Bill Clinton: Classic or Dud?

I've admittedly been feeling a particular kind of disillusioned rage about Bill Clinton lately that can come only from realizing that your parents' basis for loving a politician, and presenting him to you as a great and benevolent figure, boiled down to being of the same generation, being in awe of his charisma, and sharing an enjoyment of Fleetwood Mac. This hollow, opportunistic fucking rapist is the political hero of my parents' generation and it just speaks to how empty our politics got in the past several decades.

tbh he probably only liked one Fleetwood Mac tune

Not going to stan for this education factory mogul but the article says his company "has purchased financially struggling colleges and vocational schools and improved management while boosting profits through expanding enrollment." Which doesn't exactly make him Snidely Whiplash?

"Laureate’s campuses are fully accredited and offer graduating students valid diplomas. Compared with other universities, including its for-profit competitors, Laureate has a relatively low percentage of students who default on their loans, seen as an indicator of student financial success after graduation. A 2012 Senate report on for-profit colleges said that Laureate’s flagship U.S. school, Walden University, was the best of 30 campuses studied and that students there generally 'fared well.'"

Annnnd soooo... ??

Hang on are these reporters insinuating that a corporation has secured a Big Name to sit on their board act as honorary chancellor do next to nothing in order to boost its profile???

Laureate have their issues but they are not egregiously awful. The main problems are one-size-fits-all education programmes and limited teacher engagement. They're better than some others in the sector. Getting Clinton in to sprinkle stardust on generic factory learning is probably more undignified than corrupt - particularly in comparison to Blair advising dictators on post-massacre reputation management.

A corporation whose revenue is mostly international getting the husband of the secretary of state to sit on the board though -- their main gig is taking over colleges in Latin America.

when Clinton went to Azerbaijan to set up bent megabucks mineral deals and sprinkle some of that stardust on crooked despot Aliyev, Hilary was abusing her position. I know it is probably old but I just find it incredible how shamelessly bent they are and how they keep getting away with it.

I've admittedly been feeling a particular kind of disillusioned rage about Bill Clinton lately that can come only from realizing that your parents' basis for loving a politician, and presenting him to you as a great and benevolent figure, boiled down to being of the same generation, being in awe of his charisma, and sharing an enjoyment of Fleetwood Mac. This hollow, opportunistic fucking rapist is the political hero of my parents' generation and it just speaks to how empty our politics got in the past several decades.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, September 6, 2016 10:20 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, though i had the exact opposite experience: my parents loathed Clinton, and i never really understood why until fairly recently. so he committed perjury about a blowjob, so what? the real stuff just isn't as sexy... they're shamelessly opportunistic and have made a lot of money for career politicians. politicians don't make a super good living. the thing that stuck with me was the hypocrisy of accepting millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia for the Clinton Foundation.

AND hillary's silencing of bill's mistresses/victims...

Azerbaijan is a much more clear cut example of bad practice imo.

The State Dept has a negligible role in influencing foreign higher education policy AFAIK. Laureate's ability to throw money into investment is the critical factor in why they have been able to expand so rapidly. It hasn't protected them from criticism either.

I detest him and his oleaginous un-charm. I don't care about "liking" or "trusting" presidents, but Obama's coolness and indifference to both things is his best trait as prez.

The thing about the Clinton Foundation is that in order for there to be "corruption" there, there has to be a basis to believe that there's anything being done with the money other than charity. Getting a donation from Saudi Arabia and using it to build schools or buy AIDS medications or whatever doesn't exactly reek. But the info about the foundation is all over the map, even ignoring right wing sources, from the Sunlight Foundation claiming it is a "slush fund" for the Clintons, to other articles saying their percentage of spending on legit charity is relatively high, to claims about boondoggle spending in Haiti going to connected contractors and not actually benefitting anyone.

I think what makes me most uncomfortable with the Clintons is the seemingly constant blurring of the lines between the foundation and global initiative and the Clinton's political activities and their friends' business activities, with so many of the same people of their circle involved with all of the above. For example Huma Abedin simultaneously having a part-time role with Clinton at State while also getting a salary from the Clinton Foundation, working for Douglas Band's consulting company AND working as Hillary Clinton's personal assistant.

yet she wasn't being paid a salary + bennies to stay married to Weiner. Weird.

