Clinton Administration @ MindSay 
I have no interest in redeeming the legacy of the House of Bush, nor do I have a stake in the advancement of the Bush-Clinton Dynasty. In light of that, I feel the need to peel the scab off the open sore of the Clinton-Bush legacy to the good of all involved. If the Dems want to win this election, they need to start listening to the better angels of their nature, not the dreck passing for commentary in the nation's leading dead-tree news outlets. For the moment, I will overlook the white-guilt, hip-hop wannabe groupies like Maureen Dowd, and focus on oblivious policy wonks.
Reading the Paul Krugman piece this morning, I was astounded by the Clinton Kool-Aid-drinking capacity of the willfully ignorant leftists. Instead of offering constructive criticism or words of wisdom like Bob Herbert did, Krugman represents the latter of the two white-oriented extremes in the party: the white-guilt Obamites and the Knights of the Legacy of Clinton. Paul's advice, sadly, is suicide for Obama, but vital for perpetuating the lies that compose the hagiography of the Clinton White House.
For instance, it is well-known that Bush the Elder was rocketed to success by the advances of the man who he hated, Ronald Reagan. In fact, the Reagan economy worked, but its greatest success came well after the Gipper was well out of office. It is also well-known that Bush the Elder lost in 1992 for going back on a Reaganesque pledge not to increase taxes. Similarly, Carter's recession lasted several years into the 1980's, and it led to his collapse in 1980. Voters see the bad policies screwing up the economy, but the damage often lingers well into the terms of the next administration. Some, like Reagan, fix the problem and pass into legend. Some, like this Bush, contribute to the problem and go down to infamy.
Clinton's years judged to 2000, as Krugman does, look good, but Clinton was also president in 2000, and some of you may vaguely remember the "Dot Com" bubble. That bubble was built during the Clinton administration, and its collapse is a large part of the recession that was already well in progress when 9/11 occurred. This is a stark fact often glossed over by the Clinton loyalists, but it bears remembering by any objective student of the period. On another note, it is worth noting that Clinton was fighting with a GOP Congress after 1994, and they kept a lot of his bad policies in check. This always seems to get lost in the nostalgic retelling, but I remember those fights. (Government shut-downs over the budget, anyone?)
This brings us to today, a battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton. Krugman opines, "But if I were a Democratic Party elder, I’d urge Mr. Obama to stop blurring the distinction between Clinton-era prosperity and Bush-era economic distress." You might urge such a thing, but it would be dishonest, seeing that Clinton and Bush economic issues are inextricably linked, and it would be counter-productive to political branding.
Obama is running as the anti-Clinton, so it is counter-intuitive to not run against Clinton. Krugman's goals are elsewhere, however, "And one more thing: let’s hope that once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton, he’ll stop denigrating the very good economic record of the only Democratic administration most Americans remember." The impact of the sentence is profound. The Knights of the Legacy of Clinton are willing to sacrifice a win this year in devotion to their master, Bill Clinton.
This, at last, is a clear explanation of the schizophrenia in the Democratic Party today. There aren't two factions, but three. The third faction is one that cannot cozy up to a black new-comer or a radical female. The third faction lives in the past, and they are willing to let the black sensation or the white cuckold woman lose to keep the illusion of the 1990's intact. They are emotionally invested in the Clintons to the point that they are willing to lose if their flawed perceptions will remain intact.
This realization comes as no shock to me. The GOP has that faction in spades, the groupies and armchair wonks who think the Iraq War negates a need for lower taxes, pro-life legislation, and reduced spending. We call them neocons, and a lot of them have come over from the Left since the Bushes turned the GOP into a family subsidiary. This ill-informed third group is eratic and jaded, but it holds a lot of sway in both parties when it gets its mind made up to torpedo the ideologues. Which candidate will they undermine the most this year? Even I dare not prognosticate, but the Obama camp needs to see this crowd for what it is, and they had better do so before the primaries are over.
John McCain will be easy prey if the Dems can get their act together. Obama could win if he was a true centrist. The problem is that Obama, by all signs, is anything but a centrist. A casual perusal of his website reveals an agenda just to the left of full-blown socialism. In his speeches, he refuses to address specific issues. One is left to assume that he is, and plans to govern as, a closet socialist. If this is the case, I will fight him with everything I can, and he won't get much traction with anyone on the right. If he is a centrist mischaracterized by his campaign website, he needs to rebrand on substance, a position that can attract a lot of disappointed Republicans who eschew John McCain's idiological philandering and corruption.
"Yes, we can" is a slogan fast losing its glamor, and Obama had better move on to the meat and potatoes soon, or he risks winning the nomination but losing to a weak opponent in November. Ironically for him, he could very well lose to the Clinton legacy if he adopts it as his standard. Are the Democrats really willing to lose another election because of the Clinton years?
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.The second paragraph is the only one getting any airtime, of course. So, is he an elitist, as McShameless and Hillary accuse? Well, first, who are they to talk?
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Secondly, yeah, he is an elitist. He's been spewing mindless, feel-good slogans and sweet nothings at us for months, and the Democrats have been sucking it up. So, can you blame him for condescending to people that gullible?
