What do you think is the most detrimental legacy of the Clinton administration?

[Toucano]

This is not intended to be a Clinton bashing thread. I have a lot of affection for Mr. Clinton, and overall, think his presidency was successful.

However, there are some things that have affected many or all of us in a negative way.

For me, I think NAFTA may be the worst.


What do you think?

[mike_c]

1. 500,000 dead Iraqi children comes to mind....

About a million dead Iraqis altogether, more-or-less. Giving away the economy to global corporatists is bad, but war crimes somehow seems worse, you know?

[NoPasaran]

12. That blood is on the hands of Saddam for his defiance of UN sanctions

The American Left demonstrates why it continues to be politically irrelevant by its continuing apologies for the Iraqi dictator.

[mike_c]

14. whatever....

http://www.counterpunch.org/tinycoffins.html

Back in 1996, when the number of Iraqi children killed off by sanctions stood at around half a million, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made her infamous declaration to Lesley Stahl on CBS that "we think the price is worth it". Given such pride in mass murder at the top, it comes as little surprise to learn that the State Department views the truth about the vicious sanctions policy with the same insouciance as their boss regards the lives of Iraqi children, now dying at the rate of four thousand a month.

"Saddam Hussein's Iraq", released by the State Department on September 13, is an effort to persuade an increasingly disgusted world that any and all human misery in Iraq is the sole fault and responsibility of the Beast of Baghdad. The brazen tone of this sorry piece of propaganda can be assessed from the opening summary: "The international community, not the regime of Saddam Hussein, is working to relieve the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis." An examination of how the sanctions system actually works tells a very different story.

more@link

You'll be wanting this, I think....

[joeybee12]

31. Wow, a link to a really, really, legitimate site!

:sarcasm:

[mike_c]

32. how about hearing from Albright's own mouth...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4&feature=player_embedded

Why attack the source when you know it to be correct? Propagandize much?


Oh, and here's Bill Richardson saying the same thing AGAIN in 2005:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S1YkQs5nXQ&feature=player_embedded

[JackRiddler]

51. Did Albright make that statement or not?

You can find it on several hundred other sites, including video of her saying it.

[jonnyblitz]

70. despite what DU wingnuts say, there is NOTHING wrong with

that site.

[wuushew]

17. Can you explain why sanctions were even appropriate?

Iraq was decisively beaten in a military conflict with the United States and ejected from Kuwait. For whose interests were sanctions being leveled?

[JackRiddler]

52. Furthermore, Iraq cooperated (reluctantly) with the UN disarmament team...

until all of their WMD industries were dismantled and at least 95% of the weapons had been located and destroyed, with the 5% being a maximum estimate of stuff the Iraqis themselves could no longer locate after the war. This work was complete by 1996.

[Whisp]

67. to soften Iraq up even more for Boosh the Second to come in.

it was played that way, you bet your hairy ass it was. Bush 1 tossed the baton to Clinton then Clinton to the Mass Murderer. fuck em, rot in hell I hope they do.

[intheflow]

25. "The American Left"?

You speak as if that doesn't include you.

[G_j]

30. sounds that way.. nt

[Toucano]

16. In the international arena, I would say the Rwanda events and inaction would be the worst.

Thank you for contributing to the dialogue.

[Hippo_Tron]

50. Had the sanctions been lifted, President Dole would've just re-instated them

There are some things the President absolutely has to do in order to win re-election and by the time Clinton came to office, Saddam Hussein had been so vilified by the media that continuing the sanctions was probably one of them.

[mike_c]

61. so you're ready to excuse the murder of half a million children...

...so that a democrat would be elected president in the United States? I don't quite know how to respond to that.

Holy shit. I suppose there's a silver lining to everything. At least you, Madeline Albright, and Bill Clinton are in complete agreement: "We think it is worth it."

[Hippo_Tron]

63. You missed the part about President Dole re-instating them upon taking office

The half a million children would've died regardless.

[invictus]

62. +1

[Jackpine Radical]

2. All of the above.

Which hole sank the boat?

[prairierose]

23. I'm going to have to agree with you...

and there were a few other corporatist initiatives that added to the mess...Communications "reform" in 1996 for instance.

