Bill Clinton's third term

[Ravi]

See? The above Republican spin is why he probably didn't go to war with Saddam. Here he's an interventionist. Elsewhere he's not interventionist enough.

You're busted as a partisan, dude.

Totally. I love it when they drag out the quotes from Clinton about Saddam being the king of all evil, never seeing that Clinton was very good at bluffing and keeping Saddam in line.

Bush, not so much.

 

[Gord]

From the liberal media, where else?

And you believed them?!?

Yup the excesses of our XXth century guilded Age. Do you think Clinton was responsible for any of those?

I'd love to see the responsibility flowchart that proves it, if you do.

As long as liberals keep telling me how Clinton should be credited with the stock market climb, I'm going to give him credit for the bubble crash and Enron, etc.

the USA started selling high technology a mighty long time ago. I myself worked for an industry which shall not be named but which brings good things to life, which was selling them Jet technology nearly thirty years ago...back when Reagan was in office.

Hardly comparable to giving the technology to reach N.A. with nuclear weapons.

Clinton inherited a foreign policy mess, dealt with it more or less, and left a mess, true.

As did Bush II, as will Obama, and whomsoever follows him. Foreign affairs are ALWAYS a mess.

Bush has been cleaning up Clinton's mess.

Clinton was practically neutered because of that affair. Had he gone to war the Republicans would have eaten him alive as an interventionist, just as they did because of Kosovo.

Nonsense. Done correctly as Bush did by getting all political and diplomatic ducks in a row, they would have supported him.

You and I have a different take on that. I'm informed that is total bullshit, actually

I take it you have not heard the tape of Clinton admitting he turned them down.

He let them, eh? What should he have done?

What Bush did.

Rhetorical nonsense

Yes it was nonsense, but it did happen.

News to me. Probably news to Libya, too.

You seem to be quite uninformed.

See? The above Republican spin is why he probably didn't go to war with Saddam. Here he's an interventionist. Elsewhere he's not interventionist enough.

You're busted as a partisan, dude.

See above. Bush did it the proper way. Clinton lied and ignored proper diplomatic and legislative channels.

I'm certain the Serbs and Kosovars will be happy to hear that it was "hardly- ethnic cleansing"

The reason Clinton lied and called it "ethnic cleansing" was to make up for when he instructed his administration to downplay the Rwanda genocide only as a "local conflict" and generate support for his unsupportable war.

Blather. You forgot that he was responsible for the hundred years war, too.

Clinton was played by Yassir Arafat and Clinton wanted Palestinain peace as a feather in his hat so badly he completely missed it.

Nonsense. Sheer partisan sophestry. If you truly believe that, you don't know jack about this economic meltdown. Seriously. Do some reading.

Actually I have done a lot of reading on this subject. In 1992 Clinton along with the Democrat congress passed the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 which directed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, each known as a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) to purchase what were then known as subprime mortgages from banks and repackage them as mortgage-backed securities, selling them to the broader financial market. This was the tipping point for the CRA which was originally enacted by Carter and another Democrat congress. In 1995 and again in 1999 Clinton ordered HUD (who were charged with setting the qualifications) to expand the CRA requirements for bank compliance. This evolved into the credit crisis we are experiencing now.

Yes, much. (See Bush II for example)

Bush got stuck with cleaning up after Clinton. And now Obama is stuck with cleaning up what Bush could not.

I think I saw that entry for him in Wickedpedia.

Nope - it's my own.

 

[Gord]

Totally. I love it when they drag out the quotes from Clinton about Saddam being the king of all evil, never seeing that Clinton was very good at bluffing and keeping Saddam in line.

Bush, not so much.

Uh - Saddam kicked the UN inspectors out in 1998. Clinton then made the statements I linked to in the post above. Saddam is now dead - executed. I think Bush did a much better job of "keeping Saddam in line".

 

[Lycurgus]

Originally Posted by Ravi
Totally. I love it when they drag out the quotes from Clinton about Saddam being the king of all evil, never seeing that Clinton was very good at bluffing and keeping Saddam in line.

Bush, not so much.



**********************************************************

With all due respect, Clinton did not keep Saddam in line. In fact, Clinton was so negligent in his handling of the Iraqi situation, if he worked in the private sector his employment would have been terminated.

