Memo to Clinton: No, you can't buy me a drink (Brown University pinko wakes up)

Brown Daily Herald ^ | 01/31/2002 | Joshua Skolnick

[TheMole]

COLUMN: Memo to Clinton: No, you can't buy me a drink

By Joshua Skolnick

Brown Daily Herald (Brown U.)

01/31/2002

(U-WIRE) PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Watching the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, I experienced a fundamental change in the way I view our country. As a columnist, I spend a good amount of time gauging where we are as a country, and where we are going.

Last year, I wrote a column explaining exactly why Bill Clinton was correct in stating that the State of the Union is the strongest it has ever been in his farewell speech. Today, I realized exactly what was so bankrupt and empty about that statement. Today, Bill Clinton's America was finally swept into the dustbin of history as little more than an old page from a tabloid newspaper. Like an old relationship that was shallow and based on sex, Clinton felt like nothing compared to what we have now. The America of vacillation, of two-faced explanations, of posturing and politicking, now seems to have been put to bed. The New America is an America that is confident of its values. At Brown, many, like Clinton, are lost. We may spend endless time debating values, debating what the meaning of "is" is or the various ways we can deconstruct anything that anyone says. This is all very interesting, but when it comes down to it, and I am asked what my values are, I find that they were summed up beautifully by George W. Bush. His speech made me swell with love of country, and disdain for college. That speech made me want to live in America, not at Brown. I had been duped into falling in love with Clinton's America. Bush's speech made me realize just how wrong I was.

If Clinton was a womanizer (the "if" is probably unnecessary) than I am a woman. He got me. He made me think that this country's welfare was based on our sky-high stock market prices. He took me out to dinner, paid for everything, and told me that I had beautiful eyes. I was a fool not to notice the mischief going on beneath the table.

We were all taken in by Clinton. Year after year, he gave the most boring, detailed, laundry-list State of the Union addresses, and yet we clung to his every word. We scoffed at critics such as John McCain, who rightly stated that Clinton conducted a "photo-op foreign policy." We collectively stared into his eyes while terrorist camps were being armed in Afghanistan. This is not to be taken lightly. Our foolishness, in part, led to our vulnerability on Spet. 11. If the Clinton Era hadn't gotten us drunk on the "good times", we could have pressured our leaders to make terror-fighting a top-priority. Instead, we woke up with our clothes off.

In walked George W. Bush. On Tuesday night, he helped us put our clothes back on. He made us realize that we were more than our GDP, more than the latest tabloid. He gave us the shocking realization that this country is built on actual values. Free speech. Private property. Compassion for those who are less fortunate. Few other countries in the world with such power and prestige at their hand would actually mention, in what was the first assessment of the state of the union since a major foreign invasion, that we wanted to try to understand the peoples and the countries where this hatred is bred.

The speech on Tuesday night was like a cool glass of water the morning after a frat party. You can't believe you went home with that girl, can't believe you drank so much, but you're glad to finally be back home.

Unfortunately, Brown University doesn't quite feel like home. Essentially, the average Brown student is like a girl who has one bad experience with a male and then swears males off forever. When America commits one atrocity somewhere in Peru in 1979, or America is a bit too harsh on terrorists who, if not caught, would have tried to kill us, they swear off America forever. The fact is, America is a great nation. Certainly this is an opinion, but I look at the facts and feel proud of who we are, and who we are aiming to be.

When I remembered my statements about Bill Clinton's last State of the Union address, it was like reading an old love letter that you sent to a real whore of a girl. The bad news is, at Brown, that girl's best friend lives next door. The good news is, now, like a guest on Jerry Springer, I've got a new man.

[kassie]

We were all taken in by Clinton

We??? I don't think so.

[DE50AE]

I agree, the use of the word "we" in this is entirely inappropriate. A great number of us, instead, had to endure eight years of the worst embarrassment to our country that I can remember.

[cactmh]

OMG, I've never seen this picture. How disgusting. BUMP FOR THE ARTICLE!

[Prodigal Son]

I think this writer just about sums it up and my faith is being restored that people will respond to someone to whom our values actually matter.