[intheflow]

26. I voted "other" because they were all horrible.

Clinton was never a hero to me.

[Umbral]

75. Agreed, and add the DMCA to the list too. nt

[FLAprogressive]

3. All of the above -- he's just as bad as any Republican.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. you may be right. But Glass Siegal stands tall, perhaps taller than the rest

it gave Wall Street an unregulated license to steal.

[intheflow]

27. And NAFTA took our jobs,

and welfare reform left us without a social safety net after Wall St. stole from us. Hard to single out just one as worse as the rest.

[stray cat]

8. Any republican? Another vote that Al Gore = George W Bush.

do you really think Bill or Al would have been no better than W or Sarah Palin?

[FLAprogressive]

10. kind of a moot point.

[intheflow]

28. Al would have been ok, but his choice to run with Lieberman

showed very poor judgement.

[Toucano]

5. Maybe there's a cumulative affect of some of these policies. n-t

[SOS]

6. This gem led directly to our economic meltdown:

Commodity Futures Modernization Act

Legalized bucket shops which had been illegal since 1907.
A disaster.

But I voted for Glass Steagall as it's in the same ballpark.

[blm]

7. Deepsixing BCCI report and its outstanding matters to protect GHWBush making Bush2 possible

and leading, also, to the events of 9-11.

Everything else is PERIPHERAL.

No Republican would have gained any traction in the 90s if Clinton had sided with accountability - fer chrissakes, Bush and his cronies were at their most vulnerable, at their most exposed and completely cornered by Jan 1993.

[Individualist]

9. All of the above

[Sebastian Doyle]

11. All of the above, plus the Rupert Murdoch/Clear Channel Enabling Act of 1996

That contributed to the Chimp fraud of 2000 and all the frauds perpetrated by the Chimp while illegally in office.

[damntexdem]

13. Chose NAFTA, but it's really 'most of the above.'

I don't have strong feelings on most-favored nation status for China.

[Cerridwen]

15. Triangulation and paddling to the right which helped create all of the above.

I actually remember a time when the Democratic Party was touted as the "working man's" party (later updated to include women).

Heading off toward business dollars and business concerns rather that people's concerns has played hell in people's lives.

[Toucano]

18. ****Follow-up Question****

Which of the things discussed in this thread has Obama initiated a reversal of?

(I realize it is early in his term)

[Lilith Velkor]

40. None to my knowledge.

[kenny blankenship]

19. His Presidency was just part of the continuum set in motion by the Reagan Revolution

Not as intentionally bad perhaps as what came before or after, but not really different in kind. (the poll options especially the first 2 confirm this beyond reasonable debate.) So far, the same can be said of the Presidency of Barack Obama. The Reagan Revolution rolls on -- 'til?

[Brickbat]

20. I put NAFTA, but agree with "all of the above."

[MilesColtrane]

21. Rwanda

U.S. chose to ignore Rwandan genocide

[Posteritatis]

34. Yep, this is the big one in my book. (nt)

[Sinti]

22. Other

The same thing every other president has done in my lifetime. Continued to allow our national interests to be sidelined in favor of the interests of the international resource monopolies, and the multinational businesses. No one ever does this, though. I have a feeling if you do you are removed from the job by any means necessary.

Still love Bill, though. I'd vote for him again. Nobody's perfect, but for me Bill was a whole lot better. Some of his cabinet OTOH...

FWIW, doesn't it seem like sanctions are what they do before they decide to go in and take the resources of a country for their own? The effect economic sanctions have are to starve the people. Tyrants don't give a damn, they'll be well fed, it's the poor who suffer. Anyone who says sanctions work is lying, or horribly misinformed.

[Toucano]

24. I read something interesting about sanctions the other day.

It might be important, considering the talk of sanctioning Iran. It is old, but insightful.

http://www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/sanctions-summary.cfm#start

[mike_c]

33. the interesting thing is that even though sanctions fail 3 out of 4 times...

