The non-stop shilling for Clinton continues at Talk Left where Armando is at it full-time.
Have whatever opinion of the actual Bill Clinton Presidency, but you have to deal with the fact that Bill Clinton remains extremely popular and his Presidency remembered fondly.
It’s funny, but I don’t remember Bill Clinton’s presidency all that fondly. The first two years could only be described as a total disaster. He completely failed to reform our health care system. He failed to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. He appointed James Woolsey as Director of Central Intelligence and Louis Freeh as Director of the FBI…two of the worst public servants in the history of our nation. He passed NAFTA. He broke promises to congressional allies after they stuck their necks out for him. He lost both houses of Congress, with disastrous results for the country.
Then he hired Dick Morris, of all people, to help him revitalize his presidency. And from that moment until he was caught lying under oath he ran the country as a quasi-Republican. The fact that we entrusted our party to a man that couldn’t control his sexual urges and couldn’t keep a promise? Well…we got what we deserved…a serious slapdown. We got twelve years without the House and eight years of President Bush. That’s was our reward for electing Bill Clinton.
In 1996, the Clinton/Gore team made a mockery of campaign finance laws…a truth only disputed because the Republicans were too compromised to fully expose the degree of criminality.
We spent an entire year (1998) discussing the president’s penis rather than doing something constructive. However unjust, Clinton did manage to get himself impeached…which is hardly a badge of honor, and hardly something to be remembered fondly.
Clinton finished his second term with a laudable but totally failed attempt to bring about an Israel/Palestine settlement. And then he pardoned Marc Rich on the way out the door.
Hillary’s role was worse. It began with her decision to fire the travel office, which caused a lot of political embarrassment. She has been uniformly criticized for the extreme secrecy with which she ran her health care reform efforts. It was her role in Whitewater, and her billing records, that were questionable…not anything they found on her husband. It was Hillary that insisted on the intervention in Kosovo without UN approval, which set the precedent for Iraq.
The Clinton years were prosperous but they weren’t politically happy years. It was one long melodrama…with Baby Boomers refighting their culture wars from the 60’s. We had militias and Ruby Ridge and Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing. And O.J.’s trial and acquittal.
Democrats weathered through it all, happy to have the White House and a charismatic, articulate president. But it was exhausting. And it wasn’t worth it. No one who lived through it could come to any other conclusion than Bill Clinton’s presidency was a huge disappointment…immense talent squandered. And, for Democrats and progressives, we saw our values undermined, diminished, mocked, and ultimately discarded.
Then, the final insult…to be offered the vice-president as our champion, and for him to select Joseph Lieberman as his running mate. The middle finger pointing at us was unmistakable. Suck on this!!
A choice between that and George W. Bush? It’s no wonder the Supreme Court had to decide it. The nation was too disgusted to do it on its own.
We haven’t had leadership we could be proud of in a long time. And people may like Bill Clinton and remember his presidency fondly, but it is mostly selective memory. And, of course, anyone looks good compared to Bush.
Exactly!
Chris Matthews got one thing right on his show yesterday…Americans have political amnesia.
Bingo!
A Neo-Lib at best, which actually isn’t a very good thing.
there is a “Republicans in Blue Drag” quality to the Clintons.
Bill Clinton was Grover Cleveland redux. A popular Dem president with sexual scandals at a time when the country was controlled by the business interests and the Republican party. He was very charismatic, but he was not particularly progressive. His biggest accomplishment was to balance the budget, a worthwhile accomplishment now totally eradicated during the George W.Bush years. Because once the GOP had complete power of both Congress and the presidency the corruption was unimpeded and unchecked. Clinton, for all his “good” qualities, should ultimately be judged on his failure to lead his party to successes in Congress that would have allowed a more liberal, progressive agenda to be put in place, or at least a partial reversal of the Republican initiatives from the Reagan/Bush I era.
But then Clinton was never about being a progressive, a liberal or a party leader. He was mostly all about himself. And that is what I fear from a Hillary Clinton presidency. Minus the charisma factor.
The question is will the Dems wake up and realize that there is probably only one reall progressive in the race?
Dennis will never make it as a national politician. Sorry. He has developed the unfortunate habit of telling the truth.
I get your comments completely. Lots happened in the 90s that I didn’t like and wouldn’t want to repeat. And, if I were to “shill” for Bill, it would be in contrast to other presidents, and especially the current one.
