here love creating new taxes?
Can anyone provide a cite where a Democrat claims to love creating new taxes?
Now, politicians, both Democrat and Republican, might want to spend money for projects that might or might not be self-serving, but I haven’t noticed where pork barrel spending has proven to be strictly a Democratic hobby. Now, when a government project is created, it must be funded. You can fund said projects one of three ways:
Raise tax revenues.
Raise the deficit.
Take the money from someone elses’ pet project.
It has absolutely nothing to do with a supposed “love” of tax creation, and everything to do with project funding.
Let’s deal with another claim that certainly isn’t supported by the three pages we have so far on this topic.
I don’t think of Clinton as a “god”, or even near perfect.
Are there any Democrats here that think of Clinton as a “god”, or even near perfect?
I don’t love taxes. I don’t think Clinton is a god. The worst I can say about Clinton is he should have stuck in there a little harder for some of his reforms. If you’re adopting the same plans as the Repugs out of expediency, you’re doing SOMETHING – but you’re not doing what your supporters elected you to do.
The supposed moral flaws of Clinton? Just rabid Repug spew.
Out of curiosity, how exactly would Bush have taken him? Secretly, or as a criminal? If the latter on what charges would Bush have had him booked?
George Gedda, Associated Press (AP-NY-10-03-01 1828EDT)
The article goes on to note that a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation begin in 1999 nabbed “several key bin Laden operatives”.
None of my previous questions have been answered, but I’m still curious. (I looked all over the web to find what F. U. Shakespeare said David Keene said about Clinton on bin Laden, without any luck.) In any case, I’m a little annoyed at the weird charges being levelled at Clinton. Then, it was that he was doing too much to fight al-Qaeda and that he was doing it to distract attention from other scandals (“being a politician” in the parlance of this thread). (The charge by Trent Lott is notably similar to a charge levelled by the government of Sudan.) Now - reeking of ad hoc revisionism - the charge is that he did too little, because he was distracted by sex.
F U shakespeare: My point re: clinton and the blacks had nothing to do with how he was perceived in the media, it was about how he perceived himself. i said that he needs to be loved, and when the rest of America turned on him, he sought out one place where he knew he could find uncritical support. I was not an instant Clinton hater. It took me years to become one. I really didn’t consider myself a conservative until I saw what he and his band of merry men were doing to America. Prior to his election, I was a long haired, tree hugging libertarian for the most part.
Heh, Czarcasm, don’t hold your breath. I more or less asked that question on page 1 (postid=2895151 … don’t know exactly how to link to a specific post … sorry) and got no response. (Neurotik did bring up a Terry McAuliffe speech but he’s hardly the average Democrat, and I didn’t see any quotes…) Given how little actual engagement I get from debate opponents, I am beginning to wonder if I am terminally inarticulate or something.
The point is, these people hate Clinton in the fullest psychological and spiritual sense of the term. It is doing to them what hate generally does to the hater: embitter, stultify, disorient, and (hopefully) exhaust. After all, these people have sung themselves the “Clinton did nothing to fight terrorism” bedtime story http://www.makethemaccountable.com/myth/ClintonAndTerrorism.htm
so long that now they believe it. They’d be happy, with hindsight muddled by anti-Clinton hatred, to have imprisoned bin Laden with no indictment. This isn’t just the rage of a few hard-right hotheads thought - it seems like it’s now become part of national policy. It worries me.
I’m finding what cuauhtemoc said increasingly compelling,
Alas, I think the release will be short-lived. Clinton won’t always be this fresh in people’s memories. Who will the next target be?
Reagan had 32 administration officials convicted of offences related mainly to Iran Contra and the HUD scandal. Bush left office having to pardon 7 officials after Weinberger threatened that he wasn’t going to go down alone. Obviously they didn’t set the bar very high.
Given that every orifice of the Clinton administration was investigated to death in the ongoing witch hunt with only one minor transgression related to his administration resulting in a conviction I think its safe to say he at least surpassed the last two administrations.
The Billy Dale firing was not particularly well handled but to suggest that the criminal charges were trumped up is pure fiction. When $50,000 of an employers funds are found to have ended up in an employees bank account without a scrap of documentation to support his assertion that the diversion was legitimate you assume embezzlement. Whether he was guilty of anything beyond incredibly poor accounting practices, which according to KPMG who audited the travel office books clearly justified his termination, even he and his attorney certainly recognized that the facts looked bad enough to offer a plea. Though rejected by the justice department he did offer to repay $69,000 and serve a short jail sentence.
Before you accuse the Clintons of being unethical in the matter perhaps you should do a little more reading about just how bizzarrely this office had been run under Dale’s management.
