NationStates Jolt Archive

Why? He wasn't all he's cracked up to be.

Everyone points to the economy at that time, but they don't want to see that he inherited that economy from Reagan. His supporters say that Reaganomics was ineffective, but they can't explain where the economic boom ended in the 80's. However, Clinton did sign NAFTA and now many manufacturing jobs have flocked south of the border. They say Reagan was only good at foreign policy because of his charisma, but that exact same description fits Clinton. At least Reagan and Bush took (take) care of problems instead of running feckless photo-op foreign policy (right after the Camp David accords, the Israeli PM was assasinated by a Jewish extremist and the homocide bombings began).

Let's summarize the Clinton presidency, lest we forget:

Partial list.

"I didn't inhale!": Clinton ran off to Europe to dodge the draft. At least Bush fulfilled his military service.

Whitewater: Clinton did the exact same thing Nixon did, only this time there was a suspicious death involved. Vince Foster "committed suicide." Hillary Clinton disturbed a crime scene by going into his office. Then files from Vince's office about high-ranking Republicans were found on a coffee table at the Clinton residence, left by an unnamed "construction worker." That sounds a little suspicious, don't you think?

1993 WTC Bombing: The World Trade Center was bombed a month into the Clinton presidency. I don't hold him responsible for that. You need over a year to make significant changes to the way the intelligence community operates (these changes were made by Clinton, but his changes were to cut their legs out from under them. We couldn't spy on terrorists anymore). For the WTC bombing, I do hold it to him that he did nothing about it. He blew up two abandoned terrorist training camps. Yahoo.

Mogadishu: To quote a survivor of the "Black Hawk Down" incident (this is from a History Channel interview. You can see the whole documentary on the Special Edition DVD of Black Hawk Down):The message he sent was that "we're America, we're strong, we're united, but if you kill a couple of us, we'll run away.Militarily, America looked weak and was weak due to massive budget cuts. Where do you think the surplus came from?

Surplus: One of the only good things he accomplished, though he did it by bringing the military to its knees. A surplus only means that the government is taking in more money than it's spending.

From there, the list goes on:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

Then there's renting out the Lincoln bedroom (remember the photos of those women jumping on the bed?), selling pardons at the end of his presidency, shutting down an international airport for an hour to get a haircut, and so on.

Just thought I'd try to present the truth to those of you who think Clinton was the best president we've ever had.

You are going to complain that I made this thread, but hey, there have been enough Bush and Reagan flame threads in the last month to warrant one going the other way.

Clinton > Bush

Hey Reynes: Shut Up. :evil:

Most of the things people give credit to Clinton for really should go to the Republican Congress. Like Welfare reform. Clinton vetoed it twice until he finally let it through.

When Clinton Lied Nobody Died.

Clinton > most other presidents we've ever had

Clinton did engage in ruthless tactics and he did send people to die he is the same as bush except a democrate. Feel free to challenge me I am open to debate.

Clinton was a traitor to progressive causes and a very weak Leader who let his opponents define him without fighting back--his moral cowardice resulted in republican enemies of the middle class seizing congress and advance their warfare against the american workers on a national scale

I have not a full opinion on Clinton yet, but I can say one thing; his personal life is NO ONES business but his own.

Tsk. Tsk Tsk. Reynes

It must drive you nuts that with all he did, he is still liked by a majority of the people.

After all the crap the Repubs tried to fling on him, he will probably have one of the top selling books of the decade.

Family Values! *barf*

For all that talk they sure wanted to know the details of his affairs.

I think even Reagan made a comment that basically said all politicians are whores.

I have not a full opinion on Clinton yet, but I can say one thing; his personal life is NO ONES business but his own.I agree with that--the rightwing conspiracy couldnt find anything criminal to bring Clinton down with so they delved into his personal life and tried to bring him down with character assassination--truly despicible tactics from a party with despicible values

Clinton was a traitor to progressive causes and a very weak Leader who let his opponents define him without fighting back--his moral cowardice resulted in republican enemies of the middle class seizing congress and advance their warfare against the american workers on a national scale

Even though a am a republican we share the same views on Clinton. He was a weak ruler and he did mess up alot.

Tsk. Tsk Tsk. Reynes

It must drive you nuts that with all he did, he is still liked by a majority of the people.

After all the crap the Repubs tried to fling on him, he will probably have one of the top selling books of the decade.

Family Values! *barf*

For all that talk they sure wanted to know the details of his affairs.

I think even Reagan made a comment that basically said all politicians are whores.republicans are the ultimate bottom feeders-and if hypocrisy ever became a crime theyd all be on death row

Clinton was a traitor to progressive causes and a very weak Leader who let his opponents define him without fighting back--his moral cowardice resulted in republican enemies of the middle class seizing congress and advance their warfare against the american workers on a national scale

Even though a am a republican we share the same views on Clinton. He was a weak ruler and he did mess up alot.

Clinton did mess up. He slashed the Military too much. So much for being strong on Defense. He was weak on defense.

Clinton was a traitor to progressive causes and a very weak Leader who let his opponents define him without fighting back--his moral cowardice resulted in republican enemies of the middle class seizing congress and advance their warfare against the american workers on a national scale

Even though a am a republican we share the same views on Clinton. He was a weak ruler and he did mess up alot.thats correct--Clinton defenders overlook all the harm Clinton has done with all his waffling

Clinton was a traitor to progressive causes and a very weak Leader who let his opponents define him without fighting back--his moral cowardice resulted in republican enemies of the middle class seizing congress and advance their warfare against the american workers on a national scale

Even though a am a republican we share the same views on Clinton. He was a weak ruler and he did mess up alot.

Clinton did mess up. He slashed the Military too much. So much for being strong on Defense. He was weak on defense.I think Clinton may have cut alot of pork out of the military but I dont beleive his cuts hurt the military at all--if someone cut our military budget by 50% we'd still be in good shape

"I didn't inhale!": Clinton ran off to Europe to dodge the draft. At least Bush fulfilled his military service.VERY debatable.

William Jefferson Clinton, was effective in dealing with many domestic issues and disasterous in dealing with many foriegn policy issues. Clinton, like any other President, had his successes and failures. I think, his successes were marginal and his failures collassal, though.

