Bill Clinton, activist????

[karynnj]

Clinton has a good sense of what issues resonate politically. That he is wting a book, to be done in 2008, about public service and political activism shows that this is likely an excellent thing to be speaking about. Clinton has been an establishment politician since his 20s - he had nothing to do with any activist movement ever. (maybe he joined the rest of his generation on VN).

So, the good news is the "best political strategist of our generation" is copying Kerry. The second piece of good news is that no one but Kerry can give the personal speeches on this and other related issues that he has and be believable, least of all the Clintons. The bad news is Clinton putting out on election year book on activism - it will not surprise me if he covers the activism of his generation ignoring Kerry in the VN chapter.

One would think this person who is now speaking of public service and activism would have not ignored building Democrat grassroots and let the local parties decay during his presidency. He might also have been more involved between 2000 and 2004.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2632558

[wisteria]

1. I agree with everything you said.

I have felt since the 2000 elections and even more so since the 2004 that grass roots activism is the only way to reach the people. We may have been able to reach more people and let them know the truth about Kerry if we had a good grass roots organization set up. It may have gained us enough votes to win the election. I remain disappointed in Clinton over his dismantling of the Democratic structure.

[ray of light]

2. 2004 he had a major heart surgery.

He was not able to campaign for Kerry and after his recovery he did go out and stump for Kerry. In 2000 he was a complete pariah. I don't know if the internet was as powerful back then. And certainly, most people never even considered becoming grassroots activist until after the 2000 stolen election.

However, I'm not understanding why you think Kerry would be left off. And I wonder how much credibility Clinton would have if he did attempt to talk about it.

[blm]

3. I think she's referring to Clinton's book, MY LIFE, where he talked about

the efforts to normalize relations with Vietnam which was an extraordinarily difficult issue that Kerry took the lead on. McCain, in his biography said it couldn't have happened without Kerry and his calm and deliberate approach and that Kerry kept McCain from breaking down several times.

Clinton barely acknowledged Kerry's work while heaping praise on himself and McCain. Everyone who knew what went on scratched their heads at the disconnect from the truth. And Clinton's book came out AFTER Kerry was the known nominee - that part of his book deserved to have the TRUTH be told.

[JohnKleeb]

4. That's the same issue that Webb criticized Kerry for

I don't mind that he has an issue with it but what I do is that he would reap praise on McCain in an op-ed he wrote in 2000 and not do the same criticism. That doesn't surprise me that Clinton wouldn't give Kerry his due credit. I really don't have a huge problem that Clinton was a moderate president but what I do was that he was too full of himself.

[karynnj]

5. and the release date was June 2004

and he wouldn't delay it until after the election - this stole TV time that Kerry and Edwards likely would have had to define themselves.

The nature of the references to Kerry were that when Clinton wrote pages on the importance of opening VN and closing this issue, he had one sentence where he said he was fortunate to have the support of all the Senate VN Vets. He then listed them as "McCain, Kerrey, Kerry ....." Kerry spent years on this, it was a task that was painful to do, was thought to be a loser, but Kerry did it anyway. Even if Kerry wasn't the nominee, Kerry's role should have merited a paragraph or two. You could never say of Clinton what Biden said of Kerry, that he always gives credit where it was due.

At minimum, Clinton in April, when Kerry clinched the nomination, could have added a few paragraphs or at minimum, put the chairman of the committee and the man who made the case to him to do it first. He was still making edits at that time.