Is he any more of an elitist than the other two, though? No, not particularly. Sure, he's blowing sunshine up our collective ass. Sure, he makes you feel good, even though you may never have read his positions, may never read them, and that's okay with you. I don't trust the guy, but many people do without any understanding of what propels him beyond some mysterious compound called "hope."
Yes, he thinks the average Pennsylvanian (I'm a native) is a gun-toting, Bible-thumping KKK member who was fired from Beth Steel and Mack Trucks. In many ways, he has the blue-collar PA Democrat profile pretty correct, judging from the dingbats I argued with up there (and was attacked by, once or twice). PA union members are a raunchy sort. The thing is, they're even more pissed off because Obama was right, and they know it now.
The first paragraph tells us what we should be paying attention to, the part that Hillary and McCain want us to ignore. Obama is right. The "Free Trade" (government managed subsidy) Agreements are killing us. We are using tax dollars to subsidize the loss of our own jobs because of the Bushes and the Clintons. The union thugs supported the Clintons when the unions sold the workers out, and the Clintons and Bushes returned the favor by jumping into bed with international conglomerates.
I'm from PA, and I'm not clinging to anything. I don't need papa FedGov's help, but I don't want him selling our jobs overseas, either. Obama shouldn't back away from the first paragraph...he should be running on it. Instead of blathering about "Yes, we can," he should take this fight to the House of BushClinton.
Paragraph two is a jaded description of his union supporters, but he should leave stuff like that out of his speeches. I have guns to keep robbers and public servants at bay. I have religion because I value faith. I have antipathy toward unconstitutional government agencies and socialists (like Obama). I cling to none because my job has been sold overseas, and I resent the put-down. If Obama thinks I'm a typical Obama '08 supporter, I'm insulted.
But, even though he insulted me, his premise is right. If he'd stick to that message, he'd give the people some hope, and, if he gave them real hope, he just might win. Of course, he's a jaded fascist socialist with a confused (at best) vision of America's future, but he might be worth salvaging. Maybe. We'll see.
If he comes after my guns, religion, or money, though, I'll fight him with everything I've got. If he can ditch the "Hope" schtick for five minutes and be a true moderate rather than a flaming jackboot socialist (his formal platform via his website), I'm willing to listen. I'm all ears, Obama. Your move.
Tell me what you really think, but don't patronize me or condescend to me. "Hope" is not a plan. America is fair enough to give you a fair hearing. What you do with it is up to you.
Ann Coulter knows it. Most Conservatives know it. I suspect Liberals know it too, but are afraid to publicly face the heat: Liberals/Democrats lie.
Remember the Chris Wallace/Bill Clinton interview on Fox News in 2006? Slick Willie blew a screw and went off on a tirade to a very legitimate question: Did the Clinton Administration do enough to get bin Laden? (rough quote, probably not the exact wording)
It turns out some MSM reporters – Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball – did some digging. Imagine that, the slanted left media digging dirt on the icon of living liberal ex-Presidents, I am nearly dumbfounded.
Clinton yelled at Wallace like an eruption of Mt St Helens and proclaimed he did more to get bin Laden than anyone, including the present President. Indeed Clinton claim to have signed a Memorandum of Notification to assassinate bin Laden.
Oops! Isikoff and Hosenball found otherwise, Clinton lied!
(I am tipping my hat to Captain Ed.)
"A clean sweep" is needed at the White House because President Bush has fostered "a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence," Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday.While I have no illusions about the state of the current administration, I'm also a bit too well-informed to let this slip by without comment. How can the woman who presided over the administration that set the bar for post-Watergate corruption preach about corruption and cronyism as if she knows nothing of such evil?
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"After eight years of the Bush administration, we are going to be shocked by what we find," the New York senator and former first lady said. "Somebody said to me the other day if there was ever a time for a woman president it's now because we're going to have to do a lot of cleaning."
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"Grab your buckets, grab your brooms," Clinton said. "We're going to have to do a clean sweep because there has been a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence."
I would recommend two books on the subject Bitter Legacy and Absolute Power. Unfortunately for the Clintons, their crimes and misdeeds have been hushed up, but they are legion and they have been cataloged in the public record. Obama could have pulled off that rhetoric, but it comes off as a cheap joke coming from Hillary.
Sandy Berger: This is a man that worked as National Security Advisor to President Slick Willie Clinton. As National Security Advisor, Berger was obviously privy to Classified Documents and Classified knowledge undertaken under the direction of the Clinton Administration.
Sandy Berger at the request of and request of Slick Willie acquired post Clinton Administration access to Classified Documents at the National Archive. Berger destroyed the Classified Documents he selected. This is act is heinous enough, however it happened on MORE than one occasion. Berger went FOUR times to the National Archives before he was caught destroying sensitive documents probably relating to Clinton information on words or actions taken that would not find favorable light.
This smacks of a HUGE conspiracy! Berger takes the fall. Slick Willie again escapes from a tarnished link to illegality. AND Senator Hillary Clinton thus gets a coat of Teflon in which no scum of impropriety sticks.
Here is the Real Clear Politics analysis of Berger’s acts of treason.
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