William Jefferson Clinton, was effective in dealing with many domestic issues and disasterous in dealing with many foriegn policy issues. Clinton, like any other President, had his successes and failures. I think, his successes were marginal and his failures collassal, though.

Also Clintons handiling of forighn policy was as unethical as George W. Bush's. He maintained relations with Muhamed Suharto a corrupt genocidal maniac dictator. He said Suharto was "our kind of guy". Clinton did bomb Baghdad in retaliation for an alleged but unproven Iraq plot to assassinate former President George Bush. Eight Iraqi civilians, including the distinguished Iraqi artist Layla al-Attar were killed in the raid, and 12 more were wounded. This kind of unilateral action in response to an unproven charge is a violation of international law. The legal excuse given by U.S. officials, which they relied on in justification of the bombing of Libya in 1986, is the right to self defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. But that Article requires that the response be to an immediate threat to the retaliating party, clearly not the case, and therefore a legal fraud. This was a crime-petty by the usual U.S. standard-but still a crime. And it had the further repellent feature that it was done almost surely for purely internal political reasons-to show Clinton's toughness, despite his Vietnam War record, and to countervail right-wing attacks on his lack of militancy.

Bill Clinton is also rembered in Afghanistan and Sudan. He bombed Afghanistan and Sudan but the bombs somehow hit pharmaceutical factory's. There was no evidence connecting the factory's to Al-Queda.

Clinto also began a embargo on Cuba that resulted in death and sufffering for the Cuban people but Castro was not effected in any way. It also caused diseas and birth defects.

Clinton also began his campighn on sanctions in Iraq which resulted in millons of deaths, starvation and poverty. Also in this policy medicne could not be reached to the Iraqi people.

Clinton also was worse then Bush in Yugoslavia. He and his NATO backed cronies wanted to prove to the world that their origonal anti-communist alliance was not falling apart so they decided to go to any country to start a war. I mean if we wanted to do some good we could have went to china or maybe stopped the Turks from their common genocides oh wait they were our allies we can't we should enter into the Balkens. Lets "liberate" the slavic people. By Liberate lets bombed them into the stone age, kill everyone and leave the country in shambles but if we throw money at the problem it will all go away. Fat chance. In fact 60% of NATO's targets were civilan. They bombed houses, hospitals, schools, trains, factories, power stations, and TV stantions but at the same time to be greeted with a hero's welcome. The bombing campighn lead to the destruction of 33 hospitals and 344 schools, as well as 144 major industrial plants and a large petro-chemical plant whose bombing caused a pollution catastrophe.

Furthermore, in 1998-1999 Clinton was once more put to the test in East Timor, where he and his Administration knew of the Indonesian plans to interfere with the referendum and eventually to take revenge for any ensuing defeat, but did nothing whatsoever to prevent this criminal performance. This was worse than Rwanda in that Clinton had long advance knowledge of Indonesian intentions and easy access and close links to Indonesian leaders that made prevention relatively easy. But prevention would have been at the cost of disturbing the long and warm relationship of Clinton and his associates with the killers. Clinton once again easily failed the moral test, and is guilty of criminal behavior by inaction.

And also he watched while the Rwanda people fought and killed each other. Even though he did send troops in at the end of his presidency it was to late and the country became into a unfixable mess and thousands of innocent people died.

and you thought he was a great leader.

Oo, this should be fun.

Why? He wasn't all he's cracked up to be.

Everyone points to the economy at that time, but they don't want to see that he inherited that economy from Reagan.

Er, no, he inherited the economy from Bush and managed to make it profitable after 8 years of policy. If we had seen the turnaround immediately, you might have a point, but the fact that the economy improved throughout his tenure to give it the strongest push it has ever had means Reagan had NOTHING to do with Clinton's economy. Nice try on the glory grab for the dead guy, though.


His supporters say that Reaganomics was ineffective, but they can't explain where the economic boom ended in the 80's.

First, do you really understand what Reaganomics was? Let me outline it for you from Reagan's own first campaign to for President. He promised to: massively cut government spending (in order to ensure a smaller federal government), balace the budget by 1984, return the US to a gold standard. He also called for free domestic and international markets (hence deregulation). Let's see how these main pillars of "Reaganomics" stacked up.

1. Gold Standard: Well, this went down the tubes right away, Reagan appointed a gold commission to study the problem and packed it with lifelong gold standard opposers. Strangely enough, they decided it wasn't a good idea so that's one promise made and broken.

2. Government spending: In 1980, as Jimmy Carter left the White House, his government spent $591 billion and had carried a deficit of $74 billion for this last year of his Presidency (with yearly averages prior between $40-$50 billion). By 1986, the federal government spent $990 billion. For the record, that's a 69% increase in government spending. By 1984, when Reagan had promised a balanced budget, he was running a deficit of $200 billion, the largest deficit on the US record (a record that Bush Junior has managed to shatter). Whatever was happening, government spending certainly wasn't going down.

3. Tax Cuts: Taxes were slashed in 1981 and the income tax reforms of 1986 allegedly introduced "fairness" along with more tax cuts. Of course, there are a few caveats. The 1981 income tax cuts only affected the wealthy higher income-tax brackets (ominious rumblings of "trickle down" or "piss on the poor" economics). For the average wage earner, income tax rates actually rose because of "bracket creep", where inflation tacitly drops a wage earner in a higher bracket, even though they are not actually making more real dollars, and Social Security taxation which kept increasing.

Taxes also went up every single year of the Reagan administration. They weren't called tax increases, of course. Instead they were labeled "fee raises", "loophole plugs", and, my personal favorite, "tightening of IRS enforcement".

The 1986 Income Tax Reform Act was supposedly was both economically fair and healthy. It claimed to be "revenue neutral" and offered: simplicity; income tax cuts (particularly in the higher brackets...notice a trend?); more infamous "loophole plugging". While it all sounds good, let's see what really happened.

A) Simplicity. After the 1986 reforms went into place, the government had succeeded in making income tax law so complicated that even the IRS admitted to not understanding it. Mind you, this kept accountants and tax lawyers tickled pink for many, many years.