...the U.S. and Britain pursued their obviously failing sanctions against Iraq until more than a million innocent civilians starved or died of disease, and continued them until Bush invaded in advance of weapons inspectors certifying that Iraq did not possess WMDs, which we all know to the the case now. It's clear that the actual objective was to destroy Iraqi infrastructure and kill as many people as possible-- any other objective makes no sense, and indeed no other objective was ever achieved. Personally, I'd say the sanctions against Iraq were a resounding success-- most Americans just don't want to talk about what they were so successful at achieving.

[Sinti]

37. Thanks, looks like an interesting site in general.

I think this point is an important one.

The sender and target are friendly toward one another and conduct substantial trade (the sender accounted for 28 percent of the average target's trade in success cases but only 19 percent in failures).

Sanctions in a friendly environment, where much trade goes on between the two nations, is more like a negotiation point rather than some weird retaliation - which is what it looks like all too often, to me. Retaliation that kills civilian populations, especially children looks like "collective punishment" to me - but I'm a pacifist, so I think different.

How can they threaten to sanction Iran when Halliburton just won a contract there to build something. I saw this in the news, apparently Halliburton had the best bid. Just like the Iraq sanctions, if they're done, they will kill civilians and do nothing to the standing regime.

Don't you think multi-party talks, bringing many players in the region together to discuss their common goals would be infinitely more productive. Friends of your target could twist arms to get people to behave and speak in a more civilized fashion, if you were to start out from an honest place, IMO.

Everyone has people at home in their country that suffer if you fail to be civilized. This is the intent of the sanctions - I believe there are much better diplomatic tools. From different angles you might reach a man, I think, without such sharp tools.

Then again, people are much easier to understand than politics - the politics adds so many factors.

[Toucano]

44. I think sanctions cannot be considered a diplomatic tool.

I am happy the U.S. has opened direct talks with Iran.

Isn't it interesting that according to that study, sanctions work better if the sender and recipient are allies?

[Sinti]

64. It makes sense, though, doesn't it.

If you're allies the assumption is that you have common goals. When someone pressures you into something, while sharing a common goal with you, you're much more likely to try to see their point of view and compromise.

[Toucano]

71. It does indeed.

[loudsue]

29. Giving credibility to the DLC. n/t

Other than that, NAFTA was what all the new rich in this country wanted, and he gave it to them.

[librechik]

35. Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Brought us RW talk radio and Fox News.

[bvar22]

41. I was going to add that one too (Telecommunications Act 1996)

I voted for NAFTA, but really all of the above could apply AFIC.

The War on Drugs imprisoned 2 MILLION more Americans, many going to the new Private For Profit Prison System.

The drive to Privatize and Deregulate everything gained speed and momentum.

Not a good administration for Americans who Work for a Living, but the Corporate Overlords popped a lot of champaign corks.

[Canuckistanian]

58. That's the one

It didn't specifically bring Fox, but it allowed unprecedented media concentration, controlled by a very few.

That loss of media diversity has devastated America.

Ironically, Clinton handed over control of the airwaves to his most virulent enemies. And poisoned the well for alternative voices.

Next to campaign reform, the 1996 Telco Act needs to be repealed.

[LondonReign2]

78. Yep, Telecom Act of 1996

n/t

[calimary]

36. I hate to be crass and Walmart-mentality, but I'd say "Monica."

Yes, it's WAY less significant all across the board. Yes, those other issues are WAY more important and critical to people's LIVES. Yes to all of that!

But people were obsessed with Monica Lewinsky. Sex sells and this sure did, for more than a year. Hell, in some respects it's STILL selling. And therein lies the problem. That's what makes the whole Monica business so damaging, longterm.

It goes back to public perception and the manipulation thereof. Unfortunately, public perception CAN be managed and manipulated. Bullshit does baffle. Our side can have all the issues and all the research and all the background and we'll lose every time to someone who can craft a different message that baffles or dissuades, or even frustrates (annoys) the voter - someone who can manipulate the public perception better.

