Arguement about Clinton with the Flatmate

flangeman

Mornin,

Last night I was watching 'The Daily Show' (More4, each weekday night, except Mondays) with the flatmate (she be late 20's Canadian sort, totally irrelevant I know) and Jeremy Paxman was on talking about the English Royalty etc.. So Paxman started joking about Georgie Dublya's gaff with the winking and saying 'herself' is 200 years old on the last visit (last week I think). Anyway, I remarked that Clinton always had a better 'Statesman' presence about himself although some of his actions during his presidency were well dodgy (bombing of generic drug plants in Africa, etc..), she started on about how Bushie Babes wasn't that bad but had in affect inherited some messed up policies from the previous administration.

I had nothin for her arguement (she a bit of a pain sometimes, no debate just lectures on how she's right), but I'm pretty sure it weren't all too bad in comparison to the current administration (including the Kyoto argeement backout). But shouldn't policy come from the Senate and House rather than wholy from the administration?

Or bless her sweet face is she 100% correct?

Manic Moran

Not exactly an uncontroversial question that, is it?

You're going to get the Clinton Haters and the Bush Haters each with their own points of view. The Clinton-Haters will fire off that Bush got hampered by policies of the previous administration, and the Bush-haters will respond with claims that all was well when Clinton left office, and Bush screwed it up.

The Kyoto thing isn't that big a deal over here, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, The US is not the only signatory not to ratify it. Secondly, the reason Bush isn't submitting it for ratification isn't that he doesn't agree with it, it's the fact that China is exempt from Kyoto to start with. Being a large economic rival to US industry, this is, I think, and understandable competetive concern. And thirdly, Bush has been pushing for large increases in alternate energy funding anyway.
With the two exceptions of Stem Cell Research and the Iraq conflict, Bush's presidency has been generally reasonably uncontroversial by American political standards. (The current Attorney-General issue notwithstanding, but Gonzales is taking the heat for that). The main problem being that these are two massively hot-button issues, which take disproportionate amounts of airtime. The two prime considerations for most American voters over the last four years are 'Get out of Iraq yay/nay' and 'Will the next President set the stage for a reversal of Roe v Wade or not?'

Clinton certainly made a better 'statesmanlike' appearance, though somehow I never found him quite as endearing or 'human' as Bush and his gaffes. Maybe it was the hair. The problem is that a large part of politics, and of international politics is perception. Bush may not actually be a bumbling idiot (and I don't think he is), but if he is perceived as such, he loses a lot of weight with others and thus a lot of his effectiveness.

Clinton had his own controversial policies with respect to firearms and military downsizing beyond the levels intended by Bush Sr who started the downsize in the wake of the Cold War ending. To give you an example as to how unpopular the firearms policy was, you know that big deal about the 2006 election when the American People made their voice heard on Iraq? 30 House seats swapped over, and 6 Senate seats. Both Clinton and the DNC attribute a large part of the 1994 result to the backlash from the firearms policy: 54 House seats and 8 Senate seats changed parties from D to R: Almost twice the turnover in the House.

But shouldn't policy come from the Senate and House rather than wholy from the administration?

Bit of both, really. Policy will be determined by the administration, but the laws require Congress's work. For example, Bush's policy on illegal immigration is that it should be reduced, hence he's deployed troops to the border until the Border Patrol increases its levels. He can do that on his own. He would like some form of guest worker programme, but cannot dictate that as it would require a change in the laws. Thus Congress, consisting about evenly of people that want anything from total amnesty through total deportation are the people who will affect the effective long-term change, if they can ever agree on what to do about it.

NTM

Zebra3

Don't forget that Clinton's supporters will claim he inherited a mess from the Bush I regime!

PhonyDoctor

Zebra3 wrote:

Don't forget that Clinton's supporters will claim he inherited a mess from the Bush I regime!

Obviously every president inherits problems. I don't hate Bush or Clinton and both have their pluses and minuses. IMHO, no president was so disasterous in the last 50 years as Jimmy Carter.