B) Tax cuts. Well, for higher brackets, it was again true. However, this was offset by those pesky "loophole plugs" which actually ended up raising taxes for both high and low income brackets. The whole point of these cuts was the "supply side" theory that it would encourage saving and investment. However, a National Bureau study by Hausman and Poterba on the 1986 act shows that over 40% of the nation's taxpayers experienced an increase in taxation and of those who did get tax cuts, only 11% got more than a 10% cut. This study also pointed out that the act, far from encouraging savings and investment, would actually work to undermine it because of huge tax increases on business and capital gains as well as the removal of tax deductability for IRA contributions. So, apparently, not even Reagan believed in his own economic policies.

Overall, during the Reagan administration, federal tax receipts went from $517 billion in Carter's last year to $769 billion by 1986.

As for when the 80s economic "boom" ended, how about with the 1982 recession or possibly unemployment breaking 10% for the first time since the 1940s or possibly business failures at an all time high since 1934?


However, Clinton did sign NAFTA and now many manufacturing jobs have flocked south of the border.

And our current President Bush called it a great success and vows to extend it to Central America through the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Not to metion the fact that the current administration has set up tax breaks for continued job off-shoring, so really, I guess it is a great success.


They say Reagan was only good at foreign policy because of his charisma, but that exact same description fits Clinton.

Er, who said Reagan was good at foriegn policy? Iran-Contra, South American Death Squads, Demonization of the poor and the U.S.S.R., proxy wars and funding of terrorist organizations including Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.


At least Reagan and Bush took (take) care of problems instead of running feckless photo-op foreign policy (right after the Camp David accords, the Israeli PM was assasinated by a Jewish extremist and the homocide bombings began).

Um, what?


Let's summarize the Clinton presidency, lest we forget:


Oo, yes, lets!


Partial list.
"I didn't inhale!": Clinton ran off to Europe to dodge the draft. At least Bush fulfilled his military service.

"Mission Accomplished" or "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. ".

Casulties since the official end of hostilities last year outnumber the actual casulties during the offensive itself. Also, where are the WMDs? When Clinton lied, nobody died. As for Clinton running off to Europe to "avoid" Viet Nam, um, where exactly was Bush during that period again? Cause, no one seems really sure.


Whitewater: Clinton did the exact same thing Nixon did, only this time there was a suspicious death involved. Vince Foster "committed suicide." Hillary Clinton disturbed a crime scene by going into his office. Then files from Vince's office about high-ranking Republicans were found on a coffee table at the Clinton residence, left by an unnamed "construction worker." That sounds a little suspicious, don't you think?

Iraq War: Not only has Bush lied from the get go regarding both the WMDs and Iraq's ability to pose a threat to the US as well as any possible linkage between Hussein and Al Qaeda, he has also allowed his underlings, most noticably Rumsfeld, to shred both international law and basic human decency.



1993 WTC Bombing: The World Trade Center was bombed a month into the Clinton presidency. I don't hold him responsible for that. You need over a year to make significant changes to the way the intelligence community operates (these changes were made by Clinton, but his changes were to cut their legs out from under them. We couldn't spy on terrorists anymore). For the WTC bombing, I do hold it to him that he did nothing about it. He blew up two abandoned terrorist training camps. Yahoo.

Fine then, I can hold Bush responsible for 9/11 as his administration ignored the plans that came to light during the trial of Ramzi Youseff for this that outright stated that Al Qaeda planned to crash commerical airliners into the World Trade Center.


Mogadishu: To quote a survivor of the "Black Hawk Down" incident (this is from a History Channel interview. You can see the whole documentary on the Special Edition DVD of Black Hawk Down):The message he sent was that "we're America, we're strong, we're united, but if you kill a couple of us, we'll run away.Militarily, America looked weak and was weak due to massive budget cuts. Where do you think the surplus came from?

LOL, that's a joke. Might I remind you that George W. campaigned on a $50 billion military increase over 10 years while Al Gore promised twice that amount? And let's look at this "military overhaul" that Bush is being credited with. Instead of spending the money on health benefits for vets or current servicemen and women, living wages for current servicemen and women or decent housing for current servicemen and women, Bush's military budget increase goes straight into the pocket of military contractors like Bechtel and Halliburton.


Surplus: One of the only good things he accomplished, though he did it by bringing the military to its knees. A surplus only means that the government is taking in more money than it's spending.

As opposed to the record setting deficit and the exponential growth of the national debit that we're seeing under Bush Jr.


From there, the list goes on:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

Thank God we have this religious zealot to protect us from those religious zealots.


Then there's renting out the Lincoln bedroom (remember the photos of those women jumping on the bed?), selling pardons at the end of his presidency, shutting down an international airport for an hour to get a haircut, and so on.[/b]

Well, how about channeling government no-bid contracts to Halliburton which then proceeds to bilk the US taxpayer for every cent their worth while not supplying the services contracted for, having daughters that make the college coeds on "Girls Gone Wild" videos seem like paragons of virtue, marrying a woman who killed a man and never did a lick of jail time for it and taking more vacation time than any other US president to date.


Just thought I'd try to present the truth to those of you who think Clinton was the best president we've ever had.

Yes, that would be nice. Too bad you forgot the actual truth.


You are going to complain that I made this thread, but hey, there have been enough Bush and Reagan flame threads in the last month to warrant one going the other way.

Yeah, and I stood up against the Reagan flame threads, but blindly idolizing him is not acceptable either and neither is trying to rip Clinton done for purely partisan reasons. Don't try and justify this bile by the actions of others. You're whinging and just don't want to admit it.

DP. Jolt is as big a fiction as "Saint Reagan".