So, was Clinton wonderful? Did he do everything right? No! Neither did Reagan, or H. W. Bush, or Carter, or Nixon.
Was there turmoil? Oh, YES! But, much of this was political crap like Whitewater. He was publicly accused of even having people murdered.
Did the Dems lose Congress? Yes. But much of this was over the tax hikes from H. W. Bush and Clinton, and then using that as political dynamite, and fear mongering over the health care.
That said, I also remember that Clinton did lots of things well. The economy worked for nearly everyone and the stock marked TRIPLED in value. FEMA was respected and efficient, and our foreign policy was respected around the world. And the federal budget ended up nearly balanced. Good things all!
I’m assuming that we’ll have a Dem as our next president. Republican fearmongering has worn thin, and they have a lousy record to run on. When that happens, you’ll have fun remembering that for 8 long years, the Republicans screamed “scandal” if the wind blew. It has worked well for the Repubs in the past, and they will do it endlessly in the future without a conscious.
Funny, that people credit Mr. Clinton with the economic boom of the nineties. There was then something in the air called the dot-com boom, the obsessive-regressive belief in technology, and Mr. Clinton showed the ability to capitalize on it, he had nothing to do with it. In fact, Clinton accomplished nothing during his two terms, other than getting people to speculate about his sex life and the size of his member. It was disgusting the way the repugnants and some un-democratic Democrats used their true and feigned sexual fear and paranoia to manipulate government and the way the PRESS hyped the story for profit instead of critically analysing the filthy Tripp-Lucienne ladies at work. But Clinton kept playing along in a very strange, twisted way, depending on lawyerly feigning. From the beginning of his first term, his wife weaseled her way into the running of the country, demanding gender equality, and spoiled a lot that might have been accomplished. Now she claims—CLAIMS—the right to be her husband all over again. I’m sick and tired of the Clintons, and if the country votes them into office again, it only deserves what it will get: grief. They’re insufferable self-promoters and vain self-adulators. The Clintons are a twofer: two for the price of one, when the price that will be paid will be more than twice that amount.
I agree with you 100% – what I remember about the Clinton years was the non-stop obstructionism of the Republican Party from minute 1 of the Clinton Presidency & the total war waged on the Clintons by Republicans from Newt Gingrich on down.
While a lot of people laughed at Hillary’s “vast right-wing conspiracy” remark then, nobody is laughing now (except at the fact that the conspiracy worked & the ‘Thugs STILL managed to fuck themselves out of power in less than two terms).
Can’t agree more, with all of it.
But you neglected the most horrendous mistake of all: Clinton sat by while 800,000 Rwandans were hacked to death over a period a few months, while Bill blew his saxaphone in the Whitehouse basement. The SOB knew fucking well what was going on. When it came to white folks, as in Korsova, he was there in a split second. But for Africa and its poor Black people? Forget it. It had no political importance.
That still unnerves how a person in power capable of saving those lives could just sit there. And Madeleine’s credibility also hit bottom and she never regained it, even up to this day.
Talk Left is indeed shilling for Clinton. I really don’t understand it either–as Jeralyn is supposedly most concerned with criminal justice issues. The Clintons have been terrible on criminal justice issues. Bill’s strategy was to move to the right and triangulate and he is largely responsible for America becoming a police state. The war on drugs increased under Clinton, executions continued, conditions in jails and prisons continued to deteriorate, and all sorts of expansions of criminal law occurred under his watch. Bill was also terrible on immigration issues, e.g. when he signed that terrible bill in 1996 limiting the right of habeas and making the laws more draconian. Not to mention the Clintons support the death penalty and have done almost nothing except give lip service to the racial disparity of America’s criminal justice system.
My only guess is that Jeralyn is enamered with the thought of a female president–even one that is overtly hostile to her main policy agenda.
I used to really respect Jeralyn and I can’t believe she is throwing away her credibility by shilling for Hillary.
By linking to a FoxNews story to show how “Bill Clinton remains extremely popular,” Armando damages any credibility with his audience. Unfortunately, some of the mainline news sources will also parrot the info about Clinton’s popularity, without examining it too closely. Much of Clinton’s remaining popularity is related to his “charisma” and fundraising abilites as well as how well he looks compared to Bush –nostalgia for something slightly better. As you mention, a fair assessment of the Clinton years reveals corruption that is best left behind.