Tigrrrr

flangeman wrote:

she started on about how Bushie Babes wasn't that bad but had in affect inherited some messed up policies from the previous administration... bless her sweet face is she 100% correct?

No, she's not 100% correct, there is a certain amount of truth to what she says.

The WTC attack would most likely have happened irresepective of whether Bush or Kerry had won the election in 2000. However, the decision to bomb Afghanistan was not necessarily the best one, and the decision to bomb Iraq certainly was not. The current US administration needs to take responsibility for the current effects of such policymaking - because the effects are being seen right now.
What her argument suggests is that ramifications of policy decisions do not come about until 4 or 8 years down the line. While this may be correct in some instances (the best example is chronic US-Middle East ideological exploding diarrhoea since the second half of the 20th century), it cannot be the same for all decisions and all political and economic approaches.

the flatmate (she be late 20's Canadian sort

Is she hot?

PhonyDoctor

Tigrrrr wrote:

The WTC attack would most likely have happened irresepective of whether Bush or Kerry had won the election in 2000.

It was Bush or Gore (not Kerry), but given that all the terrorist were in the country before the election and that the plot was at lest 5 years in the making, you are certainly correct.

Tigrrrr wrote:

However, the decision to bomb Afghanistan was not necessarily the best one, and the decision to bomb Iraq certainly was not. The current US administration needs to take responsibility for the current effects of such policymaking

You mean by Clinton? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. My problem was not that Clinton bombed al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, but that his attack was feeble and the timing led to accusations of "wagging the dog", which later impared his credibility and potential effectiveness to take any military measure against terrorists.

Tigrrrr wrote:

Is she hot?

Probably, but given Clinton's known standards the only sure thing we know is that she a pulse and female genetalia.

Liam Byrne

The attack on the WTC has no bearing on the invasion of Iraq. It was merely used as an excuse.

How do I know this ? It's a pretty logical conclusion - if Bush & Co had come out and given definitive proof of any of the multitude of excuses that they gave for invading Iraq, I would think otherwise. But instead they couldn't even agree on what the "reason" was, and very publicly stated differing and conflicting "reasons".

Given the scale of the invasion, surely a definitive reason (or combinations of reasons) was required ?

What does this have to do with this thread ? Fact is that Bush invaded Iraq without any reason or cause, which makes it something that Clinton could have done but didn't.

While most observers would probably view the reason for this as Bush being the bumbling idiot that he gives the impression of, even an idiot wouldn't have started a war of this scale for no reason.....you can be damn sure that he had his reasons, and didn't let them be known, just as he didn't let it be known that the "shock and awe" in-and-out quickie would never materialise, but that would never have gotten the support of the Americans - better to lie and then, having created the mess and killed thousands, play dumb and say "we can't leave now".

So for that reason alone, Clinton has proved himself a far better politician and statesman for the greater good, but Bush has proven himself to be a far better manipulator of events and public opinion than Clinton ever was.

Which makes a better politician ? Depends on whether you like your politicians to be honest and up front.

It always makes me laugh - or would, if it wasn't so serious - that Clinton gets hauled through the mill and nearly loses his presidency over a sexual liaison, while Bush gets off scot-free with unnecessarily causing the deaths of over 100,000 people.

Proof that the American voters (or at least 50% of them) have their priorities up their arses.....

Before I'm flamed for that, let me just say that we could have similar proof in this country by next weekend if the totally inept and incompetent FF/PD coalition (or are they, considering their policies suit powerful vested interests ?) get back into power.

PhonyDoctor

Liam Byrne wrote:

The attack on the WTC has no bearing on the invasion of Iraq. It was merely used as an excuse.

Actually, it wasn't. Bush had stated long before that Iraq was not responsible for 9-11.

The reason for going into Iraq had to do with the fear that Iraq was developing WMDs - something most politicians of both American political parties believed, as did most intelligence agencies.

I'm not trying to justify the invasion - merely to correct a misperception.