Obama's coolness and indifference to both things is his best trait as prez.

agreed

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Croc0idVIAAbCMO.jpg

Same for the Gates Foundation. I don't have much of an issue with companies like Laureate offering a commercial alternative to established domestic universities but it gets pretty fishy when corporate charity promotes the privatisation of primary education in the guise of benevolence, like with Bridge.

Xps

he needs a cigarette in his right hand imo

in love with the all black everything w/ white shoes look. been doing that for years myself

yet she wasn't being paid a salary + bennies to stay married to Weiner. Weird.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 6, 2016 11:47 AM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when you have one really bad job, the other jobs seem a little better

that obama photo showed up in my timeline with the caption "listens to Skepta once"

lol i saw "Goes to Berghain once" and "Obama looking like a guy that only texts you after 2am"

@tinyrevolution
It's hard to believe now, but long long ago Bill Clinton was considered to be good at politics

http://nypost.com/2016/10/04/bill-clinton-slams-obamacare-as-craziest-thing-in-the-world/

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a49240/bill-clinton-obamacare/

You beat me to it.

to be honest, he's not entirely wrong. There's a gap where you get fucked pretty hard by lack of subsidy and the price increases of healthcare plans. I'm not sure it effects that many people but it kills me.

Third year in a row of paying $4500ish for zero benefit as a small business owner or ~12% of my take-home each year. Each year I've had a $5500 deductible and used a couple hundred of it. As a small business owner, the idea that it protects me from major health events is questionable - if I'm in the hospital or out of work for more than a few days I'm fucked no matter what. Good luck to the hospital getting me to pay $5500 or $55000. I could save $50/month for an even more useless bronze plan but that seems even more insane.

I think I'm going to roll the dice next year and pay the penalty. It makes more sense to put the excess (3400ish) into a Roth IRA so that I have some 'retirement' savings at the ages where medical issues become more likely.

he is definitely not entirely wrong. He's describing my situation (employer plan costs have skyrocketed on all three fronts -- premiums, co-pays and deductible), and a lot of people I know on exchange plans can't really afford to use them. MY PORTION of my employer plan is now something like $1200/month for my family, with $50/$70 copays and I think a $4000 deductible that I so far have barely touched.

What Bill is doing politically is another question. Maybe he's trying to signal to people fed up with Obamacare, but it's not clear what he's signaling since Hillary is basically campaigning on just tweaking/improving Obamacare.

oh, even Pierce says he's mostly right.

dumb politics tho -- "craziest thing ever" soundbite -- and that's all that matters.

i doubt the Trumpies have the wherewithal to exploit it, however

Just to be fair, the original ACA bill anticipated that there would be an initial surge of sick people buying insurance while the healthier people would enter the system more slowly until the tax penalties for non-participation grew enough to make it too painful to refuse to buy insurance. To offset this predictable problem the ACA projected subsidies to the insurance companies, similar to its subsidies to states for their new Medicaid recipients.

The difficulty has been that subsequent republican-controlled Congresses have deliberately underfunded those subsidies by a large amount, so that the insurance companies, which had set their pricing according to the original subsidies, have been forced to make up the shortfall by raising premiums rapidly. This makes the system unstable, allowing the Republicans to point at the problems they've caused and say the ACA is a disaster.

Clinton is doing an impression of the Clinton from the Simpson where Kodos takes over his body pic.twitter.com/dZQHu49k0F

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) December 4, 2017

to be clear this means nothing. Really read it and soak in how wholly vacuous and silly this is. pic.twitter.com/Qgh5uCRVzz

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) December 4, 2017

Holy shit was that colbert interview a joke (unsurprisingly). hearing clinton support the me too movement felt smug af

Highly recommend the Chapo discussion of his new "spy thriller," just unreal

Nice will do

Didn't want to bring this up in the SCOTUS or politics thread because they don't deserve to be derailed, but there are a lot of weird resonances between the Kavanaugh hearings and Clinton, particularly because Kavanaugh was involved in pursuing Clinton in one of the most nakedly cynical political maneuvers in modern memory, and yet at the same time, Clinton is probably a rapist and democrats gave him a complete pass at the time and most decidedly did not "believe women," and he's never been forced to reckon with any of that.