All of the agreements and documents are available for review. Saddam began his rein of terror as soon as Clinton was sworn in.

This by no means excuses Bush's handling of the Iraq war, but, too often the entire story is not told.

The same with Osama.

The same with Bosnia.

The same with Somalia.

The same with too many issues. Often times we need to look back one or two administrations to get a well rounded understanding.

 

[TR_GOP]

Naturally that means he's paranoid.

It's been suggested before, and I really don't mind the label. Paranoia is only that in absence of a genuine threat.

Folks who believe asleep at the wheel Bush cunningly coordinated the demolition of Tower 7 with the flying of two airliners into the WTC by OBL associates. Or

Or

Bush planted explosives along the Lake Ponchatrain dikes and detonated them on cue with a hurricane in order to chase out people living below it.

That's paranoid.

I'm curious by nature. Also, during my middle and high school years I made it a habit to seek expulsion from class so I could spend the evening either in the library actually learning something or in the computer lab fooling around with the mainframe. At the risk of ridicule I'm going to make an admission here that I've never made on the web, or to any of my friends actually. I grew up in a very poor inner-city neighborhood. The local schools had outside appearances of minimum security prisions, and on the inside that characterization wasn't too far off the mark. The pace of class was almost always oriented around the lowest common denominator (school district administration policy). Being of mixed racial heritage I was constantly on guard from thugs (racism is a two-way street). I learned how to fight, and actually came to enjoy it. Aside from a small group of friends preferred to keep to myself.

I recall being seperated from the class in elementry school for a one week time period. A very nice (and attractive) young lady informed me we were going to try new learning games. The two I can recall most clearly (because they were fun); puzzles timed with a stopwatch and literature readings followed by a discussions. When it was over I took a note home to my mother, it was an offer to send me out of town to a special boarding school for the gifted. Tuition-free. She said no. I still haven't gotten over that.

I ended up flunking out of the 11th grade in order to join the Army. Later while applying for a major city's EMS organization I was called in to speak with two HR people who appeared puzzled with my test results. The some of the left to right bar graph results went straight across the page.

The 11th grade education level doesn't help matters when applying for jobs, or college for that matter. Due to my limited exposure to English Composition even posting on message boards becomes a challenge, and usually results in editing and re-editing.

The PC and internet has become my new library, and so I entertain my brain by attempting to discover truths unspoken and patterns that may reveal future events. I'm pretty cynical, no, strike that, realistic when it comes to the failings of human nature so nothing much slips by me. I have neither the patience or respect for liars.

Quite frankly through the past few years I've learned too much for my own good, be it within the realm of corporate media ownership (ABC has lashed out directly at yours truly), marketing, politics, the enviornment, or economics.

Has anyone read the book "Flowers for Algernon"? It was one of my favorites in school. Although I haven't picked up the book or watched the made for TV movie since the 1970's the plot remains committed to memory. At one time I hated ignorance, hated everything about it, especially ignorance among superiors. Does anyone else find it amazing how the ignorant manage to move up society's ladder? Politics always wins out over job performance. Chalk it all up to institutions constructed of, by and for a greedy, ignorant world. The time is approaching in which this story of apes who became men but never quite abandoned their apelike instincts will end. Manape will untimately fuck, breed, eat, chop, burn, dredge, pollute, cheat, steal, rape, murder, and ultimately nuke itself out of its misery.

I've been holding out a glimmer of hope for NASA's Constellation project which promises a return to the Moon and future Mars colonization, hoping that a self-sufficient colony of intelligent people is established before mankind's final chapter is written. Want to know what really pisses me off? Contemplating the $700 billion dollar bailout. In the '60s we spent an identcally substantial percentage of federal tax dollars on Apollo. It took almost 10 years to blow through it all. However it merely takes a few months for the capitalist sector to do the same. What that money could have accomplished. Applied correctly it could have guaranteed survival of the human race. Possibly, just a theory. Another Apollo program would definitely have given the aerospace sector a shot in the arm while making a huge splash throughout the economy..