What the Monica thing did was create a huge, cold, wet, heavy, scratchy, bad-smelling, bug-eaten, larvae-filled blanket that dropped over Clinton and everything that involved his side, ie: the Democrats. It laid a gigantic, bright red negative over him and those of us who'd supported him or thought like he did or voiced similar ideas and opinions. It gave observers AND ESPECIALLY critics and opponents more ammo. More entitlement to sneer and snicker and cluck and gloat and roll their eyeballs and quote ronald reagan "there you go again!" Which automatically and subconsciously unleashes the avalanche of negative feelings toward what everyone's been programmed to think about our side since the early '80's: that liberals are bad, naive, stupid, foolish, irrational, tree-hugging, baby-killing, America-hating terrorists. Granted the last three words are fairly recent additions, given the circumstances that were ripe for exploitation over the last eight years. The Monica business only aggravated all of that. Hung Christmas tree lights all over it and flew it around in front of all the TV cameras so it was unescapable anywhere.

It just reinforced all the things that far too many gullible Americans have been trained to hate.

AND, because it's sex, it's gonna be fun to talk about and titter about - for-evv-ver. There are thousands of ways to keep it in the front of the public mind. Every time ANY politician, Democrat or republi-CON, is caught in the wrong bed, there is the inevitable montage and commentary about all the other politicians who've done so. And the BIGGEST OF THEM ALL is Bill Clinton. He's the star on top of the Christmas tree. The leader of the pack. The cherry on top of the sundae. The biggest name on the marquee. And then, everybody gets reminded about all those bad things. The sex and then the lying and the haranguing and waste of time and money all through Congress and the negative feelings that immediately pop up in reaction - to oneself - for being so low-life as to be interested in this tawdry, lurid crap. Negativity all around, of every sort imaginable, AND it's associated DIRECTLY with Clinton, and by extension, the rest of us Dems and liberals and progressives.

Because THEN, thus softened up, the properly conditioned mindset can move onward through the rest of the litany of the REALLY SERIOUS issues - like NAFTA, the ridiculous handling of gays in the military, the compromises with the bad guys on taxes and welfare, the whole argument about the so-called "third way" of the accursed DLC, the betrayal of the true liberal/progressive agenda, ALL of it. ALL THE REST of it.

Just remember the human nature calculus here - too many Americans have the donald rumsfeld mentality - "go wide, sweep it all up." Remember that infamous statement immediately after 9/11 when they were looking for ANYTHING to hang it on?

Another complication of that annoying obsession on the Monica affair is how it dilutes public opinion against us. Seeing that newsreel of any sexual bad boy in Washington DC, which inevitably includes the star of our show, Bill Clinton, just reduces him as any sort of distinguished figure of POSITIVE note. It further reinforces the pervasive attitude of "see? They ALL do it. They're ALL guilty. Both sides. One's no better than any of the others." What THAT turns into is a diminished commitment to one side (OURS), diminished activism, more throw-up-your-hands-and-a-pox-on-both-your-houses detachment, apathy, frustration, and less enthusiasm for our ENTIRE side of things. Everything we believe in and keep working toward.

And we just saw, yet again last night, what a difference it makes when one side is feeling that diminishment, that apathy, that lack of enthusiasm, while the opponents were All Fired Up.

The Monica affair rendered Clinton a late-night comedians' joke, and the rest of us less able to advance our agenda as Dems because we look bad and reckless and irresponsible (the "fish rots from the head" thing) since we're on his team. It puts us on the defensive and gives the enemy more ammo to use against us to demean and diminish our side in the media and the public's view. We look ethically compromised so we're not as effective in standing for the things we do. And we look trivial because - well, all this fuss about cigars and a stained blue dress, those "hot-pants" liberals, can't keep it zipped up, what a cad - tsk-tsk-tsk. JUST the thing when your opponents are the most sanctimonious, judgmental, narrow-minded, holier-than-thou priss-ants on the planet. Nothing like feeding THEIR God-anointed superiority complexes, 'eh?

