If not a transfer of power, the whole show seemed at least a temporary handoff. An embattled president, fresh off an electoral shellacking and struggling to sell a controversial tax deal to members of his own party, turned to a former president…
It’s not every day that we get to see former president Bill Clinton take over for current President Barack Obama during a press conference on tax policy. Making things even weirder, Obama’s excuse for ditching out was that he had to go to a Christmas party. After watching the press conference a million times (it’s that bizarrely addicting, see for yourself here) we have dissected it into it’s 10 most awkward parts.
Count this among the greatest miscalculations of President Obama’s career: “I’m going to let him speak very briefly,” Obama said Friday, upon introducing Bill Clinton in the White House briefing room for his triumphant, self-adulating return.
Clinton, a former president who still pines for the limelight, did not speak very briefly. He spoke, rather, at length, about the tax cut deal, about Hong Kong stimulus, the Haitian prime minister, green energy investors in Nevada and the number of events he did supporting candidates in the 2010 midterms. “I did 133,” he said.
You can love Bush or hate him (and I know the answer, spare me) but at least he was a President. Do you ever get the feeling that Obama just might not be one?
“Bush…was a President”?
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p>I’ll take Bill Clinton answering media questions over Dick Cheney running the country any day.
and hopefully not a portent of how this “reality-based” community will deal with the international, national and state level slow motion implosion of its ideology
I have no doubt that that comment made sense in the context of the dream from which you awoke.
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p>Otherwise, it makes no sense whatever.
your projecting is usually much more robust than this KB, you must be tired or something
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p>For what its worth my “dream” included such fantasies as the massive wipeout of Dems in the recent election, chaos across Europe as it tries to grapple with its socialist style largess (Greece, Ireland, UK, France, etc etc etc) and the quiet 2010 bailout of the bluest states which will decidedly not be repeated in 2011, while their accounting tricks and finances finally come home to roost.
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p>Since there is no provision for states to declare bankruptcy, what do you think CA, NY and IL will even do next year?
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p>Search me.
Those of us not napping were not discussing that. Your comments, with their typical-for-conservatives conflation of politics and policy, can only convince others that you hold beliefs strongly. They convince no one of those beliefs.
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p>So it can safely be left to the more intelligent reader to dispel your recurring nightmare of the socialist bogeyman and your groggy certainty of what events in Europe prove.
Seems like the left is the only group who is not pretty sure that the tax compromise is going to pass. Not without “changes”, that is.
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p>So as usual, we’ll throw in a bunch of special favors, have Clinton talk progressives off the ledge, and away we go.
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p>Is it going to work for you?
I do think Clinton will help corale some Democrats. You’re right, it was interesting, almost surreal imagery. Clinton went through a period of people wondering where his spine was, but he did finally draw a line. I suppose, therefore, it’s possible Obama might find his spine in the next couple years, but even Clinton is saying that in present circumstances he might not push as hard as he did in 1995.
George Packer reviewing Decision Points in the New Yorker:
I think President Obama is a fine president, who shows potential (unrealized so far) to be great. I think Bill Clinton is far and away the greatest president of my lifetime.
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p>Call me whatever you want to call me, I find Bill Clinton’s arguments persuasive and convincing — far more so than anything anyone else has said until he stepped to the podium. That, in my view, is why President Obama arranged this surreal episode. I admire Barrack Obama for this gesture. I admire him for turning to Bill Clinton for advice and counsel.
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p>While I still have enormous difficulties with this tax bill, I feel qualitatively better having heard Bill Clinton’s arguments than I did before.
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p>Oh, and I’d like to say, again, that the 22nd amendment is terrible law. If it had been in place in 1940, America would have most likely had an isolationist president and we would probably be speaking German or Japanese today.
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p>I’m quite certain that Bill Clinton would have won the 2000 election handily, perhaps even in a landslide, and would have won again in 2004. Barrack Obama would have been elected in 2008 anyway, and would have inherited a “Golden Age” of American prosperity. In that scenario, we would be arguing about what to do with the growing federal surplus.