CLINTON ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

I am sitting in front of the TV at this moment, in the UK, watching BBC ONE Panorama interview by Sir David Frost of Clinton and what do I see - this! Amazing! :D

William Jefferson Clinton, was effective in dealing with many domestic issues and disasterous in dealing with many foriegn policy issues. Clinton, like any other President, had his successes and failures. I think, his successes were marginal and his failures collassal, though.I agree--but America does miss the Clinton surplus that Bush squandered when he resereccted trickle down class warfare

William Jefferson Clinton, was effective in dealing with many domestic issues and disasterous in dealing with many foriegn policy issues. Clinton, like any other President, had his successes and failures. I think, his successes were marginal and his failures collassal, though.I agree--but America does miss the Clinton surplus that Bush squandered when he resereccted trickle down class warfare

William Jefferson Clinton, was effective in dealing with many domestic issues and disasterous in dealing with many foriegn policy issues. Clinton, like any other President, had his successes and failures. I think, his successes were marginal and his failures collassal, though.I agree--but America does miss the Clinton surplus that Bush squandered when he resereccted trickle down class warfare

I, as an international observer like Clinton.. and liked him while in office as well.

I believe history will do it's job in time.. and he will be thought of well, because in the end he will be remembered for what he did in office, not who he did. ;)

in the end he will be remembered for what he did in office, not who he did. ;)


Exactly!

Can anybody here name 5 Presidents who had affairs while in office?

You can't name JFK cause thats a given! :twisted: Hmmmm Marilyn!

How about an easy one. The GOP once paid 20000 to a woman to keep her affair with a President a secret! Name him and why it would have been ugly!

On air america they said that Strom Thurmond (a very old old old Senator) had sex with the first woman ever sentenced to death in the car on her way to her execution--he also had an out of wedlock black child who was 88 years old

I, as an international observer like Clinton.. and liked him while in office as well.

I believe history will do it's job in time.. and he will be thought of well, because in the end he will be remembered for what he did in office, not who he did. ;)

If I agree with Steph in one field, it is her politics.

Oh yeah they also said that Helen Chenoweth a republican congresswoman had sex with every married male member of the imaho legislature

i love Clinton, such a fun guy. just in terms of entertainment value he deserves a prize, and he wasn't half bad as a leader, either. too bad he had to be running a country as sexually repressed as America, and his interesting qualities had to get buried by people who would rather be gasping about somebody getting a blow job than doing something with their lives.

i love Clinton, such a fun guy. just in terms of entertainment value he deserves a prize, and he wasn't half bad as a leader, either. too bad he had to be running a country as sexually repressed as America, and his interesting qualities had to get buried by people who would rather be gasping about somebody getting a blow job than doing something with their lives.and too bad he gave up all his vision and tried to out-republican his republican rivals costing the dems the congress

Clinton was a traitor to progressive causes and a very weak Leader who let his opponents define him without fighting back--his moral cowardice resulted in republican enemies of the middle class seizing congress and advance their warfare against the american workers on a national scale

Even though a am a republican we share the same views on Clinton. He was a weak ruler and he did mess up alot.

Clinton did mess up. He slashed the Military too much. So much for being strong on Defense. He was weak on defense.
Yup Clinton was weak on defence spending, are you kidding us?

Perhaps some research is in order?

During the years after the Cold War, the US under Clinton was spending more as a percentage of world defence spending than Reagan:

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-US-world.php#sipri

Chart 1 and Chart 2, especially show how badly Clinton let the defence money slide. :shock:

Why? He wasn't all he's cracked up to be.

Everyone points to the economy at that time, but they don't want to see that he inherited that economy from Reagan. His supporters say that Reaganomics was ineffective, but they can't explain where the economic boom ended in the 80's. However, Clinton did sign NAFTA and now many manufacturing jobs have flocked south of the border. They say Reagan was only good at foreign policy because of his charisma, but that exact same description fits Clinton. At least Reagan and Bush took (take) care of problems instead of running feckless photo-op foreign policy (right after the Camp David accords, the Israeli PM was assasinated by a Jewish extremist and the homocide bombings began).

Let's summarize the Clinton presidency, lest we forget:

Partial list.

"I didn't inhale!": Clinton ran off to Europe to dodge the draft. At least Bush fulfilled his military service.

Whitewater: Clinton did the exact same thing Nixon did, only this time there was a suspicious death involved. Vince Foster "committed suicide." Hillary Clinton disturbed a crime scene by going into his office. Then files from Vince's office about high-ranking Republicans were found on a coffee table at the Clinton residence, left by an unnamed "construction worker." That sounds a little suspicious, don't you think?

1993 WTC Bombing: The World Trade Center was bombed a month into the Clinton presidency. I don't hold him responsible for that. You need over a year to make significant changes to the way the intelligence community operates (these changes were made by Clinton, but his changes were to cut their legs out from under them. We couldn't spy on terrorists anymore). For the WTC bombing, I do hold it to him that he did nothing about it. He blew up two abandoned terrorist training camps. Yahoo.

Mogadishu: To quote a survivor of the "Black Hawk Down" incident (this is from a History Channel interview. You can see the whole documentary on the Special Edition DVD of Black Hawk Down):The message he sent was that "we're America, we're strong, we're united, but if you kill a couple of us, we'll run away.Militarily, America looked weak and was weak due to massive budget cuts. Where do you think the surplus came from?

Surplus: One of the only good things he accomplished, though he did it by bringing the military to its knees. A surplus only means that the government is taking in more money than it's spending.

From there, the list goes on:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

Then there's renting out the Lincoln bedroom (remember the photos of those women jumping on the bed?), selling pardons at the end of his presidency, shutting down an international airport for an hour to get a haircut, and so on.

Just thought I'd try to present the truth to those of you who think Clinton was the best president we've ever had.

You are going to complain that I made this thread, but hey, there have been enough Bush and Reagan flame threads in the last month to warrant one going the other way.

Well let's look at your claims here. The first being that Clinton dodged the draft while Bush fulfilled his service. Clinton objected to the war and was in college. He took a college deferrment, much in the same fashion that prominent Republicans did as well. Bush, however, was absent for a large period of his service and the records have MYSTERIOUSLY disappeared. I call crap on that. The military doesn't just lose those records. And no one has ever stepped forth with any proof of him being on base during any of his training, though there are several records from superior officers stating that Bush couldn't be graded because he was absent during the time of training. That sounds an awful lot like Absent Without Leave. Of course, Bush supported the Vietnam War, which he had no interest in actually being a part of. But hey, it looks good on a resume. And the drug thing? Do you really want to compare Clinton not inhaling to Bush's use of cocaine?