It's psychology and human nature and group-think and perception management and manipulation and all that crazy stuff. The whole Monica business just gave SUCH a black-eye, in general, overriding, pervasive, visceral. Down in the gut. Instinctive. You feel it before you realize it and have time to process it consciously. It's already there. The point's already been made. The game has already been one. You're trained to go there automatically because the visceral lever was thrown. The Monica mess just fucked EVERYTHING over. Made EVERYTHING worse. Made our case all the more difficult to defend. Gave us all a kick in the teeth. It hobbled our ability to advance our agenda, while piling on embarrassment that makes ANY Democrat, even the most ardent Clinton admirer, cringe and want to run from the room and hide. That, in turn, disables us as far as being able, willing, or enthusiastic, about making a strong case for our agenda.

That's why I think it's the over-arching detrimental legacy. Even with the issues that happened before Monica - that we all still have to advocate for and defend - it just didn't help. It left us on the defensive. And opponents have been able to spread that around, so that it's not just Mr. Sex-Addict that's the problem, it's everything he stands for. And since we're on his team, it's automatically presumed that we're part of that too. By the time it happened in his administration, there wasn't a lot of time left, and I think the fight may have gone out of him. Certainly did with a lot of us. And it left us with that millstone around our necks after he left the center stage and we still had to stay in the chorus. It wasn't his problem anymore because he really didn't count anymore. But we did and it's still our problem because it's still OUR agenda that needs protecting and defending, and his fucking around damaged US. And every damn time some david vitter or john ensign or larry craig or mark sanford blunders onto the headlines, "roll the video!" and here again will be everybody's sexcapades and the biggest offender of all - hey, let's bring back the Grand Wazoo of the Naughty Schlong Hall of Fame - Biiiiiiiiiiiiilllll CLINTON!!!! And we'll just cringe and have to endure that resurrected ordeal of humiliation and diminishment - yet again. Back on defense - yet again.

[TroglodyteScholar]

59. Sorry I didn't read your post...

...but there's nothing that can back up your ridiculous opinion.

[calimary]

80. Aw thanks. I did read your post.

And it's VERY clear that you didn't read mine.

Peace.

[Greyhound]

65. 5 of the 6 options were done before anyone ever heard of Monica. n/t

[calimary]

79. Yes. And I stated that. My point was that the whole Lewinsky mess just put the

so-called cherry on the top of the everything. Because it's cheap and tawdry and Enquirer/NYPost-mentality stuff, whether we like it or agree with it or not, it will dominate. It will capture the checkout line and watercooler mentality every time. And it casts a pall on all things Clinton - forever more, only giving more ammo to those who hate him and wish to demean and diminish everything about him. Everything he did before, and everything he'll ever do in the future.

[montanto]

38. I had to go NAFTA because he was all in before election.

[Lilith Velkor]

39. Welfare Deform + escalating the drug war

[HughMoran]

42. Was Clinton active in the "Repeal of Glass-Steagall Act"?

I thought his role in that was passive - in that he should have vetoed it instead of signing it...

[Toucano]

43. I can't consider signing a bill into law a passive act.

A bill can be allowed to be come law without the president's signature. That would be passive.

[JackRiddler]

54. Rubin and Summers advocated banking deregulation.

Signing a law is an act.

[mb7588a]

45. Rwanda, failed health care reform effort that led to '94 Repub. "Revolution." nt

[upi402]

46. NAFTA #1, GATT and Telecom Act are tied with it in my mind though

:mad:

[WillieW]

47. Monica!

[Kievan Rus]

48. "Free trade" in general

[Kaleva]

49. His wandering penis

He should have kept his powder dry and he would have been able to concentrate his and his administrations efforts on the more important stuff.

[JackRiddler]

55. The least of it by a light-year.

He failed to utter the most important sentence he could have said: "Speculations concerning my private life are none of your concern and have no bearing on the nation's government." He should have told America and its press to grow the fuck up. Instead he fed the frenzy with a lie he could never get away with.

[Kaleva]

56. The cover up is usually more problematic then the offense.

[JackRiddler]

60. The "offense" in that case was no one's concern but his family's.

That was a coup d'etat attempt by the Republicans, who are always and only about taking power by whatever means are available. Now they're crazier, have the Democrats learned to defend themselves?