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p>Bill Clinton is, in my view, a once-in-a-generation leader. Barrack Obama may get there someday.
I do think the move made a lot more sense when Clinton explained it, because he had that common touch. I would disagree that he was a once in a generation leader, I would say he was a mediocre caretaker who looked good compared to his predecessors and successors, and who gets a lot of props for being a Democrat who got re-elected. But I would challenge you to name a major New Deal, Great Society style of program that happened. Not to mention costly inertia on gay rights and a foreign policy that enabled the neo-conservatism agenda of President Bush. Also as someone significantly to the left of me I am surprised you find the center-right Clinton suitable to your politics.
… how many in a generation could hold up those popularity numbers while under impeachment.
Bill Clinton stood strong in the teeth of a right wing hurricane. The fact that he made even modest progress — instead of back-sliding — is a tremendous accomplishment.
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p>Here’s my off-the-top-of-my-head summary of what I think he did:
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p>He did all of this while fighting unprecedented right wing skulduggery and sheer harassment. The right wing attempted a political coup, and failed.
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p>You want an example of a “caretaker”? See Gerald Ford. See Jimmy Carter.
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p>Lest you underestimate the strength, courage, and sheer political chops needed to resist the right wing, see Barrack Obama and the entire Democratic party of 2010.
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p>-The balanced budgets were partly the result of dealing with a divided government and a Republican Congress, Ike balanced budgets too under similar circumstances
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p>->Saying Clinton caused the 90s boom is like blaming Obama for the recession, the economy is cyclical and there is little beyond cutting spending or altering inflation that a President can do, many of his initiatives from gutting Glass-Steagall to deregulation helped sow the seeds of this crisis
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p>->Clinton did not avoid war, we illegally bombed and destroyed a sovereign country with no pretense (Serbia), we bombed Iraq on several occasions with no provocation, and we intervened in Haiti and Somalia to mixed results. Clinton was very hawkish and his first instinct was to send in troops, it should have been the last. Many of his teammembers signed on to PNAC’s goal of removing Saddam Hussein and many of the congressional resolutions used to justify the war were passed under his term and signed by Clinton. Make no mistake he pursued a slightly more liberal neocon policy, and I am convinced he would have gone to war with Iraq had he got that third term, we woulda gone in smarter and better, but we still woulda gone in. He was quite pro-war leading up to the invasion I might add
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p>->I would agree about the free trade agenda and letting America compete, just surprised to hear you on that same page with me
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p>->Also I would disagree he solved the ‘welfare queen’ and ‘soft on crime’ problems, if anything he gave political cover to more Democrats to pursue openly pro-corporate agendas at the expense of working people. Welfare reform has been a mixed success, and in many cases it has forced good hard working people to become menial laborers at dead end jobs just to get food stamps, when they could be training to get better jobs, etc. Three strikes and other abuses of the Constitution for the sake of law and order are also the result of Clintonian policies as well. Lastly he did not stop the right wing agenda and on foreign policy and gay rights, he certainly enabled it breaking campaign promises in the process.
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p>In many cases Clinton has been guilty of the exact sort of thing you and others have criticized Obama for, Obama was supposed to be a genuine progressive with centrist instincts, instead of a centrist with no instincts. Thats the difference. That said Clinton has to be given credit for being a better caretaker than most and for doing little damage while pursuing several small-medium scale initiatives that worked. NAFTA, more cops on the street, gun control, free trade, balanced budgets, education reform, he did do a lot of good as well. But to argue he was a progressive is fallacious.
Clinton rightly gets credit for balancing the budget because he was the first President in a generation to even propose one. The stimulus and budget passed with no GOP votes while the Dems still had a majority in both chambers, and yes, that DID set us on the path toward the longest sustained economic expansion in history.
