Friday, November 4, 2011

Sit Down, Forty-Two ... You Are No Longer President

So somebody else has written a book.

This time, it's the Big Dog, himself, and - surprise surprise - just cutting into the Christmas shopping season. Expect to see him everywhere in addition to the everywhere you've been seeing him for the past three years.

I thought old Presidents didn't die right away. Like General MacArthur, they're expected to fade into the background and say nothing, absolutely nothing about their successor that could be construed as criticism.

I find it downright baffling that Bill Clinton didn't open his mouth publically on one occasion to criticize or comment on George W Bush's presidency, whilst he's all over the place offering "advice" and saying what "he'd do" were he in Barack Obama's position.

Thing is, he's not.

He's served his time, now he should be enjoying his retirement.

I don't entirely blame Clinton. The media share equal condemnation, and I have to say, it's racial. Every time President Obama does something or says something, the media, especially MSNBC, adopt a WWCD* (*What-Would-Clinton-Do*) moment. Honestly, George H W Bush didn't comment at all on George W Bush's presidency, and he was Dubya's father.

Well, after offering up what he would have done last summer during the Debt Crisis (read: Clinton would have invoked the 14th Amendment and hoped the Congress wouldn't have impeached him), he's now written a book, Back to Work: Why We Need Government for a Strong Economy, he has some further words to say about that episode via that gossip-ridden rag Politico:-

Clinton says the deficit deal that was finally reached between Obama and congressional Republicans didn’t do much to grow the economy or solve the country’s debt problem, and he notes that Obama should have raised the debt limit when Democrats controlled the House, the AP said.
The former president partly blames the anti-government sentiment of the tea party for the weak economy, but also writes that the Obama administration should have made a stronger case for some of the earlier decisions the president made, like the stimulus and bank and auto industry bailouts, the wire says.


That's pure bullshit.

First of all, the President offered an early vote on the debt ceiling crisis, after the Bush tax cut compromise had been effected; but the big blue babies on the Hill were pouting and preening so much that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, declined to bring the debt ceiing rise to a vote, even when their party held the Senate and the House. Reid wanted the vote to occur on schedule, with the GOP controlling the House, in an effort to prove they were serious about governing.

So blame Reid and Pelosi for that one.

Secondly, Bill, the bank bailout, TARP, is owned by Bush and Hank Paulsen. Oh, and the auto industry is doing just fine, thank you very much. Just ask GM.

And as for the stimulus, Mr Clinton, you'll recall that the President wanted a bi-partisan package, with support from the GOP. He didn't want it, he needed it. At the time the stimulus was voted upon, the numerical situation in the Senate (for cloture purposes) was thus:-

On a healthy day, there should have been 57 Democrats in the Senate plus 2 independents who caucused with the Dems. On a healthy day, they'd have needed one Republican to cross the aisle. However, on that day, Ted Kennedy was ill and Al Franken had yet to be confirmed. They needed three Republican votes for cloture - hence, the Maine women and Arlen Specter, and Specter later returned to the Democratic party. Therefore, the stimulus package had to be negotiated down, in order to bring the three Red Staters on board.

Besides, Bill Clinton's book's title is a bit of an oxmoron, considering part of his Second Inaugural address was to announce that the era of big government was over.

Bill seriously needs to get over the fact that Hillary lost, and the man who's taking on this absolute earthquake economy, amongst other things, is someone whom Bill described to Ted Kennedy in Gamechange as "someone who ought to be bringing us drinks."

Can someone please tell me why, throughout Hillary's 2008 campaign, whenever I thought of her winning the election, this image flashed across my mind{-


That's right ... George and Lurleen.

1 comment:

  1. Is it possible that Bill is jealous because he was "the first Black president"?

    ReplyDelete