[calimary]

81. Yep. It was just something that put the icing on the cake for a lot of people, including

many who'd supported him and stood by him and believed in him and trusted him and weathered the various other things he did or moves he made that they/we disagreed with - because many wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. And he just let his personal idiocy run over everything and cast a big fat embarrassing shadow over it all. For many Americans he trashed his own legacy then and there. I know too many people who just gave up on him and threw their hands up and wouldn't, or couldn't defend him anymore after that.

[JackRiddler]

53. Deciding not to investigate the financial crimes and covert wars of the Bush government.

The original sin that Obama so far has decided to repeat.

[Midwestern Democrat]

57. NAFTA was the most blatant betrayal - Clinton actually had to WORK

really, really hard to get that through a hostile Democratic House of Representatives - and this wasn't even a politically popular pander (like Welfare Reform), he actually - with full awareness - took a political hit to get NAFTA passed.

[saltpoint]

66. This is an interesting on-mike/off-mike assessment:

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/11/us/brinkley-offers-apology-clinton-accepts.html


Many Democrats disliked and ultimately did not trust Clinton's impulse to blur the distinctions between the two parties' central tenets.

Mario Cuomo would have been a breath-taking nominee in the general election and might have preserved those long-standing distinctions. Cuomo's plane was fueling on the tarmac the night before the deadline to file in the New Hampshire primary. A phone call between Clinton and Cuomo later, and Cuomo went out to pay and thank the pilot for his time and trouble, and to announce that the flight would not be undertaken after all.

IMO it represented the greatest lost opportunity in Democratic Party politics of my lifetime.

[depakid]

68. Media deregulation and the Telecommunications Bill

[charlie]

69. Giving the "Progressive" patina to Republican Lite me-too-ism

He was a DLC good ol' boy. And Jimmy Carter was considered a CONSERVATIVE Democrat in his day. Look at the both of them now, they're regarded as bomb-throwing Marxists.

There's a simple lesson in there Democrats have refused to recognize for decades. Accomodating, splitting the difference with a party of deranged malcontents gets you boned. And it resets the political "center" toward the realm of Coulter and Hannity. And beyond. There was once a time when current GOP/Fox insanity was street corner Bircherism, something given wide berth because it was insane.

Carter, as stolidly "centrist" as he was, didn't lose sight of the fact that the GOP was the haven for the country's worst instincts. Clinton, on the other hand, acted as if sensibility existed midway between the two. Clinton was an idiot.

You want the worst? The worst was hearing psychotic Republicans lament, "he's stealing our issues!" and knowing our sharpest, most naturally gifted pol had punted again. Needlessly.

[Nikki Stone1]

72. Rahm Emmanuel

...

[Orwellian_Ghost]

73. Iraq Sanctions

Denis Halliday: Iraq Sanctions Are Genocide

...

“What I’m working on now is trying to get other governments … to put pressure on Washington to change its policy” before Clinton leaves office in January 2001, he said. “In much of the world there is outrage amongst parliamentarians over the continuation of economic sanctions.”

He believes that these anti-sanctions parliamentarians could reinforce the position of the 70 “courageous” US congressmen who have taken a stand against the blockade. These lawmakers understand, he said, that the “human calamity” caused by sanctions “isn’t serving the best interests of the US or Europe.”

In his opinion, the UN will never again be able to impose the sort of “illegal” sanctions Iraq has endured for the past 10 years. “What is happening in Iraq is a complete breach of international humanitarian law,” he stated. It amounts to “punishing a people in order to get at their ruler.”

Indeed, he believes that the sanctions provisions in the UN Charter will have to be “rewritten” so that no other population is ever targeted in the way the people of Iraq have. He defines the Iraqi sanctions as “genocide” because “if you look at the convention on genocide, it requires intent.”

To sum up his thinking: since the Security Council, under US/UK pressure, persists with sanctions knowing what impact the embargo is having on the Iraqi populace, one cannot but conclude that the council is responsible for the murder of 7,000 Iraqis a month, 5,000 of them children under the age of five.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/views/070700-103.htm

[Echo In Light]

77. Thanks for providing that

[Odin2005]

74. China getting MFN status.

NAFTA is peanuts compared to that. NAFTA didn't actually hurt us all that much, it was sucking up to China that screwed us over.

[Iggo]

76. Other: Clinton-bashing.