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id you see it? More to the point, did the American press?
bill clinton made page one of Al-Jazeera today. A schizophrenic mix of schadenfreude and agitprop, it was the story of an impeached ex-president of America trashing America--to standing Os--in the Arab state of Dubai--in the middle of a war zone--only several hundred miles from the American troops. And, if that weren't enough, the traitor pocketed $200,000 from the Arabs for his efforts.  Having failed to snare the Nobel Peace Prize by ignoring terrorism, clinton has apparently decided to intensify his America-bashing on foreign soil, the method employed by Jimmy Carter to great (if somewhat belated) effect. (The Nobel committee, sufficiently mollified only after 24 years of the peanut president's America-bashing, awarded Carter his 1978 Peace Prize finally in 2002.)
Meanwhile, back in the Senate, the missus, the other half of the clinton construct, maintains her hawkish pose (although not without bird problems of another sort). Yet another example of the clinton conflation ploy, (see SCHEMA PINOCCHIO: how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor), this variant allows "clinton, the construct" to hold two mutually exclusive positions simultaneously, thereby enabling the missus to avoid in '08 the trap that repeatedly ensnared the ever 'nuanced' Kerry in '04. Do you now understand how stupid the clintons think you are?
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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.
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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. "It's NOT the economy, stupid!" 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
 Twenty presidents rank higher than bill clinton and 20 rank lower. But this placement assumes equal weight for each of the dimensions. And therein lies the flaw. 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
Historian massages clinton numbers, ego + legacy at revisionist confab
C-SPAN historians find no clinton "greatness" irrespective of moral-authority deficit
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IT TAKES A CLINTON TO RAZE A COUNTRY
by Mia T, 11.14.05
(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2004 |
