Bill Clinton: Classic or Dud?

morbs i'm betting there is no president ever who qualifies as non-war criminal, yes?

bill pullman?

i was gonna say William Henry Harrison -- b/c he was President for all of, what, a month? -- but then i remembered that he was a general during the War of 1812 and he killed lots of Indians (before he became President).

morbs:
so lbj's good deeds make up for him being 10x the war criminal that clinton was?

false premise

so then you liked GHWB?!?

Nader would have been awesome

^cosign

No Eisbaer, I don't like presidents. I find GHWB marginally less bad than the others from Nixon onward.

they might be war criminals but theyre exceptional war criminals

New PBS documentary on Bubba.

What the film doesn’t do is give viewers a more compelling reason to go back and relive that epoch. The film hits all the familiar Clinton milestones — childhood in Hot Springs, Ark.; abusive stepfather; Oxford; courtship of Hillary Rodham; the Arkansas gubernatorial races; Gennifer Flowers; Travelgate; Somalia; Whitewater; etc. — without exploring the deeper happenings that turned out to have had a more lasting impact on the world.

the fulfillment of Reagan. deserves the hottest place in hell.

so much better than Obama, tho

does Obama get the second-hottest place plus eternal jock itch?

Clinton's worst policies had so many aiders and abettors that it seems wrong to pour all the blame on his head. The great frustration is that most of these allies were repulsive folks like Phil Gramm. And when the electorate turned in 1994, Bill just grinned, turned with them and paddled with the current.

But, as much as I hated it when it happened and cannot conceive the shallowness it implies, it is true that the electorate turned hard right in sufficient numbers to put a solid right wing majority into Congress. As soon as that happened, shit was bound to follow. Bill was just the Weather Vane in Chief during his second term. All the impeachment stuff later on just shows how freaking insane the nation had become.

most ppl opposed impeachment throughout that whole thing, to the point where right-wing pundits began fretting about the imminent end of western civilization, etc.

Didion's great "Vichy Washington" is the elegy for that sad era.

most people were opposed to the impeachment, but an awful lot of the pundit class (and not just the usual right-wing suspects) supported it.

USA pundits tend to nurture their sense of profound personal gravitas, and anything that might be construed as condoning the Lewinsky affair would go against that basic instinct.

It's on.

^^ Sounds like what they would whisper in the halls before a rumble.

What I figure a gr8080 presidency would look like:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/ht_bill_clinton_porn_stars_lpl_120524_wblog.jpg

Excerpt from Sean Strub's new book on Clinton's lousy AIDS policies:

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/01/bill_clintons_lgbt_shame_where_was_he_then/

not sure why more than doubling funding for aids/hiv research or more than tripling funding for aids/hiv care or establishing a permanent office of aids research at the nih is 'lousy' but whatever

The Clinton administration sabotaged HIV prevention and treatment efforts in other ways. One concerned intellectual property rights controlling the use of generic medications around the world. Near the end of Clinton’s presidency, we learned from a leaked State Department memo that former vice president Al Gore had exerted pressure on South Africa to rescind legislation allowing use of generic anti-retrovirals at a vastly lower cost, rather than paying U.S. companies their huge markups. Gore’s senior campaign staff included several people who had been lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry.

mere bag o' shells to Captain Save-a-Bubbas who can't read, apparently

"awesome communicator"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/george-w-bush-bill-clinton-joke-around-like-old-buddies-1.2759571

whatever it takes to derail the '16 Express

http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971

Will his tombstone say "Felt your Pain?"

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/13/bill_clintons_odious_presidency_thomas_frank_on_the_real_history_of_the_90s/

dud

More often than not, the ex-president finds himself staying in hotels with nothing resembling a presidential suite; he typically overnights in Holiday Inn Expresses and Quality Inns. His aides say he's the least prissy member of his small traveling party—caring only that his shower has good water pressure and that the TV has premium cable so that he might watch San Andreas or one of the Fast & Furious movies before he drifts off to sleep. When he wakes, he often makes coffee for himself in his room.

http://www.gq.com/story/bill-clinton-health-trump-and-hillary

insert hooker joke here

seriously though, Quality Inn is the way to go, Bill OTM there

When he wakes, he often makes coffee for himself in his room.

well who wouldn't

they put it right there

I never use the in-room coffee machine

you're never gonna be president with a prima donna attitude like that

whatever it takes to derail the '16 Express
http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 23, 2015 1:50 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They all seem so nice--especially Dershowitz

the inexplicable lib love for him is gonna get a severe test when he gets Trump elected. Hope for a fatal stroke before Labor Day.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/05/politics/bill-clinton-bernie-sanders-protesters/index.html

"inexplicable Dem love for him" you mean. No liberal I know does.

Is this where exiles from the vile election thread gather?

well, based on the author of the revive, it's where vile exiles of the election thread gather. vexiles, if you will.

and morbs’s strawman has got to be reaching wicker-man size by now; i’m surprised he can fit it in his brain

DUD

Saying "blue lives matter" on stage tonight following the mothers who spoke, what a piece of shit.

Did he use that phrase?

p sure he did, the quote was a little weird and I need to watch it again, but he also made it sound like african american men needed to make cops feel safe, if I heard correctly

directly before that he said something about how African Americans feeling safe from the cops so whatever, give him a pass

Ok, wait sorry he didn't actually use the phrase. He said:

"If you're a young African American disillusioned and afraid, we saw in Dallas how great our police officers can be, help us build a future where no one's afraid to walk outside, including the people who wear blue to protect our future."

Not quite as bad but I still do not like it. There was also some other weird "lives matter" moment but it was another confusing quote, will try to find it.

Some CNN panelist afterward was talking about how "important" it was that Bill reminded America that Hilary was once an "object of desire." Felt like this was the worst take of the night.

It just came off kind of like he was saying that young African Americans should help make the cops feel safer.