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p>You also are remembering our military history selectively. There was a genocide in the former Yugoslavia and thus much justification for intervention. It would have been immoral NOT to intervene. As for Saddam, we hit back when he provoked us by breaching the no-fly zone or encroahing on Kurdish populations. Personally, I wished we had knocked him off in the first Gulf War or one of the times Clinton merely slapped him on the wrist. I was opposed to Iraq when GWB went in mostly because I wanted all our focus on that moment on Afghanistan. Finally, Bush 41 got us into Somalia with similar humanitarian justification to the former Yugoslavia. Clinton got us out when it became clear we were hurting more than helping.
I didn’t argue that he was “progressive”. I said that he was a “fine President.”
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p>I don’t even know where to begin with the rest of your discourse, especially the stuff about Serbia and Iraq.
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p>The doctrine that produced the invasion of Iraq was first formulated by Dick Cheney (then Secretary of Defense for Bush 41) together with aides Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby. It was scuttled by Bush 41 and by Colin Powell. This doctrine was elaborated on by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith in 1996. It was dismissed by virtually everyone except the rabid-right until 9/11, when Dick Cheney (its architect) was Vice President (and pulling the strings of Bush 43).
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p>The facts of how that insane doctrine became US policy are a case study in the blatant abuse and then utter and complete failure of the American political system. The checks and balances that should have stopped it were systematically and intentionally dismantled, circumvented, and destroyed by the Bush administration (masterminded by Richard Cheney). The disastrous invasion of Iraq, and the flagrant deceit used to sell it, should have led to the impeachment of both George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. Iran was and is the single largest threat to US interests in the ME, and Saddam Hussein for all his faults was the single strongest bulwark against expanding Iranian influence. Destroying Iraq and executing Saddam Hussein was absolutely suicidal to US interests in the ME, as events since then have demonstrated.
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p>I invite you to offer evidence to support your contention that Bill Clinton was “quite pro-war leading up to the invasion.”
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p>The rest of your comment is so far removed from my own perceptions, memories, and research into what happened that I don’t see the point of pursuing it.
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p>I can only conclude that we lived on different planets in a mostly-parallel universe.
He needed the help of a Republican Congress to accomplish this.
I apologize for my laziness in not having watched the whole press conference, and you are under no obligation whatsoever to answer (obviously), but this episode frankly disgusted me. I was trying to find Bernie Sanders’ speech on C-Span but was surprised by the sight of Bill Clinton apparently justifying the tax breaks for the rich instead (Sanders was on C-Span 2, which I don’t think I get anymore). Clinton’s appearance looked like some totally bullshit PR show. He seemed insincere, and my impression was that here was yet another puppet of the billionaires, brought back to put some kind of down-home face on bad news for the benefit of those among the working classes who are actually paying attention. Watching the stunt reminded me a little bit of the lead-up to the Iraq War, the same sense of helpless frustration as millions of fellow citizens were being duped.
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p>What argument did Clinton make that was so profound? Was it the mere fact of who was talking that made you feel better about this latest fiasco? Maybe I have an overly envious and bitter nature- I don’t know, but count me among those for whom this particular Obama failure has become the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back. There’s just no point in electing a Democrat over a Republican if the policies that result, and the decisions that are made, are virtually equivalent, and all seem to somehow be engineered by the villains from “Inside Job”.
You’re right, you are being lazy in lambasting something you can’t find the energy to learn about yourself.
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p>It isn’t hard to find Clinton’s comments. I’m not willing to debate them with you until you’ve listened to them yourself.
Maybe later.
He had to confront similar political and economic realities and provided some reassurance and/or cover for Democrats.
Generally, Monsieur Demolisher abhors weakness of any form and enjoys leaders more when they radiate an appealing masculinity. Thus, the idea of Obama seeking help rather than riding alone on his horse like the Marlborough Man is somewhat distasteful to his refined sensibilities in such matters.