Clinton Calls Impeachment Egregious Abuse

[Bruzilla]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051111/ap_on_re_us/clinton_conference_1

Clinton Calls Impeachment Egregious Abuse

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Former president Bill Clinton called Congress' impeachment of him an "egregious" abuse of the Constitution and challenged those who say history will judge him poorly because of his White House tryst with Monica Lewinsky.

Speaking at an academic conference examining his presidency here Thursday, Clinton challenged historian Douglas Brinkley's comments in a newspaper interview that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment.

"I completely disagree with that," Clinton said in his speech at Hofstra University. "You can agree with that statement, but only if you think impeachment was justified. Otherwise, it was an egregious abuse of the Constitution and law and history of our country."

"Now if you want to hold it against me that I did something wrong, that's a fair deal," he said. "If you do that, then you have a whole lot of other questions, which is how many other presidents do you have to downgrade and what are you going to do with all those Republican congressmen, you know, that had problems?"

Clinton touted what he called the achievements of his eight-year presidency, from Middle East peace initiatives to turning around the U.S. economy.

You've got to admit... he's consistent. I loved his deep analysis of the painfully obvious by saying that if you think history would view him as a great president except for the impeachment - "You can agree with that statement, but only if you think impeachment was justified. Otherwise, it was an egregious abuse of the Constitution and law and history of our country."

And what successful Middle East peace initiative did he ever have? The only one that he was associated with was the deal the Norwegians put together, and all he did was allow it to be signed at the White House. His SECSTATE, Warren Christopher, had come back and told Clinton there was no hope for a settlement and quit working on it.

 

[Larry Gude]

I agree with Clinton and here's why...

He was CIC for eight years of ineptitude that lead directly to 9/11. He was on duty for the incubation period that resulted in the global Islamofacist threat all nations, including China apparently, are now dealing with. He was the one person who could have killed it in its crib.

He is the man most responsible for the environment of corporate lying and cheating that plauged the markets into a false boom and the resultant bust that crushed the life savings of so many small, individual investors. Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, all on his tour of duty.

He is the person who accelerated the demise of domestic manufactering through NAFTA and opening relations with Vietnam and others. This wasn't soley his gig but he played a large roll in us becoming such a service oriented economy. His vaunted 18 million new jobs were almost exclusively service.
This isn't necessarily bad as much as I simply don't want to listen to Demcorats attack the GOP for loss of manufactering when their boy had such a large role in it.

He is the person who attacked individuals from Billy Dale to Kathleen Wiley to Monica to Paula and so forth, with all the abuse of power of a Nixonian nightmare yet, through his minions, spread the blame to everyone but himself and brought on a national debate as to the meaning of 'is'.

He is not noted for anything postive or Great in terms of NASA and space, nothing in terms of an energy policy, nothing in terms of Social Security and nothing in terms of domestic policy, save the paid 'volunteers' of Americorp and Newt Gingritchs welfare reform.

He is noted for presiding over the return of GOP control of the House after a 40 year dominance by Democrats. And he is noted, anethema to liberals, as the President who presided over unthinkable gains of wealth, however fraudulantly, on Wall Street.

So, this small man, this eight year record of rather un-remarkable to down right damnable serivce, was impeached for lying, for suborning perjury, for conspricay in what some say was 'just 'sex'.

Well, if we were all to agree that lying and perjury and conspiracy is just a OK for Bill Clinton, I think we can then all agree he leaves behind a legacy, a record of performance that is far more damning and embarassing than the fact that he is a man of little self control, self respect or respect for those closest to him.

Yes, in that sense, a fly was smashed with a phone book.

 

[Toxick]

He was CIC for eight years of ineptitude that lead directly to 9/11.
...
Yes, in that sense, a fly was smashed with a phone book.

:wipingawaytear:


That was beautiful.

 

[slotted]

clinton didn't lead us to 9/11

 

[vraiblonde]

clinton didn't lead us to 9/11

The

hell

he

didn't

 

[FromTexas]

Scott Bidstrup

 

[Larry Gude]

I already stated that...

clinton didn't lead us to 9/11

...when I said his inepitude lead us there, but allow me to clarify:

He sat on his fat ass and repeatedly did NOTHING (not lead) to prevent or stop the attacks. His failures, his lack of leadership, lead us to 9/11.

I mean, c'mon. Osama said so. He cited our moral decay, our irresolute leadership, our cowardice. If your enemy says it was you, it was you.

 

[Larry Gude]

To save the faithful from any READING...

Even senior Clinton officials concede that allowing bin Laden to go free was a massive mistake. "Had we been able to roll up bin Laden then, it would have made a significant difference," a "U.S. government official with responsibilities, then and now, in counterterrorism," told the Washington Post last October. "We probably never would have seen a Sept. 11." Read that sentence again: We probably never would have seen a Sept. 11. That's from someone working in the Clinton administration.

We do not, because we don't have to, make this stuff up.

 

[FromTexas]

What? The "whistleblower" saying Bush should have known about 9/11 is running as a Dem? She was there with Sheehan, too, in Texas? I find that so f'ing beautiful...

