Bill Clinton is a Bitter Old Man

Xtraeme,

True. However in the same interview he both refers to Clarke's book as true and then false. Which is it? Oh, where it makes him look good and bad, I suppose.

The bottom line is Clarke was another bureaucrat who tried to get rich off of Bush bashing. To his credit, he at least countered almost everthing Michael Moore said that referenced him in F-911.

9-24-2006 7:03 PM

willhelm

Bitter and desperate to invent a positive legacy.

9-24-2006 11:46 PM

egoldstein

Clearly Bush and Clinton have both made mistakes and both wish they got bin laden. And perhaps both are at fault for not getting him. But the degree of blame is 10:1 on Bush in my opinion.

After 9/11 Bush had free reign to do whatever he had to do to get him...and he promised to do so. It was his number one priority and the country 100% backed him.

In my opinion there is no doubt that Bush prematurely took his eye off the target because he was too eager to get into Iraq.

9-25-2006 4:07 AM

Eric, Clinton had better conditions and free reign. Attacks of Cobart Towers and USS Cole were bin laden's work and Clinton knew about it. He had all justification in the world to go after the guy... in fact if you believe the 'path to 9/11', something that apparently was endorsed by Clarke - there were numerous opportunities for Clinton to get rid of the man, before he went into hiding making it that much more difficult to find/kill him. Bush can certainly be blamed for his performance after 9/11, since all of that was under his watch, but bin laden struck the Twin Towers back in 1993, way in the beginning of Clinton era and all of the other attacks that occurred and Clinton didn't do sq...

9-25-2006 10:19 AM

debbyski

Bill Clinton was 100 percent right when he pointed out the failures of the Bush administration, particularly the first 9 months regarding 9/11; even though his remarks about Bin Ladin may have political in nature, I believe he was probably annoyed with Chris Matthews changing the subject.

9-25-2006 11:44 AM

debbyski,

100%? Hardly.

First of all, Bush had to contend with Gore's legal BS for the first few months of his presidency.
Second, he didn't have 9 months. He didn't start on 1/11/2000.
Third, Clinton had close to 8 years to deal with Bin Laden. The first attacks came in 1993 with the World Trade Center bombing and then the Embassies. He was given the chance to take Bin Laden on two occassions by the Sudanese govt and he passed. He admitrted as much in a previous interview.
Bush did fail to get Bin Laden, that much is true. But he had plenty of time to develop hideouts thanks to Clinton's weak efforts.

9-25-2006 11:52 AM

Yeah, that Clinton, terrible guy. Best economy in years, first growth in the real wage of an average American since the 1970s, generally peaceful, budget surplus. Man what a wanker.

And I bet, in August 2000, he would have done something really inconvenient like increase airport security or some other thing like that because he would have actually read and acted on the memo that said bin Laden was planning to attack America with airplanes. Thank goodness we have a real leader now.

9-25-2006 12:09 PM

Bitter and desperate to invent a positive legacy.

The best thing to happen for Bill Clinton's legacy is George W. Bush. Hell the Bush family. Without those loser Bush presidencies as bookends Clinton would be another Rutherford B. Hayes, but now he'll go down in history a brilliant president.

9-25-2006 12:28 PM

Clinton took a lot of credit for things he didn't do. The economy was largely the result of Reaganomics. Clinton's economic policies were almost the same as Bush 41's. The economy was coming around when teh election happened.If Bush had been reelected, he would havehad the same economy.

Peaceful? Again, Reagan's policies brought about the end of the cold war. Clinton inherited that. However, he sent the military on more operations to more countries than any president before him since WWII.

As for what he would have done in August 2000, dream on. He was so non-focused on national security, it's what made this stuff possible. Besides, no one would have checked for box cutters even if he had. No one saw that coming.

9-25-2006 12:30 PM

I'll repeat here a great quote from GD.

The best liars believe their own. Delusional.

9-25-2006 12:35 PM

jklugman

www.princeton.edu/~bartels/income.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This study found that economic growth tends to be higher, and unemployment and income inequality tend to be lower, during Democratic administrations.

9-25-2006 12:36 PM

jklugman

Ugh. here's the link to the pdf file:

www.princeton.edu/~bartels/income.pdf

9-25-2006 1:21 PM

@kmcolo - Clinton brilliant? - only in your eyes, kmcolo, only in your eyes.

Clinton economy sucked in the end... although I don't fault him for that, since he had NOTHING to do with it being great in the first place. Clinton LIED to your face and it wasn't based on someone else's intelligence that turned out not to be so, but because it was convenient for him at the time... and he did so during the time when he could've done something about bin laden, but didn't.

"generally peaceful" - how's that? What about Somalia, the Balkans... what about first WTC bombing, Cobart Towers, USS Cole - you call that peaceful? Just because he didn't do squat about it doesn't mean things were peaceful.
...

9-25-2006 1:26 PM

He's brilliant in my eyes to, and probably the eyes of hundreds of thousands who have seen him speak (here in Halifax, our local stadium, was packed to capacity to hear him speak. the crowd applauding for him was deafening).

Besides, what does having an affair do with not being brilliant? He made a mistake... Bush has made THOUSANDS of mistakes.. (if you can tell kmcolo that they are the only one to think he's brilliant, then I'm allowed my possible exaggeration here..

)

9-25-2006 1:31 PM

debbyski

I think G.W. should have given Dog the Bounty hunter a shot at catching Osma and the boys from JackAss should be given a shot at torturing him!

9-25-2006 1:32 PM

you mean by having to watch thier show?

But yeah.. Dog would have caught him by now...

9-25-2006 2:40 PM

That Princeton paper is BS. What do you expect from Ivy League academics? We had one of the worst economies since the Depression under Carter and teh Democrats had control of the House and Senate. Why do you think he didn't get re-elected?

