To know Clinton is, sooner or later, to be exasperated by his indiscipline and disappointed by his shortcomings. But through it all, it has been easy enough to retain an enduring admiration—even affection—for a president whose sins against decorum and the dignity of his office seemed venial in contrast to the systemic indifference, incompetence, corruption, and constitutional predations of his successor’s administration. That is, easy enough until now.This winter, as Clinton moved with seeming abandon to stain his wife’s presidential campaign in the name of saving it, as disclosures about his dubious associates piled up, as his refusal to disclose the names of donors to his presidential library and foundation and his and his wife’s reluctance to release their income-tax returns created crippling and completely avoidable distractions for Hillary Clinton’s own long-suffering ambition, I found myself asking again and again, What’s the matter with him?
To read this long catalogue of the myriad disgraceful ways Clinton has carried on since he left the presidency is to be thankful to Barack Obama, whatever else he does, for sparing us the return of those people and their dramas to the White House.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Dick Cheney as the Anti-Christ? Finally, a believable candidate. He'll be like that old SNL routine about Buckwheat and Alfalfa. "Dick the Anti-Christ? Sure, I'm certain of it. It's all he ever talked about. It's him, no doubt!"
Thank you, Marian. Finally I know how to spell "wholly." I'm always getting that one wrong.
Seriously, small plane crashes are unfortunately all too common. Wellstone was considering a run for the Presidency, but I don't think he had any chance of winning. And I don't believe Republicans in Minnesota are capable of murder. This is Minnesota we are talking about. My mother's home state.
I know the stats on small plane crashes, but I do think it's odd that so many Dem politicians get killed in them. Do Republicans mostly fly regular airlines? Or do they just use better pilots?
Perhaps they use better pilots, I don't know. But my conservative friends were fans of Wellstone. In fact they viewed him as a very good-hearted man. It is ironic that Wellstone was contemplating repeating the famous "poverty tour" that RFK took and that Wellstone died soon thereafter. But, I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories either.
And there was at least one other thing Reagan should have been investigated for and wasn't..the Iran hostage crisis release.
Simon
David, unfortunately, retailing this claim has become standard fare on the far left lunatic fringe (and by Lyndon LaRouche). It is pure fiction, fed by conspiracy theorist Gary Sick, and you are too intelligent to be associating yourself with such nonsense.
What is pure fiction? What are you talking about? The fact that hostages were released minutes after Reagan took office? The fact that Carter's planned release of hostages in late October was somehow delayed for almost three months? I don't recall mentioning any 'theories' at all.
At least two congressional investigations into this garbage were launched by the Democratic Congress -- the "Debate-gate" investigation (into how the Reagan campaign acquired a copy of Jimmy Carter's debate prep book), and the full-blown "October Surprise Committee" set up to score political points after the aptly named Sick book was published in the early 1990s.
Both commissions, despite their highly partisan makeup and unconcealed agenda, found no basis for the allegations whatsoever. Investigations by journalists have reached the same conclusion. It's crackpot stuff, no different from CIA-killed-Kennedy or FDR-knew-about-Pear-Harbor or the Israelis-were-responsible-for-9/11.
Debate-gate had nothing to do with Iran at all.
I have no idea what you're talking about with the "October Surprise Committee". That Committee was a committee set up by Reagan to watch for Carter's planned October surprise release of hostages. It didn't investigate anything.
And you did hear me say that Reagan should have been investigated, right? Well, and this was only implied, I meant while in office, so some hypothetical investigation in the 90s doesn't really cut it.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.