Whitewater: Well let's see here. The Republican Congress authorized a giveaway of money. Spent tens of millions of dollars investigating everything Clinton had done for 20 years. What they got out of it was a stained dress and an impeachment process that was crap. Bottom line...nothing was found, even though millions were spent looking. No evidence of wrongdoing, but far be it for Republicans to continue to insist that they know something happened. Well, then where is the evidence?
And, lest we get into a sparring match about "suicides" you might want to consider Bush's record on this as well. How about the fact that Athan Gibbs suddenly dies from a car crash after widely criticizing Diebold and their apparent inability to have a paper trail? It seems all too reminescent of what happened to Karen Silkwood in 1974. What about Margie Schoedinger, who was filing a lawsuit against Bush for rape? All of a sudden, she dies of a gunshot wound to the head that is listed as a suicide? What fortunate timing.

1993 WTC Bombing: Those that were guilty of the crime were charged as criminals and placed in jail. They were hunted down as criminals, tried as criminals, and convicted as criminals. There was no need to destroy an entire country for the act of criminals. That concept is apparently too difficult for many to understand. When a crime is committed, you allow the FBI, CIA, police, Interpol, and other law enforcement agencies to catch the criminals. Perhaps make it simpler for you to understand: Florida does not declare war upon Alabama simply because a person who murdered 5 Miami residents is a resident of Birmingham. It would fail all rational means of using logic.

Mogadishu: I take this one personally. Granted, my discharge date was a few months before the Somalian incident but the bottom line is that there is absolutely no justification to say that anything that happened resulted from a lack of funding. I've addressed this before quite frankly. The US funds its military quite well. The Clinton Administration did slash the military budget but its cuts were not cuts into the infrastructure but rather the pork that the Reagan and Bush Administration had allowed to clog the military arteries. Does no one rememeber the fiasco when they discovered that the Pentagon was spending absurd amounts of money to private contractors for simple things? I'll never forget the example of the $70.00 hammer. Private contractors were bilking the military for everything it could. To top it off, the Clinton Administration basically asked each branch of the military to stop designing weapons systems that cost billions in research and were unrealistic in real life. For example....the Bradley, a collosal waste of money. Another example for you. What is the purpose of designing heavy artillery for the Army that is not mobile except via heavy transport, gets bogged down in anything except ideal road conditions, can't cross most bridges in the world, and is so heavy that it would destroy nearly anything it travels on? For that matter, why design such a weapon when the 90's saw combat in areas where such a piece of artillery would be useless? Times have changed and unless we're facing off with China, such a weapon would never be used.

Why we pulled out? For all the wrong reasons.....credit a gunshy president that wasn't familiar with how the military worked on that one.

Surplus: Yes, the military budget was slashed. It makes no sense to spend umpteen billions more than your next 10 competitors when you aren't at war. But that wasn't merely the reason. You need to brush up on the surplus more and stop listening to Limbaugh (another fine war zero) complain about Clinton's disrespect of the military. You want disrespect, talk about Bush's current record on slashing military programs for families. Hard to go off to Iraq when you are worried that your child at the base may not have an elementary school to attend.

Etc: How many times has Bush rented out the Lincoln bedroom? Don't you see that reported? Gee, I wonder why. Bottom line is that every president does it. Just like every president grants pardons during their presidency. Look at some of pappy Bush's presidential pardons and you'll see some real questionable ones. Gee, keep looking back and you'll see that Ford pardoned Nixon. Age old tradition that only got press because of people like Limbaugh who needed to nitpick when their puppet Ken Starr couldn't find anything except a stained dress. Shutting down an airport? Oh for God's sake....Bush shuts down entire cities when he visits. He held up the USS Abraham Lincoln for an entire day after it had been to sea longer than any other ship in modern history. Then he lied about why he had to fly onto the carrier instead of using a helicopter. Yeah, let's gripe about an airport haircut.

Big Bill rules. So he dodged the draft. Who cares? I wouldn't have gone to Vietnam, either, assuming I had been old enough to (I was born in 1974). Bill is f**king awesome. He plays the sax, he's good with words, and he's sexy. He has un ugly daughter, and he married his sister, but so what. :twisted: I'd actually bother to vote if he were allowed to continue as president.


Greywollffe has spoken...

http://67.18.37.14/124/125/upload/av-476.jpg


King of Spades (http://198.70.62.5/home.asp)
It's a Warlock's Life (http://tswarlock.blogspot.com/)
Warlock's Sanctuary (http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/tomwarlock/)

I am sooooooo sick of people saying that Bush Jr. lied about the WMDs. No one really knows. The CIA, ya know, our intellegence agency, said that there probably were, and people make mistakes sometime. Look at the whole Black Hawk down mess. The UN inspectyors were kept out of Iraq. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't do anything to make me look suspicious unless I was doing something suspicious. The whole "Bush knew that the attack was coming and didn't do anything" is getting on my nerves, too. Clinton's administration FOUND bin ladin, or at least had a very good hunch about it, and didn't do anything about it because the helicopter, I think, that they sent didn't have any weapons. Why couldn't they have sent another one that did? Everyone is getting on Bush for not doing anything, yet if Clinton had, 9/11 probably wouldn't have happened. Okay, I've vented. Don't care if you like it, just had to say it.

Oo, this should be fun.

Why? He wasn't all he's cracked up to be.

Everyone points to the economy at that time, but they don't want to see that he inherited that economy from Reagan.

Er, no, he inherited the economy from Bush and managed to make it profitable after 8 years of policy. If we had seen the turnaround immediately, you might have a point, but the fact that the economy improved throughout his tenure to give it the strongest push it has ever had means Reagan had NOTHING to do with Clinton's economy. Nice try on the glory grab for the dead guy, though.The point is, the economy started improving under Reagan, continued under Bush Sr., and through CLinton. There was no recession separating the continual growth, hence, Clinton inherited a good economy. All he did was not tear it down.


His supporters say that Reaganomics was ineffective, but they can't explain where the economic boom began in the 80's.

