So what? Is it fair to say your disagreement is with capitalism?
Here, distract yourself with this.
"I'm thinking of you, MM. Thanks for your support."
Posted on 03/28/2002 9:35:18 AM PST by libber-tarian
I recently wrote an article in which I referred to Bill Clinton as a shallow man, and was asked to explain myself by a reader who went on to claim that Bill Clinton "righted the wrongs of active exclusion, willful ignorance, and offensive pity" and "[led] the nation through its longest period of peacetime expansion of economic, social, and individual opportunity."
What I've never understood about the Clinton apologists is that they apparently value talk over action. Other than make speeches filled with feel-good rhetoric, what did Bill Clinton actually do? People may have felt comforted by his words, believed that he cared about them and felt their pain, but in the end, all of Clinton's talk amounted to nothing.
Whenever I talk to supporters of Bill Clinton, I ask them to list the things he did. Most people can't name a single thing, and instead credit him with presiding over an expanding economy, as though coincidence--the dumb luck of having his presidency aligned with the business cycle--somehow proves that he caused it to happen. But what did he do that was so beneficial to the economy? For that matter, what actions did he take to "right the wrongs of active exclusion"? Don't ask, don't tell? Hardly the epitome of inclusiveness.
My memory may be failing me, but when I try to recall the achievements of the Clinton presidency, I can name only two of any significance: Welfare Reform and NAFTA. Despite the fact that neither of these bills originated from the Clinton Administration, I do give him credit for signing them; most Democrats would not have signed either bill. On the other hand, neither of these bills could pass Congress until the Republicans took over in 1994. So I guess the real achievement of the Clinton presidency was scaring enough people during his first two years in office that he put the Senate and the House of Representatives in the hands of the Republicans for the first time since 1954. But I doubt the fans of Clinton would celebrate that monumental achievement.
As far as the economy goes, there is no doubt that Bill Clinton presided over a favorable economy and a remarkable expansion in the stock market. But remember that most of this expansion was due to the rise of the Internet and the resulting speculation on Internet stocks. Remember when the economy started to go south? That's right, just when the Internet bubble burst. Al Gore's attempt to take credit for inventing the Internet notwithstanding, nobody in their right mind would claim that the Clinton Administration was somehow responsible for the Internet boom.
But if you insist on crediting Bill Clinton with the rise of the stock market, then you must also blame him for the "irrational exuberance" that led to its collapse. You must therefore also blame him for the recession. Otherwise, you're crediting him for handing out the drinks at the party and blaming his successor--the guy who has to clean up the mess--for everyone's hangover the next day.
Getting back to my claim that Bill Clinton is a shallow man, it seems to me that someone who squanders an opportunity to achieve greatness and instead uses his power for nothing more than the satisfaction of his own wants and needs is shallow. Bill Clinton is pathologically self-absorbed, which is why he constantly found himself bungling into scandal after scandal.
Now, one may scream that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy to bring down Bill Clinton; even if you believe that nonsense, you have to wonder why Bill Clinton went out of his way to hand his enemies so much ammunition on such a regular basis. And when I say scandal, I'm not even thinking about the "lying under oath" thing, which Clinton supporters dismiss as inconsequential. I'm talking about other serious stuff, all of which is well-known to people who were paying attention, but most of which was underreported due to the media's focus on the more salacious--and therefore media-friendly--Clinton scandals.
If you'll recall: Under Bill Clinton, the White House became a glorified motel, where the Lincoln Bedroom was rented out to contributors who coughed up enough dough. Military secrets ended up in the hands of the Chinese, who laundered money that ended up in the hands of the Democratic National Committee just in time for Clinton's re-election campaign. Al Gore was dispatched to hold illegal fundraisers at Buddhist temples, where he collected money from dozens of nuns who--despite having taken vows of poverty--each managed to produce a $5,000 check for Clinton's re-election. His top fundraiser, Terry McAuliffe, the current head of the aforementioned DNC, made $18,000,000 from a $100,000 investment in Global Crossing, now bankrupt and under investigation for shady government contracts during the Clinton Administration. When Enron's Ken Lay was staying in the Lincoln Bedroom during the Clinton Administration, Enron came to ask the federal government to underwrite foreign loans on 20 different occasions; on 19 of those 20 occasions, the Clinton Administration said yes, to the tune of $2 billion dollars. And let us not forget about selling presidential pardons to drug-runners and fat-cat tax-cheat felons on the lam in Europe. Or the looting of White House furniture for their new home, which is unfortunately located in my home state. And all that's without even getting into Whitewater, the Travel Office firings, or the perjury scandal.
Bill Clinton is a low-life thief, a petty swindler, and a smooth-talking scam artist more suited for Tammany Hall than the White House. But I will admit that Bill Clinton was a man of action, as long as that action involved greasing his palms (or anything other body part for that matter) or furnishing his house. Somehow, Bill Clinton found the time to conduct all of that "business", but he was too busy to take Osama bin Laden when the Sudanese government offered to hand him over to us in 1996. Think about it: we wouldn't be chasing bin Laden around the globe right now if Clinton had focused a little more on taking care of the threats against us and a little less on figuring out every conceivable way that he could cash in on his power or use it to get women.