The one thing I will say is that I think the democrats would react very differently to Clinton if it were today, whereas the Republicans have not evolved one bit.

democrats gave him a complete pass at the time

you mean Democrats like Joe Lieberman?

New series of Slow Burn seems even-handed and is intriguing for those of us perhaps too young to dig what was happening at the time. And like the Nixon series, lots of resonances with what's happening today.

whoah I take that back I thought Lieberman had been the lone Dem "guilty" vote in the Senate but apparently I was wrong. huh.

I'm also thinking of the complete failure to take Broadrick seriously. I don't remember who specifically went on the record about it in terms of politicians, but certainly in liberal/democratic circles in general my memory is that she was dismissed.

I don't entirely disagree with your analysis but I think it's expressed in maybe overly dramatic terms. He did have *some* reckoning with it - I mean he was impeached and it's haunted his career ever since, including his wife's career, and he got called out on it by a sitting Senator fairly recently for ex. It's true he's not as much of a pariah in the Democratic party as he probably should be. I don't know who in the party genuinely likes him at this point, he's clearly become an albatross as the years have passed, and yet they can't seem to fully reject his "star-power" or whatever.

I mean, he's not just "not a pariah," he was a major power broker in the party at least until fairly recently -- hard to say whether it was the Obama victory or the Trump victory that finally diminished his status, but it continued well after he was president. People of my parents' generation still seem to carry the idea that he was wrongfully accused.

Hillary's loss severely damaged her and Bill's standing in the party. And trends in the party are moving very far away from their policies and legacies so I don't think there's going to be any comeback either. Probably some handwringing when they die about their squandered potential.

People of my parents' generation still seem to carry the idea that he was wrongfully accused.

I don't think this is the case w my parents but yeah ugh boomers

oh look

https://www.yahoo.com/news/juanita-broaddrick-glad-believe-her-024811948.html

So are you saying that means it didn't happen or that it doesn't matter because she's a bad person.

not saying either of those things? it just popped up in my newsfeed, so you're not the only one seeing the parallels/differences

Broaddrick's story strikes me as extremely credible fwiw

at the same time, her position about Dr. Ford is a mixture of predictable and gross

yeah I think it's gross too but I found her story very credible when I finally gave it a chance a few years ago. And his pattern of behavior is supported by other women.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/white-house-government-shutdown.html

Lengthy shutdowns can be disastrous for the White House for other reasons.

The last time a shutdown went on for this long, President Bill Clinton put himself on the long road to impeachment when he courted a young intern named Monica Lewinsky in an empty corner of the West Wing. Nonessential employees had been sent home, unpaid interns were brought in to work, and the rest is bitter history.

The Obama administration barred interns from coming to work during a shutdown, and the Trump White House’s new class of interns has not yet started, according to a senior official.

omg

Here’s a provocative alternate reality that, with the benefit of time, is just starting to come into focus: All those joyful Democrats who tearfully celebrated the generation-shifting results of the 1992 election would likely be better off today if Bill Clinton had lost and George H. W. Bush had been reelected.

...BEFORE WE GET TO WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, let’s review what actually was. We’ll start with a pop quiz for Democrats: Name the three most important domestic achievements of the Clinton administration.

Chances are you’ll say a booming economy — the byproduct of responsible financial stewardship that converted record budget deficits into healthy surpluses. If you lean centrist or buy into pollster sabermetrics, you might mention welfare reform, which finally neutered the devastating if cynical tactic Republicans had used to paint their Democratic opponents as defenders of lazy “welfare queens.” Or maybe you’ll cite the assault weapons ban of 1994, a high-water mark for gun control that no pol of that persuasion has managed to come close to since, despite the numbing frequency of mass shootings.

Follow-up question: Which achievements from the Clinton years still hold up today?

Do you need more time?

I tried this exercise with several presidential historians and public policy pros, and the most common answer turned out to be “very little.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/07/10/bill-clinton-had-never-been-president-democrats-would-better-off-today/qsYmCo7ZEYpQr8fOZSkRLM/story.html

even better than no Clinton: no Clintonism.