This is why I envy the ignorant . Such thoughts never enter the equation. The only thing worse than a cow on a cattle truck headed to slaughter is a cow that realizes what the fuck is going to happen.....hense the Flowers to Algernon reference. Charlie was a mentally retarded janitor subjected to an experiment intended to raise his cognative and intellectual capacities. Oh it sure did that all right, he eventually became a scientist in his own right, only to discover the results of the experiment were only temporary. At first glance this seems like a cruel tragedy. Instead of dreading the IQ descent Charlie came to welcome it because knowledge revealed to his eyes a far, far uglier world than he ever imagined existed. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Don't sweat it.

We may all be Bozos on this bus, anyway.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew]YouTube - Network - Mad as hell[/ame]

 

[Ravi]

Uh - Saddam kicked the UN inspectors out in 1998. Clinton then made the statements I linked to in the post above. Saddam is now dead - executed. I think Bush did a much better job of "keeping Saddam in line".

I'm glad you think so. I'd rather not have wasted so many lives and dollars executing a jumped up moron that was bottled up in his country without allies.

 

[jillian]

Uh - Saddam kicked the UN inspectors out in 1998. Clinton then made the statements I linked to in the post above. Saddam is now dead - executed. I think Bush did a much better job of "keeping Saddam in line".

You must be the last person on th planet who believes that.

Now try for some actual facts.

Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.

The inspections have taken place throughout Iraq at industrial sites, ammunition depots, research centers, universities, presidential sites, mobile laboratories, private houses, missile production facilities, military camps and agricultural sites. At all sites which had been inspected before 1998, re-baselining activities were performed. This included the identification of the function and contents of each building, new or old, at the site. It also included verification of previously tagged equipment, application of seals and tags, taking samples and discussions with the site personnel regarding past and present activities.

At certain sites, ground penetrating radar was used to look for underground structures or buried equipment.

Through the inspections conducted so far, we have obtained a good knowledge of the industrial and scientific landscape of Iraq as well as its missile capability, but as before, we do not know every cave and corner.

Inspections are effectively helping to bridge the gap in knowledge that arose due to the absence of inspections between December 1998 and November 2002. More than 200 chemical and more than 100 biological samples have been collected at different sites. Three-quarters of these have been screened using our own analytical laboratory capability capabilities at the Baghdad center (BOMVIC). The results to date have been consistent with Iraqi declarations.

We have commenced the process of destroying 50 liters of mustard gas declared by Iraq that was being kept under UNMOVIC seal. One-third of the quantity has been destroyed. Another mustard gas precursor has been destroyed.

More

Blix's Feb. 14 Report To U.N., Text Of Hans Blix's Report To U.N. Security Council - CBS News

 

[BlackAsCoal]

No, you don't get it. See, you're a pea-brain that can't imagine anything outside the conveniently familiar nepotistic two party political system. Rush vs. Franken, Olbermann vs. O'Reilly, Clinton vs. Bush, liberal vs. conservative, and so on and so forth.

I didn't lose, I got fooled. It appears the masses are so accustomed to being fooled, lied to, and sold out by these two sides of the same coin it really doesn't matter. It's 30 sec sound bite politics for a short attention span audience.

Nice vocabulary btw, it reflects on your intellect.

In fact partisans encourage their politicians to lie to them and they defend any lies told. How many times have you heard "He's just saying what he has to say to get elected." In other words .. he's lying.

With Obama you not only get Clinton retreads, you get Bush retreads as well.

Welcome to "change"

 

[TR_GOP]

In fact partisans encourage their politicians to lie to them and they defend any lies told. How many times have you heard In other words .. he's lying.

Isn't that the truth. Good on you for noticing. Such thinking has become so intricately interwoven into the political arena it rules the day.

Translation; "Of course he's lying, how else do you convince people to vote for you?"
It's insane!

With Obama you not only get Clinton retreads, you get Bush retreads as well.

Railing against politics as usual is good on the campaign trail. Keeping everyone inside the beltway happy is good politics once you're in. I wonder when Obama will begin the process of evicting the fat cats and lobbyist from Washington politics?

How does the saying go, "people usually get the government they deserve."
?

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Isn't that the truth. Good on you for noticing. Such thinking has become so intricately interwoven into the political arena it rules the day. 'Of course he's lying, how else do you convince people to vote for you?' It's insane.



Railing against politics as usual is good on the campaign trail. Keeping everyone inside the beltway happy is good politics once you're in. I wonder when Obama will begin the process of evicting the fat cats and lobbyist from Washington?