[cpressroll]

Clinton was a transparent fraud to honest, working southerners but somehow he managed to fool a lot of people. Just enough, it would seem. I cannot, no matter how hard I try, understand why there are still people defending this @#%^&*$ con artist. Oh, well, as the great Ray Stevens sang "there is none so blind as he who will not see."

[GenXFreedomFighter]

Skolnick ... hmmmm?

Is there a Lambda Lambda Lambda chapter at Brown? ;-)

[gore3000]

The writer, like many leftists which have helped give GWB a close to 90% approval rating, have finally realized that we are now living the Clinton legacy: 9/11, terror in Israel, Enron and Global Crossings, a choking economy.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Perhaps he means for the word "we" to refer to his peers at Brown.

[Greenpointer]

Hrmp. I have never seen that. The shame of it all.

[Greenpointer]

What is this "We" crap? I am, or actually have been for years, sick and disgusted at this kind of crapola. There are tens and tens of millions of people out there that, like me, saw immediatly in 1992 that Clinton was a lying, two faced, spineless weasel without an ounce of backbone, ethics or integrity. And that was before I knew anything about his womanizing and rapes. As years went by, this worthless individual did nothing but cement this opinion of him. So knock off this "we" BS. Just because there were (are?) tens and tens of millions of people out there that were (are?) ignorant, gullible and/or stupid enough to be fooled by this con-man, don't comfort yourself by say "we all" were that ignorant, gullible and/or stupid.

Thank you. This is exactly how I feel. The hell with this guy, too little to late.

[AAABEST]

Wow. Talk about a pic that speaks a thousand words.

I've never seen that, good find.

[GraniteStateConservative]

"We" refers to a majority of America. You can be proud you are not a part of "we," but "we" was a heck of a lot of people. Clintoon had great job approval ratings nearly all of his two terms. If "we" all wake up to the realizations this kid has before November, the Democraps could be in for a very tough day-after-election-day hangover.

[Cuttnhorse]

Good article, all things considered.
I recommed going to the original article and writing a note to the author.

[BluH2o]

We were all taken in by Clinton.

I would assume the author is speaking of the namby-pamby, mush for brains liberals ... those of his ilk. Clinton struck me as a draft dodging, disingenuous, dirt bag, phony going all the way back to the early '90's when he began to emerge as a presidential candidate. I've always prided myself in my ability to size people up, I'm rarely wrong, and I was never more right than I was about Clinton.

[an amused spectator]

Clinton is the Rosetta Stone of the Right.

Thank God for him.

[1Old Pro]

O.K. so one college Lefty out of tens of thousands has finally woken up. It's a start, but it's too little too late.

[eureka!]

Mole-Wow. From Brown? W is indeed making inroads...

John-Not a bad allegorical piece. Thought you'd enjoy...

[Exeter]

Excuse me zarf, but Slimey Bill never got the support of a majority of the voters. In his first run in '92 he won 43% of the votes cast, and in '96 he got 47%. This isn't a majority, only a plurality. What he got were victories in enough key states to win a majority of the electoral votes, but he never had 50%+ of the voters choosing him to be their President. This crap we heard regarding his having a "mandate" during the 8 years of his infestation of the Oval Office was just that, crap. Mandates come from overwhelming support from the people, and Clinton never had that. What he had was the ability to create divisive issues and play the two sides against each other while he stood nearby waiting to see how the opinion polls would shape his response. (For a better explanation of this tactic, read Christopher Hitchens' The Triangulation of Bill Clinton.) But this sociopath NEVER had the support of the majority of the voters, but rather just enough support from the needed voters.

[backhoe]

I often wonder just how much "has never been seen" by a lot of people, and how much was mentioned once, then dropped by the clinton-worshipping media.

I can recall all sorts of stories that got as far as talk radio, but never went anywhere with the "watchdog" press- the nuclear "football" getting separated from the president, girls on the White House staff witn no panties- that sort of thing.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Nice read. Thanks for the post. This young man (is he a young man?) needs some emails of support. He will be trashed by the leftists still imbedded in the intellectual sewers known as our universities.