First, do you really understand what Reaganomics was? Let me outline it for you from Reagan's own first campaign to for President. He promised to: massively cut government spending (in order to ensure a smaller federal government), balace the budget by 1984, return the US to a gold standard. He also called for free domestic and international markets (hence deregulation). Let's see how these main pillars of "Reaganomics" stacked up.

1. Gold Standard: Well, this went down the tubes right away, Reagan appointed a gold commission to study the problem and packed it with lifelong gold standard opposers. Strangely enough, they decided it wasn't a good idea so that's one promise made and broken.

2. Government spending: In 1980, as Jimmy Carter left the White House, his government spent $591 billion and had carried a deficit of $74 billion for this last year of his Presidency (with yearly averages prior between $40-$50 billion). By 1986, the federal government spent $990 billion. For the record, that's a 69% increase in government spending. By 1984, when Reagan had promised a balanced budget, he was running a deficit of $200 billion, the largest deficit on the US record (a record that Bush Junior has managed to shatter). Whatever was happening, government spending certainly wasn't going down.

3. Tax Cuts: Taxes were slashed in 1981 and the income tax reforms of 1986 allegedly introduced "fairness" along with more tax cuts. Of course, there are a few caveats. The 1981 income tax cuts only affected the wealthy higher income-tax brackets (ominious rumblings of "trickle down" or "piss on the poor" economics). For the average wage earner, income tax rates actually rose because of "bracket creep", where inflation tacitly drops a wage earner in a higher bracket, even though they are not actually making more real dollars, and Social Security taxation which kept increasing.

Taxes also went up every single year of the Reagan administration. They weren't called tax increases, of course. Instead they were labeled "fee raises", "loophole plugs", and, my personal favorite, "tightening of IRS enforcement".

The 1986 Income Tax Reform Act was supposedly was both economically fair and healthy. It claimed to be "revenue neutral" and offered: simplicity; income tax cuts (particularly in the higher brackets...notice a trend?); more infamous "loophole plugging". While it all sounds good, let's see what really happened.

A) Simplicity. After the 1986 reforms went into place, the government had succeeded in making income tax law so complicated that even the IRS admitted to not understanding it. Mind you, this kept accountants and tax lawyers tickled pink for many, many years.

B) Tax cuts. Well, for higher brackets, it was again true. However, this was offset by those pesky "loophole plugs" which actually ended up raising taxes for both high and low income brackets. The whole point of these cuts was the "supply side" theory that it would encourage saving and investment. However, a National Bureau study by Hausman and Poterba on the 1986 act shows that over 40% of the nation's taxpayers experienced an increase in taxation and of those who did get tax cuts, only 11% got more than a 10% cut. This study also pointed out that the act, far from encouraging savings and investment, would actually work to undermine it because of huge tax increases on business and capital gains as well as the removal of tax deductability for IRA contributions. So, apparently, not even Reagan believed in his own economic policies.

Overall, during the Reagan administration, federal tax receipts went from $517 billion in Carter's last year to $769 billion by 1986. I love that! You managed to dodge the question... AGAIN! You people always say that Reaganomics didn't work, but you never give any other explaination for where the 19.5 MILLION JOBS came from! And this when unemployment was spiraling upwards!

As for when the 80s economic "boom" ended, how about with the 1982 recession or possibly unemployment breaking 10% for the first time since the 1940s or possibly business failures at an all time high since 1934?Oh, nice. You cite something that happened at the beginning of Reagan's term, but fail to acknowledge that by the end, 19.5 million new jobs ended the unemployment problem, inflation was down to 1% from nearly 15%, and new businesses were being launched at a healthy pace.

I've already been over all this. Have a look.



However, Clinton did sign NAFTA and now many manufacturing jobs have flocked south of the border.

And our current President Bush called it a great success and vows to extend it to Central America through the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Not to metion the fact that the current administration has set up tax breaks for continued job off-shoring, so really, I guess it is a great success.I know. And I hate NAFTA. My dad's job went south about sixteen months ago. However, Clinton is the one who signed it, so I hold him responsible.


They say Reagan was only good at foreign policy because of his charisma, but that exact same description fits Clinton.

Er, who said Reagan was good at foriegn policy? Iran-Contra, South American Death Squads, Demonization of the poor and the U.S.S.R., proxy wars and funding of terrorist organizations including Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.Then there was the end of the Cold War, nuclear disarming, and strong antiterrorist policies, but let's sweep that under the rug. As for funding OBL, at that time he was in the mujahadeen, Afghani resistance fighters trying to keep the invading Soviets from taking over their country. The mistake we made was not helping to rebuild Afghanistan's infrastructure after the war, allowing the Taliban to take over. That's why we can't just leave Iraq, because ten years from now it would come back and bite us in the ass.


At least Reagan and Bush took (take) care of problems instead of running feckless photo-op foreign policy (right after the Camp David accords, the Israeli PM was assasinated by a Jewish extremist and the homocide bombings began).

Um, what?Read what's in the parenthesis. Clinton didn't accomplish much of anything in the middle east.


Partial list.
"I didn't inhale!": Clinton ran off to Europe to dodge the draft. At least Bush fulfilled his military service.

"Mission Accomplished" or "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. ".One) He said "Mission Accomplished" because nobody knew that there would be such heavy resistance.
Two) The intelligence behind the Iraq war was the same intelligence that Clinton had when he bombed Baghdad.

Casulties since the official end of hostilities last year outnumber the actual casulties during the offensive itself. Also, where are the WMDs? When Clinton lied, nobody died. As for Clinton running off to Europe to "avoid" Viet Nam, um, where exactly was Bush during that period again? Cause, no one seems really sure.Bush didn't stay up one night and invent that intelligence, as much of the left seems to believe. We haven't found WMD yet, but it's still highly possible that they are in the country. I discussed this at
Finally, Bush released his National Guard records, but the press didn't make a big deal out of it. They said that it was a false alarm for a day after saying he dodged the draft for a week, so most people would miss the dismissal and continue believing that Bush ran off. I like to call it "selective journalism," a process by which the media overinflates certain stories and gives marginal coverage to others in order to subliminally promote a cause. The National Guard is an example of the first way the media does this, the other tactic is to use the order of stories to promote a cause.