Which reminds me...as far as giving Clinton credit for presiding over a time of peace, what kind of peace was it? During the Clinton Administration, there were 6 major terrorist attacks against the U.S. which left over 415 dead and 6,500 injured. It seems to me that it's very easy to maintain the illusion of peace by ignoring the dangers that surround us. You may look back fondly at the 1990s as a time of peace, but it was a peace during which we relaxed while our enemies were getting stronger and preparing to annihilate us. That's a pretty shallow peace if you ask me.
Bill Clinton is shallow because he spoke often of his convictions but did nothing to realize them. He's shallow because he was given remarkable gifts and the opportunity to do great things with them, yet he achieved nothing substantial. In the end, his presidency amounted to little more than talk and corruption. He rarely took any action unless it somehow benefitted him. But whenever action mattered for the good of the nation, Bill Clinton was nowhere to be found. And that is why the man who spent the final days of his presidency fretting about his legacy will find it to be recorded quite accurately by history: Bill Clinton is a shallow, failed man.
If you can't see the difference between Bush and Clinton, you need glasses and a clue.
Tax cuts, which did NOT benefit only the wealthy, but they DID benefit only those who pay income taxes, AS IT SHOULD BE.
An education program that does more for holding schools responsible for the quality of education they provide than any previous program
Conducted the war in Afghanistan in as ethical a manner as a war can be conducted. (If Clinton or Gore had been in the whitehouse, they would have just shrugged their shoulders about what happened on 9/11.)
There are other items I could name, but you aren't worth any more of my time. Have a nice day.
In reality Bush's tax cuts didn't benefit any class of Americans. The poor who don't pay income taxes didn't get anything; the middle class got their $600 rebates but little else and now are being hammered by rising unemployment and stagnant DJIA; and even the richest 5% who received the greatest direct benefits lost more in the stock and bond markets than they received. A person who wants to benefit from Bush's scheme better plan on dying in 2009, the only year estate taxes will be abolished.
An education program that does more for holding schools responsible for the quality of education they provide than any previous program
O.K., even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
Conducted the war in Afghanistan in as ethical a manner as a war can be conducted. (If Clinton or Gore had been in the whitehouse, they would have just shrugged their shoulders about what happened on 9/11.)
If Clinton claimed success in Bosnia and Haiti based upon conduct of an "ethical...war" instead of military victory, the Repukes rightfully would have laughed him out of office and even some Dem senators might have voted for impeachment. Dumbya doesn't have a clue about how to find OBL, as the puny presidential pretender promised shortly after 9/11. The double standard applied by many on this board to Bush and Clinton is pathetic.
Yet it was just yesterday that the Libdem/Chicoms announced their tax cut plan - and it sounds IDENTICAL to what you describe.
How could that happen? The impeached *One raised taxes and bragged about all of the good it produced. Why won't this current batch of spinners in the Minority Party do something just like it?
On the domestic front:
On the foreign policy front:
Following is an exerpt from a recent article by Rich Lowry (full article can be found here), which succinctly summarizes Clinton's policy of appeasement:
[begin Lowry article exerpt]
The danger is mistaking airy sentiments and assurances with reality. This was a mistake that the Clinton administration inflated almost to a strategic doctrine: Don't verify, if you can trust instead.
Pyongyang signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1987. By the early 1990s, it was clearly in breach of the agreement and had begun to stiff inspectors from the IAEA.
...Clinton's...reaction was to reward North Korea by agreeing in 1994 to provide 500,000 tons a year of heating oil, undertake a general warming of relations and amazingly enough, build two light-water nuclear reactors.
This was justified on grounds that light-water reactors -- in contrast to heavy-water reactors -- are inappropriate for making weapons. But it's not so.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a light-water reactor "would routinely discharge in spent fuel as much as a few hundred kilograms of plutonium each year. If the fuel burn-up was reduced, perhaps during a national security crisis, the reactor could produce significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium."
The safety of the reactors, in other words, is dependent on North Koreans not cheating -- their obvious penchant for which is what prompted the reactor giveaway in the first place.
But President Clinton was not willing to push too hard for the return of inspectors (which was supposed to be one of the points of the agreement), partly because that would risk blowing up all his negotiating handiwork.
So, North Korea got aid, and we settled for empty promises -- in a classic arms-control dynamic. After all of this, the Bush administration is still being urged to "engage" with the North.
Indeed, if promising to build two nuclear reactors didn't work, maybe we should offer four instead. And they say Kim Jong Il is crazy? [end Lowry article exerpt]
LOL!
Here's hoping you were smart enough to sell everything when the DJIA skyrocketed up to 8742 for a few precious hours. The markets sure reacted positively to your war hero's economic "stimulus" program speech yesterday, didn't they?
By the way, it's still way up over where it was on the previous thread.
Your post actually captures the essence of the most important reason why it is essential to retain the estate tax. Huge stock capital gains of the type amassed by Bill Gates and other capitalists will never be taxed if the stock shares can be willed to heirs free of any estate taxes. Remember that dividends paid by MSFT are 0.00 per share, as they have been ever since the company's inception.
So what? Is it fair to say your disagreement is with capitalism?
Here, distract yourself with this.
"I'm thinking of you, MM. Thanks for your support."
Don't stay go so long! Come back and tell us some more tall tales about the adventures of Bill - the caped Democratic Doofus...
Isn't that what the elastic clause is for...
Obviously, the President of the United States has better things to do with his time than look under every rock in Tora Bora with a spatula and a sponge.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.