Posted on 07/25/2005 4:35:49 AM PDT by johnny7
In a recent essay in the NYT Book Review of John F. Harris's The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, Alan Ehrenhalt speculated about the reasons Clinton was so disliked. This sparked a rigorous debate on Richard Jensen's list, ConservativeNet. Below, a sampling of opinion.
Alan Ehrenhalt's Review
Millions of Americans despise Bill Clinton. They have done so since he became a presence in national politics in the early 1990's, and they continue to do so today, more than four years after his retirement from public office.
(Excerpt) Read more at hnn.us ...
I don't much care for sociopaths.
And with not one peep from the anti-war, hand-wringing left.
Still DO.
For starters: giving the Red Chinese missile technology for campaign contributions - that's TREASON.
Erenhalt doesn't get it. While Clinton may have been a consummate politician, he was all piñata and no candy. Dishonest, abusive, sneaky in his personal life, he was completely untrustworthy, even to his own allies. Loosely quoting/paraphrasing George Will, "he may not have been the worst president, but he was the worst man to have been president." The democrat/press incestuous relationship became quite clear and his presidency was papered over by a media, (with helpful polls) that only incredibly asked only one question about Juanita Broaderick, and was amazed at and admired at his capacity to dodge, weave and rationalise.
Any attempt to understand why people "despised" him without mentioning the very serious and cosnsequential events of his presidency(Technology transfer, credible allegations of violent criminal behaviour, serial terror attacks, Somalia, Rawanda, Waco)and how he responded is just an exercise in navel gazing.
Despite a promise to be out of there in one year.
John Huang, Mochtar Riady, Lippo, Wang Jun, Charlie Trie, Loral, Ron Brown, Ron Brown's funeral, Los Alamos, FBI files, Ruth Bader Gisburg, Gary Aldridge, Kathleen Wiley, Juanita Brodrick, Madeline Albright, Janet Reno, Waco, World Trade Center 1, USS Cole, Lincoln Bedroom, loathing the military, draft dodging, Susan McDougal, Hillary and healthcare, travel office, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Barbara Striesand, Elian Gonzales, Vince Foster, Arkansas church burnings, 'I did not have sex with that woman....', 'the most ethical administration ever', Jack Palandino, Linda Tripp, Jennifer Flowers, Cisneros, Web Hubble, middle-class tax cuts, retroactive tax increases, Mogadishu, Rawanda, Stephen Bryer, African Embassies, Harold Ickies, IRS audits......just off the top of my head.
In Bill Clinton we got see in stark clarity what the basic transaction is at the heart of liberalism: you let us kill our babies, we'll let you rape women.
TREASON is exactly right. I still can't believe the Senate didn't have the spine or the balls to convict him!!!!!
Man, you said it so well!!!!
My Dad's voting record sums up Bill Clinton. My Father was a conservative democrat and he voted for Clinton for his first term in office. By the second election my conservative Father was now solid Republican. He grew to despise the man in just four years, and this new Democratic party that treated him as a Demigod.
Chuck Colson was sentenced to a year in the federal pen for a single count of illegalling reading an FBI dossier without a legitimate purpose; Craig Livingstone wrongly gained accesse to 900 (if not 2000) of them, and walked. Somebody in the Clinton White House hired Craig Livingstone.If it wasn't Bill who hired Craig Livingstone, he certainly covered up for whoever did. Anyone who was in the Clinton White House at the time (e.g., Hillary) is a suspect in that open case of malfeasance. If we can't convict the perpetrator, we at least shouldn't risk electing a suspect in that egregious felony to be the boss of the Attorney General of the United States.
The Democratic Party has essentially become frivolous. The establishment which calls itself "objective" journalism is simply nonfiction entertainment, and it has absorbed the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party nominates candidates for POTUS, but it does not want, and does not nominate, leaders for America. Following "objective journalism," the Democratic Party is a front group of second-guessers masquerading as leaders. And Bill Clinton is Exhibit A.
True though it be that Clinton's flaws are those characteristic of much of his generation, those flaws made him perhaps the worst president in American history - against stiff competiton from the other Democratic presidents of recent history.
A liar and a con-man, obvious to most early on.
Simple as that. His wife continues the same hypocrisy and triangulation today. They will say and do whatever it takes to get that 51%... that's their passion, their reason for being.
And that's why they're hated.
I'll align myself with Horowitz, which I usually do. If anyone knows the liberal mind, inside and out, it is he.
"David Horowitz (Mr. Horowitz is the founder of frontpagemag.com):
This is an interesting review, but I strongly demur from the view that Clinton hatred exceeds Bush hatred by any measure. Conservatives are more disgusted by Clinton; but they are not so blinded by their negative feelings that they don't appreciate Clinton's achievements, the centrism of his policy (when he wasn't surrendering his better judgment to interest groups), his brilliance as a politician. By contrast so-called liberals and leftists have a hatred of Bush that is so intense it reduces their view of him to absurdities -- he's a moron, a liar and evil. None of these are remotely related to any truth of the man or his presidency and the passion of belief in them is so strong that obscures any appreciation for his achievements in the war on terror and foreign policy generally which far surpass anything Clinton was able to do."
(And far surpasses everything that Clinton DIDN'T do, that we, as a Nation, now need to clean up.)
>> The passion of the Clinton haters is a phenomenon without equal in recent American politics.
The phenomenon that needs explaining is Clinton lovers, not "haters." For example: the people who adored him to the point of sacrificing their own principles, such as the feminists who forgave his womanizing and even his rape.
Similarly, it the hatred of Bush that is without parallel in our history. There are legions today who blindly loathe President Bush, regardless of what he does or says. This is, to say the least, irrational.
In contrast, Clinton was and is kind of a lovable rogue in the great Southern tradition of cemetery lot salesmen. He is a Bubba. Conservatives didn't hate him, however much they despaired a given Clinton policy, or what he did to blue dresses, or his word twisting, or -- one that always fascinated me -- his pretending to be Jesus.
bump
I hate his rapist enabling, power hungry dirty bitch of a WIFE.
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