Example:
The day before Father's Day I was watching the news. I can't remember if it was CNN or Dateline, but they showed the following stories:
FIRST: The first was talking about a father whose son died in Afghanistan. They showed the funeral and the father holding a folded American flag to his chest. The story was very inflamatory.
NEXT: The second was talking about John Kerry's foreign policy.

Mr. Subtility strikes again

The first story is to tear down Bush, the second is to promote his opponent.

At first I didn't catch it, but when I thought about the first story, I realized that it wasn't news. Neither was the second. They weren't events that effect our naiton as a whole, but the way they were presented, it effects the way we think. I notice that FNC is the only channel that reports what we're accomplishing in Iraq. Continuing to watch, I see more examples of selective journalism every day. Over a period of time, they can get the public to believe anything they say.


Whitewater: Clinton did the exact same thing Nixon did, only this time there was a suspicious death involved. Vince Foster "committed suicide." Hillary Clinton disturbed a crime scene by going into his office. Then files from Vince's office about high-ranking Republicans were found on a coffee table at the Clinton residence, left by an unnamed "construction worker." That sounds a little suspicious, don't you think?

Iraq WarBush lied from the get go regarding...any possible linkage between Hussein and Al Qaeda, he has also allowed his underlings, most noticably Rumsfeld, to shred both international law and basic human decency. Actually, the 9-11 commission has found evidence linking Iraq to Al-Quada, but not to 9-11. About Abu Ghraib, I believe that the troops who did it are most directly responsible.



1993 WTC Bombing: The World Trade Center was bombed a month into the Clinton presidency. I don't hold him responsible for that. You need over a year to make significant changes to the way the intelligence community operates (these changes were made by Clinton, but his changes were to cut their legs out from under them. We couldn't spy on terrorists anymore). For the WTC bombing, I do hold it to him that he did nothing about it. He blew up two abandoned terrorist training camps. Yahoo.

Fine then, I can hold Bush responsible for 9/11 as his administration ignored the plans that came to light during the trial of Ramzi Youseff for this that outright stated that Al Qaeda planned to crash commerical airliners into the World Trade Center.Uh, note the parts in bold. As for Ramzi Youseff, give me some links. I think that if it were so obvious that Bush knew, the media would be crucifying him for it.


Mogadishu: To quote a survivor of the "Black Hawk Down" incident (this is from a History Channel interview. You can see the whole documentary on the Special Edition DVD of Black Hawk Down):The message he sent was that "we're America, we're strong, we're united, but if you kill a couple of us, we'll run away.Militarily, America looked weak and was weak due to massive budget cuts. Where do you think the surplus came from?

LOL, that's a joke. Might I remind you that George W. campaigned on a $50 billion military increase over 10 years while Al Gore promised twice that amount? And let's look at this "military overhaul" that Bush is being credited with. Instead of spending the money on health benefits for vets or current servicemen and women, living wages for current servicemen and women or decent housing for current servicemen and women, Bush's military budget increase goes straight into the pocket of military contractors like Bechtel and Halliburton.Military overhaul doesn't necessarily mean welfare, but the means to fight with fewer casualties and better intelligence to prevent things like 9-11 from happening again. Since Bush reactivated all the intelligence agencies, how many attacks have there been in the US? The last were those Washington snipers.


Surplus: One of the only good things he accomplished, though he did it by bringing the military to its knees. A surplus only means that the government is taking in more money than it's spending.

As opposed to the record setting deficit and the exponential growth of the national debit that we're seeing under Bush Jr.I am not for a deficit, but I'm not for weakening our military, either.


From there, the list goes on:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

Thank God we have this religious zealot to protect us from those religious zealots.Source?
What's wrong with overthrowing a tyrannical dictator (not exactly a religious zealot, as his was not an islamic theocracy but a corrupt dictatorship) that has murdered a million people?


Then there's renting out the Lincoln bedroom (remember the photos of those women jumping on the bed?), selling pardons at the end of his presidency, shutting down an international airport for an hour to get a haircut, and so on.[/b]

Well, how about channeling government no-bid contracts to Halliburton which then proceeds to bilk the US taxpayer for every cent their worth while not supplying the services contracted for, having daughters that make the college coeds on "Girls Gone Wild" videos seem like paragons of virtue, marrying a woman who killed a man and never did a lick of jail time for it and taking more vacation time than any other US president to date. And your side complains about us trying to do character assasination. What's this about the first lady killing someone?


Just thought I'd try to present the truth to those of you who think Clinton was the best president we've ever had.

Yes, that would be nice. Too bad you forgot the actual truth.Actually, we were talking about two different things.


You are going to complain that I made this thread, but hey, there have been enough Bush and Reagan flame threads in the last month to warrant one going the other way.

Yeah, and I stood up against the Reagan flame threadsThank you.
but blindly idolizing him is not acceptable either and neither is trying to rip Clinton done for purely partisan reasons.And that's exactly what people have been doing to Reagan and Bush, if you haven't noticed.
Don't try and justify this bile by the actions of others. You're whinging and just don't want to admit it.:roll: Try telling that to the rest of the left-wingers on this site. It's like talking to a loaf of bread.

The point is, the economy started improving under Reagan, continued under Bush Sr., and through CLinton. There was no recession separating the continual growth, hence, Clinton inherited a good economy. All he did was not tear it down.

Which is something, apparently, that Bush Junior was not capable of accomplishing. So, "not tearing it down" seems to be less of a cakewalk than you imply.


Oh, nice. You cite something that happened at the beginning of Reagan's term, but fail to acknowledge that by the end, 19.5 million new jobs ended the unemployment problem, inflation was down to 1% from nearly 15%, and new businesses were being launched at a healthy pace.

I've already been over all this. Have a look.

No, I didn't fail to acknowledge any of that. However, you asked about Reaganomics and I showed exactly where Reaganomics failed. If you want to argue that he created jobs, I agree. I'll even go you one better and say the average family earnings went up during his second term (mind you, Bush I brought them crashing back down again). Your point wasn't any of this, though, it was Reaganomics and that's what I evaluated. Nice way to change the subject, though.




