Posted on 09/14/2010 7:14:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Bill Clinton flashed irritation at MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and other liberals Monday for failing to appreciate the successes of his presidency.
“One of the leading television commentators on one of our liberal cable channels said I was the best Republican president the country ever produced, which would come [as] quite a surprise to the Republicans, half of whom still think I’m a closet communist,” Clinton said during an appearance with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Clinton didn’t mention Maddow by name, but she made that comment on her March 31 show.
“What she meant by that was I didn’t necessarily follow their ‘conventional wisdom,’” he said. “I said, ‘What do you mean?!’”
Clinton said he accomplished more for the poor and middle class than traditional, New Deal-era liberalism ever could have. He touted his welfare-to-work program, which he said cut the rolls by 60 percent.
“We had 100 times as many people move out of poverty during those eight years [I was president] than the previous 12 years because we had an earned income tax credit, not because we had another traditional anti-poverty program hiring people,” he said.
In a mostly subdued and statesman-like performance, Clinton vigorously defended his pursuit of pragmatism.
“What gave birth to the Third Way in America was that the Democrats kept getting beat because people saw us as the party of big government, and our own political base very often was more concerned with means than ends,” he said. “I think the people on the right that say that, ‘government is the enemy, we don’t need it,’ are wrong, particularly in this economic time. And I think people on the left that say, ‘the only way to deliver services or solve problems is with a bigger state,’ are not always right and are more often wrong than not.”
Clinton, who arrived a few minutes late, came from campaign appearances in support of Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak and gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato. He initially looked uncomfortable, slouched on a stool in the center of a theater-in-the-round, but he hit his stride a few minutes into what became an hourlong love fest with Blair. Each man couldn’t praise the other enough.
Blair, who entered office near the start of Clinton’s second term in 1997, said Clinton “pioneered” the so-called third way model and that he just “followed” his lead. He said he could relate to Clinton’s frustrations.
“So the left criticized you because you weren’t left enough, and the right criticized you because you won the elections,” Blair told Clinton.
Blair’s best-selling memoir, “A Journey: My Political Life,” came out Sept. 1. In it, he speculates about why Clinton would have a sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and concludes it was partly a result of his “inordinate interest in and curiosity about people.” That subject didn’t come up, but Clinton suggested he’s read the book when he cited “an incredibly moving” passage about Blair’s political upbringing.
Clinton also blamed a lack of sleep as a factor in Democrats’ losing control of Congress in 1994.
“You can’t do this job well if you don’t have a pretty ferocious work ethic, but most of the major mistakes I’ve made in my life I’ve made when I was too tired to lift my arm above my shoulder,” he said, after the moderator asked about dealing with the pressures of public life. “So the trick is I had to go back and totally reorder my whole schedule when I realized one of the reasons we weren’t going to do well in congressional races in 1994 is I’d lost the ability to really connect with the American people, and I was so dog tired all the time.”
Any success Clinton had during his presidency is directly attributable to the election of the republican Congress in 1994.
Bill Clinton, a legend in his own mind. Sit down and shut up. As for Rachel, she evidently doesn’t own a blue dress.
Billy got his feelings hurt, did he?
Awwww
Yea! That welfare reform he takes credit for is the same one he vetoed three times!!!
Oh My.
LOL...my thoughts exactly!
Have you seen her lately?
She could be arrested for impersonating a women.
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Only if he learns to bend like the bent one. Clinton was a poor example of character in a man and he slept while our enemies tunneled but he was smart enough to know when to hold, when to fold and when to double down. Our beloved leader only knows one way...and he applies it with the subtlety of a battering ram.
Bubba was probably just irritated because Maddow is immune to his considerable charms. Maybe she reminds him of Hillary in that regard....
He is a creampuff!
Any success Clinton had during his presidency is directly attributable to the implementation of the Internet. Unfortunately, it expanded too fast and with questionable economic foundations (like 2 pimply kids with a few pages of HTML code becoming billionaires overnight), it exploded on itself.
Bush inherited the shards of the explosion and quickly restored the economic balance, for which he never got credit.
ROTFLMAO! I think Billy's inordinate interest only went as far as his own sexual gratification.
Even Bill wouldn’t hit that.
Guess, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. ;)
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