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The Times' 1996 endorsement of bill clinton1 was the problem. The endorsement, you may recall, was contingent on clinton getting a brain transplant--specifically of the character lobe.2 How could The Times square that shameful, irresponsible endorsement with this monstrous failure3? Sulzberger quickly explained that The Times was able to endorse clinton by separating clinton's "policies" from "the man."4 (Did he actually buy into the clintons' 'compartmentalization' con5? Or was this apparent credulousness simply another cynical expedient for The New York Times?) Probing questions by the host, Brian Lamb, followed, eliciting this damning historical parallel from Sulzberger: "The Times dropped ball during Holocaust by failing to connect the dots." It appears that The New York Times doesn't learn from its mistakes.6 Will it take The Times another 50 years to understand/admit that by having endorsed for reelection a "documentably dysfunctional" president7 with "delusions" -- its own words -- it must bear sizeable blame for the 9/11 horror and its aftermath8? Sulzberger's carefully worded rationalization of the clinton endorsements points to clinton "policies," not achievements; is this tacit acknowledgement that clinton "achievements" -- when legal -- were more illusory than real -- that The Times' Faustian bargain was not such a good deal after all? If we assume that the clintons are the proximate cause of 9/11 --- a proposition not difficult to demonstrate --- it follows that The New York Times is culpable, too. Elie Wiesel makes a distinction between "information" and "knowledge."6 Information is data; it is devoid of an ethical component; it is neutral. Knowledge is a higher form of information. Knowledge is information that had been internalized and given a moral dimension. At a minimum, The Times' failure -- whether concerning clinton endorsements, or classified leaks or the Holocaust -- is a failure to make this distinction. More likely though, it is a failure not nearly so benign.
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(DECONSTRUCTING CLINTON'S HOFSTRA SPEECH) part1: The "Brinkley" Lie by Mia T, 12.26.05 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
The speech, full of poses, poll-tested phrases and prevarication, was just another example of the clintons' utter contempt. For the people, for the presidents, for the presidency, for the country, for the Constitution... and, ultimately I suspect, for themselves. This endeavor is the first in a series of essays with video that will attempt to deconstruct this very revealing speech. The clintons' fundamental error: They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiberoptic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains. (Did bill clinton really think Douglas Brinkley would let the "clinton greatness but for impeachment" lie stand? Is clinton delusional? Or just plain dumb?)
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This legacy confab is in and of itself proof certain of clinton's deeply flawed character, and a demonstration in real time of the way in which the clinton years were about a legacy that was incidentally a presidency. Madeleine Albright captured the essence of this dysfunctional presidency best when she explained why clinton couldn't go after bin Laden. According to Richard Miniter, the Albright revelation occurred at the cabinet meeting that would decide the disposition of the USS Cole bombing by al Qaeda [that is to say, that would decide to do what it had always done when a "bimbo" was not spilling the beans on the clintons: Nothing]. Only Clarke wanted to retaliate militarily for this unambiguous act of war. Albright explained that a [sham] Mideast accord would yield [if not peace for the principals, surely] a Nobel Peace Prize for clinton. Kill or capture bin Laden and clinton could kiss the 'accord' and the Peace Prize good-bye. If clinton liberalism, smallness, cowardice, corruption, perfidy--and, to borrow a phrase from Andrew Cuomo, clinton cluelessness--played a part, it was, in the end, the Nobel Peace Prize that produced the puerile pertinacity that enabled the clintons to shrug off terrorism's global danger.