I know. And I hate NAFTA. My dad's job went south about sixteen months ago. However, Clinton is the one who signed it, so I hold him responsible.

Fine, fine, I'll hold Bush responsible for the millions of jobs lost due to tax incentives that encourage companies to offshore jobs as well as expand NAFTA.


Clinton didn't accomplish much of anything in the middle east.

Er, how about the Oslo peace agreement and while you may think Camp David was just about photo ops, it was the first constructive effort towards resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, even if it didn't succeed and it was a damn lot more impressive than the mess that Baby Bush has embroiled us in now. Not to mention the fact that throughout his second term, a Republican Congress mired all of his actions making it impossible for him to move forward any plans at all, including decisive action on Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda or Afghanistan. Don't blame Clinton, blame partisan politics and the Newt Gingrich/Ken Starr witchhunt.


One) He said "Mission Accomplished" because nobody knew that there would be such heavy resistance.

Yes, who could have possibly thought that people wouldn't want to be occupied? Certainly not our military who apparently did no advance planning for this conflict or just decided not to come up with an exit strategy or a final price tag.


Two) The intelligence behind the Iraq war was the same intelligence that Clinton had when he bombed Baghdad.

Bombed Baghdad != Invading a country and toppling a power. I agree that bombing Baghdad wasn't the best move Clinton ever made, however Bush's stupidity in actually invading the country trumps it.


Bush didn't stay up one night and invent that intelligence, as much of the left seems to believe.

No, the CIA used reports from the early 90s to justify telling Bush and Rummy what they wanted to hear. You're right, no one "made it up", they just ignored anything that indicated they might be in the wrong and plowed ahead. Well, except for the whole "Nukes in Africa" thing which was a flat out lie.


We haven't found WMD yet, but it's still highly possible that they are in the country.

Gee, it's weird how something that was an "immenent threat" has been so successfully hidden for going on 15 years now, with the last year being an intense search specifically to find it.


Finally, Bush released his National Guard records, but the press didn't make a big deal out of it. They said that it was a false alarm for a day after saying he dodged the draft for a week, so most people would miss the dismissal and continue believing that Bush ran off. I like to call it "selective journalism," a process by which the media overinflates certain stories and gives marginal coverage to others in order to subliminally promote a cause. The National Guard is an example of the first way the media does this, the other tactic is to use the order of stories to promote a cause.

Um, who said this? Where's the evidence from the Flight Inquiry Board that would have been called when he was suspended from flying? Where are his flight logs? Where is the DD214? Where is his Officer Effectiveness Report from 1973? Where are his attendence sheets, photographs or unit rosters showing where he was? And there is still zip evidence of any actual duty from May of 1972 to April of 1973.


Example:
The day before Father's Day I was watching the news. I can't remember if it was CNN or Dateline, but they showed the following stories:
FIRST: The first was talking about a father whose son died in Afghanistan. They showed the funeral and the father holding a folded American flag to his chest. The story was very inflamatory.

Inflammitory because it suggests that one of the real consequences of war is that people die?


NEXT: The second was talking about John Kerry's foreign policy.

Mr. Subtility strikes again

Or, perhaps, Mr Paranoia? What was said about Kerry's foreign policy? You've created a situation by fiat without showing any actual linkage or, indeed, any bias. Nice way to try and create a story, though. You are really great at that tactic you're accusing the media of.


The first story is to tear down Bush, the second is to promote his opponent.

Based on what? I don't know what the content of either story was. You're just asking me to accept that the message of the first story was Bush-critical while the second was pro-Kerry. I thought the problem with Kerry was he wasn't forthcoming enough with his policy. So when there is some development on this front, you jump on him for providing the information you asked for in the first place. Nice double standard.


Actually, the 9-11 commission has found evidence linking Iraq to Al-Quada, but not to 9-11. About Abu Ghraib, I believe that the troops who did it are most directly responsible.

Actually, the 9-11 commission found a few forays where Al-Qaeda may have approached Iraq, but they were never returned and no relationship existed. That's what the 9-11 commission found and printed in their final report. The Bush Administration is now backtreading on all their statements saying Hussein and Bin Laden had established relationships but that's exactly what it is, backtracking. As for Abu Ghraib abuses, the abuse was systemic through that prison, Afghanistan and GitMo, so it's the system and it's controllers that are most to blame.


Uh, note the parts in bold. As for Ramzi Youseff, give me some links. I think that if it were so obvious that Bush knew, the media would be crucifying him for it.

Um, they are.

[quote=Reynes]
Military overhaul doesn't necessarily mean welfare, but the means to fight with fewer casualties and better intelligence to prevent things like 9-11 from happening again. Since Bush reactivated all the intelligence agencies, how many attacks have there been in the US? The last were those Washington snipers.

Er, who's talking about welfare? We're talking about benefits and wages promised to the fighting men and women of this country that are being deliberately underfunded so the favored contractors of the administration can rake in the dough.


I am not for a deficit, but I'm not for weakening our military, either.

Good, then I'm sure you'll be anti-Bush who's throwing military budget dollars into the black hole of "most-favored" government contractors while demanding volunteer servicemen extend their enlistment with lower wages leading to a steep decline in military recruitment and an even steeper decline in re-enlistment figures.


"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

Source?

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas from the summit with Bush and Sharon.


What's wrong with overthrowing a tyrannical dictator (not exactly a religious zealot, as his was not an islamic theocracy but a corrupt dictatorship) that has murdered a million people?

Nothing. It's the fact that he chose to piss off the rest of the world to accomplish it and now doesn't have a way for us to get out that's the problem and that he lied to get us in there in the first place.

And your side complains about us trying to do character assasination. What's this about the first lady killing someone?

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3910b26e685a.htm




And that's exactly what people have been doing to Reagan and Bush, if you haven't noticed.

Two wrongs don't make a right. If Bush's actions are so excellent, he has nothing to worry about and he's also the current President so we have a right, no, a responsibility to be critical of him.

Berk, you once complimented a post that I made. I would like to return the compliment. Your dissecting of Reynes last post was sheer mastery. You countered each point and I almost laughed at the subtle humor. Kudos.