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bill clinton
made page one of Al Jazeera today. A schizophrenic
mix of schadenfreude and agitprop, it was the story
of an impeached ex-president of America trashing
America--to standing Os--in the Arab state of
Dubai--in the middle of a war zone--only several
hundred miles from the American troops. And, to rub
it in, the traitor pocketed no less than $200,000
from the enemy for his troubles. (The Nobel
committee, sufficiently mollified only after 24
years of the peanut president's America-bashing,
awarded Carter his 1978 Peace Prize finally
in 2002.) Meanwhile,
back in the Senate, the missus, the other half of
the clinton construct, maintains her hawkish pose
(although not without bird
problems
of another sort). Yet another
example of the clinton conflation ploy,
(see
SCHEMA
PINOCCHIO: how the clintons are handling the
hillary dud factor),
this variant allows "clinton, the construct" to
hold two mutually exclusive positions
simultaneously, thereby enabling the missus to
avoid in '08 the trap that repeatedly
ensnared the ever 'nuanced' Kerry in
'04.
Do you now
understand how stupid the clintons think you
are? This
legacy confab
is in and of itself proof certain of
clinton's deeply flawed character, and a
demonstration in real time of the way in
which the clinton years were about a
legacy that was incidentally a presidency.
Madeleine
Albright captured the essence of this
dysfunctional presidency best when she
explained why clinton couldn't go after
bin Laden. According
to Richard Miniter, the Albright
revelation occurred at the cabinet meeting
that would decide the disposition of the
USS Cole bombing by al Qaeda [that is
to say, that would decide to do
what
it had always done when a "bimbo" was not
spilling the beans on the clintons:
Nothing].
Only Clarke wanted to retaliate militarily
for this unambiguous act of war.
Albright
explained that a [sham] Mideast
accord would yield [if not peace for
the principals, surely] a Nobel Peace
Prize for clinton. Kill or capture bin
Laden and clinton could kiss the 'accord'
and the Peace Prize good-bye. If
clinton liberalism, smallness, cowardice,
corruption, perfidy--and, to borrow a
phrase from Andrew Cuomo, clinton
cluelessness--played a part, it was, in
the end, the Nobel Peace Prize that
produced the puerile pertinacity that
enabled the clintons to shrug off
terrorism's global danger. C-SPAN
asked noted presidential historians to
rank the American presidents1
along the following ten dimensions: public
persuasion, crisis leadership, economic
management, moral authority, international
relations, administrative skills,
relations with congress, vision/setting an
agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and
performance within context of
times. bill
clinton emerged as middling in most
dimensions; he was surpassed in others by
a settled mediocrity (Carter) and a
putative failure (Nixon). In moral
authority, bill clinton was rated dead
last.2 He did fairly well in
public persuasion, not a surprising
finding given the volume of snake oil he
managed to peddle during his putative
presidency. "It's
NOT the economy,
stupid!" Clinton's
best scores were on the economic
management
and pursued
equal justice for
all
dimensions. However, both of these results
are meaningful only insofar as they
redound to the moral authority dimension:
they are wholly based on clinton
fraudulence, cooked
books
and black
poses,
respectively; and clinton's
shameless Rosa Parks
eulogy
last week assured us that the insidious
brand of clinton racism is alive and well
during these tiptoe years of what the
clintons hope will be their
interregnum. Note
that although Brinkley doesn't place much
importance on the economic management
dimension--he argues that the economy
variable is not durable over time--he
fails to recognize that the evaluation of
the clinton economy by the historians is
erroneous to begin with. Note
also that C-SPAN
historians found no evidence of clinton
"greatness" irrespective of his
moral-authority
deficit,
contrary
to Douglas Brinkley's claim made at the
clinton revisionist
confab3.
(NOTE:
My later research has revealed that
Brinkley's qualified mention of clinton
"greatness" was not a claim but rather a
polite guest's white lie about an abject
loser. Instead of taking the AP report at
face value, one must carefully parse
Brinkley's actual words and especially
note the subjunctive construction.) MIDDLING If
9/11 taught us
anything,
it is that presidential character and
moral authority count, and count
most.4 If the variables are
properly weighted, bill clinton will
always come out dead last. That
is, unless Americans are dumb enough to
make the same mistake twice. Mia
T, 11.10.05 COPYRIGHT
MIA T 2004
by Mia T, 11.17.05
id
you see it?
More to the point, did the American press?
Having
failed to snare the Nobel Peace Prize
by
ignoring terrorism,
clinton has apparently decided to intensify his
America-bashing on foreign soil, the method
employed by Jimmy Carter to great (if somewhat
belated) effect.
h
e a
r
--c
l i n t o
n
--l
o s
e
--i
t
by Mia T,
11.11.05
READ
MORE
Twenty
presidents rank higher than bill clinton
and 20 rank lower. But this placement
assumes equal weight for each of the
dimensions. And therein lies the
flaw.
Historian
massages clinton numbers, ego + legacy at
revisionist
confab
C-SPAN
historians find no clinton "greatness"
irrespective of moral-authority
deficit
by
Mia T, 11.14.05
(viewing
movie requires Flash Player 7, available
HERE)
COPYRIGHT MIA T
2006