(One thing I did appreciate during the Clinton years was that, in contrast to the Reagan-Bush Adminstrations, for the most part Clinton nominated competent people in charge of Government Departments: for example, Interior under Babbitt was a vast improvement. Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to put any political capitol behind nominees, like Jocelyn Elders, who were attacked by Republicans. And a few of Clinton’s choices, like Woolsey and Freeh, were awful. Most of these appointments happened within the first few months of his administration, a feat any Democratic incumbent should be able to accomplish — indeed some other incumbent might be willing to defend nominees rather than wither at the first criticism.)
Americans deserve more than something slightly better than Bush or DLC-lite. The current crop of Democratic candidates do give us some real options.
While it is reasonable to question the motives of Washington insiders like Broder, Armando’s brief post comes across as either a contrarian response or a shallow endorsement of the Clintons.
(As you are aware, I disagree with your assessment of Gore. In fact, recent revelations have shown just how little support Bill was interested in giving Al, pushing Hillary’s political career from early in his Presidency.)
And didn’t Clinton sign a bill taking away federal college loans to students that were convicted of drug offenses? I’m sure there are lots of other things I’m forgetting about the Clintons.
He was also terrible for the poor. Another one of the tenets of his “third way” triangulation policies was to eviscerate federal support for low income and poor people.
The Clintons main strategy was to be more like Republicans on poverty, immigration, and criminal justice issues. The funny thing is, Hillary is now asked how her husband will influence her presidency. The better question is how influential was she during Clinton’s presidency. I’m guessing she was a lot more responsible for Bill’s tacking to the right on these issues than we realize.
Errm, let’s remember that the Fox News article exists for one purpose: to piss off Fox News readers. Keep in mind the only unifying theme that the GOP has (other than being utterly corrupt) is their Undying Hatred For All Things Clinton.
The wingnut media only mentions Clinton as red meat to the red staters. Nothing more, nothing less.
1993, the start of “great” things like deregulation, NAFTA, the start of things that not put our country on the accellerated path to third worldlyness.
I still say all these people are secret government/Illuminati selectees. While Bill may have been the front guy powerful men behind the scenes called the shots. They told Bill what they wanted done and when they evaluated covering his ass all the time, then it was over.
One other significant negative event that occurred during the Clinton years was the Plane crash that killed Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown and 34 other members of his trade delegation on board at the time. The fatal crash happened on April 3, 1996 near Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The controversy surrounding this event was caused by the Clinton White House and the way it handled the information concerning the crash. Many conflicting reports were issued by various staff creating an expanding atmosphere of confusion and the appearance of a sizable amount of indifference. Considering that it involved the death of the Secretary of Commerce, a highly visible and influential cabinet minister at the time, this indifference and confusion apparently gave the impression of an unofficial White House “feeling of relief” to some reporters covering the event.
The “official” details concerning the crash, even the exact details as to the weather in the area at the time were highly speculative and disputed, and as such remain so to this very day. As a result numerous conspiracy theories have sprung up around the crash. Many of these theories propose that a serious highly explosive policy rift between Clinton and Brown recently surfaced and had become quite nasty just before the crash. The final write off by the Air Force investigation on the cause of the crash that it was “most likely due to pilot error”, after weeks of supposed intense investigation, was contrived to say the least.
In my mind due to the plethora of unanswered questions surrounding the plane crash, this was a far darker situation for the Clinton White House than Whitewater and continues to remained so.
Certainly no fan of Clinton, however I have been called “sexist”, no an f-ing sexist by Armando, apparently a staunch defender of Hillary over at docudharma. Now I didn’t in this case draw first blood but I will say here Hillary does strike me as a tobacco chewing long haul truck driver. Sex has nothing to do with it, attitude does. I will also say that Hillary has far less concern for humanity than she does for advancing her own ego and that is not a quality I seek in electing her leader of the “free” world.
I too agree, every word. When I think of the Clinton years, no warm and fuzzy feelings come over me. Clinton was one of the sharpest minds ever to occupy the White House, he was talented and charming, but he accomplished little and inspired little, and some of his main accomplishments, like NAFTA, were negative. If he looked good it was because the Republicans were so nasty they made him look good in contrast. The one thing about Cinton that especially turned me off was that he never fought the Republicans; he always tried to do deals, or do nothing, and they always walked all over him. It wasn’t necessary; he was far more popular than they were, he could have put them where they belonged, but he didn’t even try. With him it was “rope a dope,” he let them keep punching and just smiled. Unfortunately, they developed a tremendous capacity for harm while he sat there doing nothing. The rest is history.