C-SPAN asked noted presidential historians to rank the American presidents1 along the following ten dimensions: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within context of times. bill clinton emerged as middling in most dimensions; he was surpassed in others by a settled mediocrity (Carter) and a putative failure (Nixon). In moral authority, bill clinton was rated dead last.2 He did fairly well in public persuasion, not a surprising finding given the volume of snake oil he managed to peddle during his putative presidency. Clinton's best scores were on the economic management and pursued equal justice for all dimensions. However, both of these results are meaningful only insofar as they redound to the moral authority dimension: they are wholly based on clinton fraudulence, cooked books and black poses, respectively; and clinton's shameless Rosa Parks eulogy last week assured us that the insidious brand of clinton racism is alive and well during these tiptoe years of what the clintons hope will be their interregnum. Note that although Brinkley doesn't place much importance on the economic management dimension--he argues that the economy variable is not durable over time--he fails to recognize that the evaluation of the clinton economy by the historians is erroneous to begin with. Note also that C-SPAN historians found no evidence of clinton "greatness" irrespective of his moral-authority deficit, contrary to Douglas Brinkley's claim made at the clinton revisionist confab3. (NOTE: My later research has revealed that Brinkley's qualified mention of clinton "greatness" was not a claim but rather a polite guest's white lie about an abject loser. Instead of taking the AP report at face value, one must carefully parse Brinkley's actual words and especially note the subjunctive construction.) MIDDLING If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that presidential character and moral authority count, and count most.4 If the variables are properly weighted, bill clinton will always come out dead last. That is, unless Americans are dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. Mia T, 11.10.05
by Mia T, 11.14.05 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) |
bill clinton ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Douglas Brinkley Note also that C-SPAN historians found no evidence of clinton "greatness" irrespective of his moral-authority deficit, contrary to Douglas Brinkley's claim made at the clinton revisionist confab3. (NOTE: My later research has revealed that Brinkley's qualified mention of clinton "greatness" was not a claim but rather a polite guest's white lie about an abject loser. Instead of taking the AP report at face value, one must carefully parse Brinkley's actual words and especially note the subjunctive construction.) Mia T, 11.10.05 I don't think bill clinton ever reached that category. One, it's hard if you're not a wartime president Douglas Brinkley Preemptively. You might say the clinton approach to The War on Terror was the perverse obverse of The Bush Doctrine. or have some huge event. Douglas Brinkley Do you recall that he urged us to ignore the bombing, too? Ignore the first major Islamofascist terrorist attack on the continental United States?! Did you know clinton never visited the site? (And he was only 15 minutes away mere days after the bombing. He chose, instead, to give some forgettable speech on --what else? -- the economy.) Second, clinton is not known for something like Lyndon Johnson was -- The Civil Rights Act -- or even Theodore Roosevelt and conservation, or one big thing. I think his successes were in welfare reform, economic discipline,trade pacts. Douglas Brinkley Those are achievements, but they're hard to get people queuing up a hundred years from now excited to see the "NAFTA Pen Under Glass." Douglas Brinkley
---------------------------------------------------------------------- NANO-PRESIDENT PRESIDENT BUSH (audio): Three weeks from now--two weeks from tomorrow, America goes to the polls and you're going to have to decide who you want to lead this country ... On foreign affairs, some think it's irrelevant. I believe it's not. We're living in an interconnected world...And if a crisis comes up, ask who has the judgment and the experience and, yes, the character to make the right decision? And, lastly, the other night on character Governor Clinton said it's not the character of the president but the character of the presidency. I couldn't disagree more. Horace Greeley said the only thing that endures is character. And I think it was Justice Black who talked about great nations, like great men, must keep their word. And so the question is, who will safeguard this nation, who will safeguard our people and our children? I need your support, I ask for your support. And may God bless the United States of America. (Applause)
The clinton presidency was small not because of absence of opportunity, but rather because of absence of courage, vision, selflessness, real intelligence and a moral core. The endless parade of clinton small was required to fill the void created by an absence of the big stuff -- big stuff like "fighting terrorism."
(DECONSTRUCTING CLINTON'S HOFSTRA SPEECH)
part1: The "Brinkley" Lie
Hofstra apologia
November 11, 2005
February 2000
(discussing C-SPAN PRESIDENTS POLL)
Washington Journal
Note that although Brinkley doesn't place much importance on the economic management dimension--he argues that the economy variable is not durable over time--he fails to recognize that the evaluation of the clinton economy by the historians is erroneous to begin with.
Historian massages clinton numbers, ego + legacy at revisionist confab
C-SPAN historians find no clinton "greatness" irrespective of moral-authority deficit
The term "great" is probably an overused term. There are only a few presidents who make that top tier: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson, and a few others who might be there.
Nov. 12, 2005
History News Network
Refuting clinton's Hofstra-apologia "Brinkley" lieNote to Douglas Brinkley:
clinton WAS a wartime president. The problem is, he surrendered.
ibid.Note to Douglas Brinkley:
clinton had one almost immediately, which he summarily ignored, the first attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the 1993 WTC bombing.
ibid.Note to Douglas Brinkley:
Arguable. He was dragged kicking and screaming by the Republicans.
ibid.
Great turn of phrase.
the danger of the unrelenting smallness of bill + hillary clinton
by Mia T, 7.31.05
LEHRER: President Bush, your closing statement, sir.
ouglas Brinkley totally misses the point of clinton smallness.
- by Mia T, 12.19.05
- a tin-horn politician with the manner of a rural corn doctor and the mien of a ham actor
H.L. Mencken
- Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
MAD hillary series #4
NANO-PRESIDENT
the danger of the unrelenting smallness
of bill + hillary clinton
(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
- The cowardly, self-serving, seditious clintons may have found temporary refuge in 'the gray twilight,' but, as 9/11 demonstrated, America was not similarly sheltered....
deconstructing clinton "just because I could"
(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU! FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME!
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005
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