The people who rave about Clinton are people with huge egos who like being told what they want to hear. That is what Clinton is talented at. Saying what he knows his fans want to hear. That makes him a good con artist, not a leader.

9-25-2006 7:25 PM

willhelm

Lets just blame Gore and be done with it. He held up the transition slightly, who knows what would have happened if the governemnt weren't put in transitional turmoil. Kidding aside.... Franklly, the bickering about who to blame is juvenile and shows a clear lack of understanding of the stakes we are up against. If we don't blame Gore, can we please blame Bin Laden.
It appears to me too many people do not understand history (recent and distant), nor do they understand the real reason for us going to Iraq in the first place.
It was so heartening to see such political opposites come together against the remarks of Chavez. It would serve us all well to understand the war against islamist ext...

9-25-2006 8:01 PM

Willhem,

Actually, I agree. Islamic fanatics was to destroy western civilization. That means everything the so called "progressives" hold dear, which is why it's insane to be focusing on Bush when this problem isn't going away.

Saddam maqy not have been the best choice to make, but knocking him out removes another terrorist sponser state. Leaving only Iran and Syria.

9-25-2006 8:04 PM

bignosemousie

This is one heck of a first clip, esper9000!

9-26-2006 2:35 AM

Actually knocking Iran at this point would automatically resolve the syria issue.

9-26-2006 3:54 AM

I agree. Syria is a weak sister. They basically do Iran's bidding. Without Iran they would fold like Kadaffi did.

9-26-2006 12:01 PM

Actually knocking Iran at this point would automatically resolve the Syria issue.

Begin flame bait: Yes, just like taking out Bin Laden brought democracy and peace to Iraq...

"knocking" Iran, would only galvanize the other Islamic states against the US. It might even galvanize China, Russia, most of Europe, Asia, and Canada (if under a liberal gov't) against the US as well.

I'm assuming "knocking" means neutralizing.. ie: nuclear action (as you don't have a hope in hell of doing it any other way.. ala Iraq).

9-26-2006 12:59 PM

Well, I mean regime change there. The people of Iran are not happy with their leadership. Most of the people in Iran are young and they are tired of the Islamic state telling them what to do.

I don't think we can invade there like we did in Iraq. And I suspect it will be Israel who will attack Iran before we would do it.

As for everyone else being angry against us if we did anything vis-a-vis Iran, I doubt it. China and Russia, maybe. Everyone else is nervous about Iran and they aren't loved by the Arabs. The Persians have a long history of invading their neighbors. They are also Shia, which other Muslims can't stand for some reason.

9-26-2006 2:07 PM

Hrm, well if one could initiate "peaceful" regiem change, then I think that might work quite well to calm the region down. The issue would be getting someone in power who isn't radical, but not US friendly either (not because people should hate the US, but more because such a drastic change in policy and stance would likley lead to at least a mini civil war...)

9-26-2006 2:25 PM

The problem is, I don't see how a peaceful regime change will be possible because the government of Iran is extremely repressive of dissent.

However, if a pro-Western leadership ever takes over there, I doubt they will be cheerleaders for America. Like you say, it would make it difficult to stay in power if they did. Kind of like Mushareff in Pakistan. He's an ally but he has to play it safe,

9-26-2006 9:28 PM

kmcolo - Clinton brilliant? - only in your eyes,...

Once again, as always seems the case with the so called "right" one needs to constantly make sure that one's quotes are not taken out of context and twisted. Read what I wrote again. I did not say I thought Clinton brilliant, in fact I implied, though not the opposite, that he was not much to write home about. Yet here you go again, twisting and altering the meaning. Why is it that so many of these knee-jerk "right-wing" bandwagon floks always do this?

9-27-2006 1:51 AM

@kmcolo,

Slow down with knee-jerk comments, you're the one knee-jerking here... You read what you wrote, which is due to both Bush's performance - Clinton will go down as a brilliant president. Yes, you stated that without that he would've been like Hayes, but ithat's hypothetical, since Bush's clearly was/is president, thus the logical deduction based on your comment is that Clinton will go down in history as a brilliant president. Isn't that what you said? What am I taking out of context? So you read what you wrote again!

9-27-2006 12:11 PM

I think what he meant was that in COMPARISON to bush, Clinton will go down in history as being brilliant

No argument here.

However, in comparison to reality, Clinton is not brilliant, maybe a bit better than averge depending on what side of the fence you are sitting. He's done good & bad in my opinion. He's doing more for the world and Amarica out of office then he ever did in...

9-27-2006 1:46 PM

Godfrey Daniel

In his crafting and honing a persona that elicits awe and envy from lesser con men, he has brilliance.

9-27-2006 3:29 PM

Clinton was a brilliant politician and a lousy human being and leader.

He's a master at telling people what they want to hear, which is why he gets approval from so many of those who don't pay attention to his actual accomplishments, or lack thereof.

We headed into a dire recession at the end of his presidency because of his economic policies. His insistance on having every action legally vetted made it possible for al Qaeda to gain the strength it did, rather then actually fighting them. He had two, I repeat, TWO opportunities to take Bin Laden that were handed to him by the Sudan. They would have given Osama to us, but he declined. He admitted it in the audio clip in my article.

His...

9-27-2006 3:29 PM

To me it's a false defition. You don't say that Mozart is brilliant only when compared to Madonna. If someone's brilliant - they are so based on their actions, persona etc. You want to disagree with Bush - fine. And Clinton is FAR from brilliant... if you were to actually look at his record-breaking number of scandals (and I'm not talking about Monica here), the fact that they did drop the ball on bin laden and not respond accordingly to numerous attacks on US interests abroad. I don't see how the history will ignore all of that and call him 'brilliant'.

9-27-2006 3:32 PM