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September 22, 2005
Clinton, revisited (Bill, not Hillary)
I don't always agree with everything Tina Brown has to say, but I do love the way she says it.
This morning, I find myself enjoying both. Observe.
| Clinton seems to have found his role as facilitator-in-chief, urging us to give up our deadly national passivity and start thinking things through for ourselves. Commandeering the role of government through civic action suddenly feels like a very empowering notion -- the alternative being to find oneself stranded in a flood waving a shirt from a rooftop. |
Of course, I don't know how sudden it is. I've felt for years that Americans need to stop sitting back and letting life, and government, just happen to them. If that's an idea whose time has come, so much for the better.
For the record, I'm a progressive but not one of those old-fashioned '60s liberals who gave the rest of us a bad name with the inherent fiscal irresponsibility of the Great Society. My idea of the best of all possible worlds would be one in which the citizenry participates in independent thought, engaged self-government and community civic activism, such that the degree of collective societal problem solving undertaken by the government (those much-dispised "programs" denigrated by the Right) would be fairly modest.
In other words, somewhere in between the self-involved greed and misanthropy of conservatism and the dysfunctional caretaking mentality of old-style liberalism, there is a happy medium to be had. I'm not sure if that makes me a 'New Democrat' or if it just makes me delusional but ... well, there it is.
For comedy, there's this:
| A weird reputational exchange has taken place between Clinton and President Bush. After so much dishonest reasoning it's the vaunted "CEO president" who begins to look like the callow, fumbling adolescent. And it's the sexually incontinent, burger-guzzling, late-night-gabbing Bubba who is emerging as a great CEO of America. |
Which comes across (to me, at least) as: you know Bush has got to be a really bad president if he has, in five years, managed to make the "sexually incontinent, burger-guzzling, late-night-gabbing Bubba" look good.
Posted by The Journal Blogger at September 22, 2005 08:24 AM
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Comments
What a crock of dung! Tina just get under the desk with Monica.
Posted by: Jerry at September 22, 2005 10:37 AM
Nothing like eloquent re-writing of history to make a disgraced politician somehow seem "judicious" and "knowingly". Tina, think you might be able to rehabilitate Jimmy Carter's image? Perhaps even make Castro or Chavez appear more "mainstream"?
Posted by: William at September 22, 2005 10:48 AM
Ok... We can tell that Jerry is a hardcore Republican.
So, you want your women barefoot, pregnent, and under the desk?
Posted by: MercenaryD at September 22, 2005 10:49 AM
Dick Morris said it better. let me paraphrase his comments to Sean Hannity, "Clinton looks tired and unhealthy. He doesn't have the glow about him from prior years. His energy level is much reduced".
I can only speculate his shopping for a legacy and the seaking of the position of Secretary General of the UN has worn him out. Clinton's spin is could have, should have, would have! If only he was President when..... Please George Bush has run circles around Bill's performance as President and will continue to do so. Tina Brown, just get over it! The Dems lost!
Posted by: John Silsby at September 22, 2005 10:50 AM
What is it about the name "Clinton" That makes republicans all go off and loose their minds?
Was it the fact that we had 8 years of prosparity under the Clinton administration?
Was it because the poor got a handle on their lives?
Or perhaps because the republicans HAD to work and compermise with democrats to get anything done?
What is it?
Posted by: MercenaryD at September 22, 2005 11:00 AM
It isn't that we've lost our minds, it's we remember His actions and incredible desecration of the prestige, power and authority the President of the United States.
His 8 years of "prosparity" was the result of battling Republicans who held him at bay on spending. But please don't lose sight of his total disregard for protecting the citizens of this nation as he did nothing to stop Al-qaeda and Bin Laden.
The war on proverty obviously has been a dismal failure, look at New Orleans. I hardley think Clinton did anything to help them get a handle on their lives.
Try being objective! What did he really do and what was the conseqence!
Now he wants the Secretary General Position of the UN and wants Hillary to be the President of the US at the same time. Very Scary!
Posted by: John Silsby at September 22, 2005 11:32 AM
MercenaryD: Please check your spelling. Don't worry - it's not your fault. Sixty years of liberal erosion of the public school system has produced this. Yes, I see what you mean by "the poor got a handle on their lives" during the Clinton reign. Amazing how fast Bush was able to destroy the poor in New Orleans - in just five short years they went from Clintonian prosperity to abject Bush poverty. Bush did a good job making those impoverished neighborhoods look like they had been desecrated and plundered for years. And to think that only five years earlier those folks were living Clinton's American dream!
Posted by: William at September 22, 2005 11:35 AM
She can't possibly think people take her seriously. She has been and remains one of the biggest Clinton apologists out there. If one looks at the hard facts - then the Clinton "legacy" doesn't hold much water. Bush IS spending more on entitlement programs than any other President in history. Poverty is a full point lower than under Clinton. Welfare reform was passed by Newt, not by Clinton. It goes on and on...
They say history is usually written by the winners. It looks like the limo liberal left is going to do everything in their power to prevent that. Those of us that lived through the Clinton debacle will remember what really happened.
The only true legacy Clinton has left us with is now every teenage girl in America thinks a BJ is not sex - go figure.
Posted by: Tony at September 22, 2005 11:42 AM
This is really rather funny. All this frothing at the mouth about Bill Clinton's record when, in fact, the post was only about him in a tangential way.
For the rest of it, there seems little point in arguing about who is better, Clinton or Bush. One's point of view there will depend, in part, on one's partisanship and, in part, on one's personal experiences.
Speaking personally, our family's income rose and continued to rise through the 90's following Clinton's election. Since Bush has been in office, our family's income has been steadily falling. Also, I'm reasonably certain that Clinton would not have squandered all that post-9/11 international goodwill by being simply and profoundly obnoxious. Between the Iraqi insurgency (breeding ground for jihadists) and the current ineptitude of FEMA (so different from the Clinton Administration), I certainly don't feel any safer.
So, from where I sit, having Clinton in office was much better than having Bush there. My life was better and my family was safer back then.
I suspect your experiences have been different. Vive la difference!
Posted by: The Journal Blogger at September 22, 2005 02:49 PM
Check spelling, yes, Ok - pretty bad when my spelling is a sign of how the schools are doing. Wasn't it Republican Vice President Dan Quail that could not spell potato?
By the way, I'm one of those that got a leg up and a start under the Clinton administration. And I got started with $7.50 to work with. And it has gotten harder and harder over the last five years to put food on the table.
So as the Journal Blogger pointed out "One's point of view there will depend, in part, on one's partisanship and, in part, on one's personal experiences."
Mine happens to be based mainly on experience.
Posted by: MercenaryD at September 22, 2005 05:39 PM
"The only true legacy Clinton has left us with is now every teenage girl in America thinks a BJ is not sex"
I guess the 1960s Drugs, Sex, and Rock and Roll don't count?
Posted by: MercenaryD at September 22, 2005 05:42 PM
You republicans failed to realize that Bush is doing the same thing the Nazis did in Germany long ago. Want proof? Here's proof;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html
Read THAT ^^ article. And maybe then that'll pull your heads out of your asses so you can see what Bush has really done to this nation and the rest of the world.
And I definitley say, life was MUCH better with Clinton in office. God, who cares if he was getting head on the side? It wasn't any of our business in the first place.
Posted by: ~*Gina*~ at September 22, 2005 06:58 PM