He was only saying what he had to say to get elected.

 

[Lycurgus]

He was only saying what he had to say to get elected.

Yep, just more jive from a brother!

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Yep, just more jive from a brother!

"Brothers" aren't the only ones to engage in this sort of "jive" .. in fact they learned it from the manner in which American politics are done.

Didn't you learn that when you voted for Bush?

 

[editec]

And you believed them?!?[/quote}

And you beleived me?

As long as liberals keep telling me how Clinton should be credited with the stock market climb, I'm going to give him credit for the bubble crash and Enron, etc.

In other words, no. Damned shame. You really need to know who ALL the villians are, but you are apparently so enamored with the partians' games you are not yet ready to face the truth of the sham that is our two party system.

Hardly comparable to giving the technology to reach N.A. with nuclear weapons

.

You miss the point, obviously. AMERICAN has been doing this for thirty years.

Bush has been cleaning up Clinton's mess.

Bush inherited some problems, as every POTUS mus,t and then Bush shit his own bed, too

Nonsense. Done correctly as Bush did by getting all political and diplomatic ducks in a row, they would have supported him.

Your previous post proved that isn't true, sport. It proved you are a partisan blinding lashing out at what you think is an opponent of your party.

I take it you have not heard the tape of Clinton admitting he turned them down.

The issue is far more complex than your soundbyte logic amigo. But it's also not worth having a debate about an issue so umimportant to us right now, either.


I'm sorry, but I cannot continue responding specifically because I'd have to jump back and forth between post to see what your comment to my comment is actually talking about.

It's a pain in the ass.

This is the problem with parcing out people's posts and responding paragraph by paragraph.

But I get you point, if that helps.

You think Clinton was terrible POTUS and that Bush suffered because of his mistakes. You are a loyal Republican who thinks that your party and the Democratic Party a bitter enemies and significantly different in their approach to governance.

I think that makes you someone who is completely brainwashed by the media, and who is not yet ready to accept that we are being duped by the duelopoly

FWIW, I think the every POTUS ends up dealing with the shortcoming and mistakes of the previous governments.

I was not a Clinton supporter, I never thought him remotely a leftist, I hated his trade policies, his welfare reform wasn't much to my liking, and most of his foreign policy left me cold, too.

I think Clinton is just another insider doing the bidding of the insiders who will call the shots for every POTUS to come, just as they have been calling the shots for every POTUS in my lifetime.

I'm just not the guy you want to have a R v D debate with because I do not believe that these parties represent anything significantly different philosophically.

 

[Gord]

I'm sorry, but I cannot continue responding specifically because I'd have to jump back and forth between post to see what your comment to my comment is actually talking about.

OK

You think Clinton was terrible POTUS and that Bush suffered because of his mistakes. You are a loyal Republican who thinks that your party and the Democratic Party a bitter enemies and significantly different in their approach to governance.

Yes, for the most part. However I am more of a conservative than a Rebublican supporter and have been very disappointed with a number of liberal things Bush and the Republican congress have done. But yeah - when Clinton is held up as some sort of iconic president and Bush is blamed for every ill that befalls mankind, I kinda get my hackles up.

I think that makes you someone who is completely brainwashed by the media, and who is not yet ready to accept that we are being duped by the duelopoly

No I am a conservative first and choose the least evil, which are the Repblicans. The liberartians and the conservative parties are a waste of time because they have no influence.

FWIW, I think the every POTUS ends up dealing with the shortcoming and mistakes of the previous governments.

I agree. Some leave many shortcomings and some leave less. Clinton left so many that many presidents will be dealing with them.

I was not a Clinton supporter, I never thought him remotely a leftist, I hated his trade policies, his welfare reform wasn't much to my liking, and most of his foreign policy left me cold, too.

I think Clinton is just another insider doing the bidding of the insiders who will call the shots for every POTUS to come, just as they have been calling the shots for every POTUS in my lifetime.

I'm just not the guy you want to have a R v D debate with because I do not believe that these parties represent anything significantly different philosophically.

Fine.

 

[TR_GOP]

I do not believe that these parties represent anything significantly different philosophically.

Aside from their respective Dueling Duping Duelopoly Comedy scripts.