One more stake in the heart of the Democratic Party.

 

[Penn]

Vrai, from the Dick Morris article I read, a most apt statement:



Clinton was a one-thing-at-a-time president. Capable of intense focus on the issue du jour, he neglected all back burner concerns. And terror was always on the back burner.

 

[CK-1]

clinton didn't lead us to 9/11

Republicans always put the blame on Clinton.. Hight gas prices.. ooh its Clintons fault.. Katrina.. Clintons faults.. CIA Leak.. Clinton did it.. . Iraq War.. Clinton fired the first shot.. Tax Cut for the rich.. was Clinton's idea.. lol..

 

[Bustem' Down]

I'm not on one side or the other, but I think that blaming Clinton for 9/11 is an oversimplification of things. So how much did Bush do in his first year of office to stem the massive blood flow of Clinton? Osama was known about as far back as Reagan so why wasn't something done then. I don't think that there was really anything that could have been done to prevent it.

 

[Pete]

Republicans always put the blame on Clinton.. Hight gas prices.. ooh its Clintons fault.. Katrina.. Clintons faults.. CIA Leak.. Clinton did it.. . Iraq War.. Clinton fired the first shot.. Tax Cut for the rich.. was Clinton's idea.. lol..

Funny, the Dems typically fire the first shot in the blame game, then tear up when they find out they were complicite as well.

 

[vraiblonde]

Funny, the Dems typically fire the first shot in the blame game, then tear up when they find out they were complicite as well.

AND they rip the #### out of some Republican who may or may not have had anything to do with it, yet when the finger gets pointed rightfully in their direction, they cry "politics of personal destruction!"

 

[vraiblonde]

I'm currently reading, "Do As I Say... (Not As I Do)", which has been a very good read so far.

The hypocrisy is just stunning. Not that the Democrats hold the patent of hypocrisy, but that the media covers it up for them while making front page news stories out of Bill Bennett's gambling.

 

[Pete]

AND they rip the #### out of some Republican who may or may not have had anything to do with it, yet when the finger gets pointed rightfully in their direction, they cry "politics of personal destruction!"

Professional victims.

 

[SamSpade]

Funny, the Dems typically fire the first shot in the blame game, then tear up when they find out they were complicite as well.

You mean like the continual crap about "the previous twelve years of Republican administrations" I *continually* heard bellowing from Clinton's whiny mouth for the first four years of his administration?

You mean, like the whining they BOTH did in the '92 campaign, suggesting that the press had it in for them, but not the Republicans - to which Dan Quayle replied "has ANYONE seen *my* press for the last FOUR YEARS?".

You mean, like comparing Reagan to Big Brother, calling Bush a wimp (and "Doonesbury" suggesting he was - lacking his "manhood"), asking how many children Ronald killed today - all the crap thrown at them during the 80's - and how, when the press got sharp with them in '93 - they whined about how they NEVER did that kind of thing to the Republicans (I swear to God, I fell to the floor from my couch LAUGHING at that one)?

Yeah, I remember.

 

[Bustem' Down]

My whole stance is this. To both parties.

9/11 happened, get the #### over it and quit your #####ing. Nothing pisses me off more than watching both parties play a 5 year old blame game.

 

[SamSpade]

What? The "whistleblower" saying Bush should have known about 9/11 is running as a Dem? She was there with Sheehan, too, in Texas? I find that so f'ing beautiful...

One more stake in the heart of the Democratic Party.

What an idiotic approach. I can't see faulting Bush for failure to catch 9-11 before it happened. And I'll say why.....

BECAUSE WE'VE DONE THE SAME THING IN IRAQ.

Here's a thought - roll back the clock to a month before 9-11 - instead of overlooking serious intelligence regarding the 9-11 hijackers, we instead - *arrest* them. We attack the Taliban - even though at that point, they'd "never" attacked us -

And the left would be "furious" with us for having listened to such intelligence reports. We'd hear all about the gross mishandling of civil liberties for grabbing "terrorists" (as if!) for their mischief, and attacking the sovereign nation of Afghanistan. People would remind us of every death that occurred there. And it would have all been for *oil*.


Think about it-----

On one hand, Bush is faulted for NOT having heeded intelligence regarding 9-11.

On the other, Bush IS faulted for having heeded intelligence on Iraq - even though it was corroborated by Russia, France, Britain, Israel and even CHINA.

It's the same thing twice - but somehow, they're both his fault.

 

[Bruzilla]

My whole stance is this. To both parties.

9/11 happened, get the #### over it and quit your #####ing. Nothing pisses me off more than watching both parties play a 5 year old blame game.

Clinton, and George Bush Sr, should be blamed for 9/11 and here's why. Al Queera is a group that's comprised of folks who think terror and force are the means to their ends. That also means that they have a deep appreciation of terror and force, especially when it is used against them. Ronald Reagan understood that truth very well, and used it extremely effectively against Quadaffi in Libya. You blow up a bomb, I take out an airfield. You blow up a disco and kill one of my soldiers, I bomb your capital city, and your home, and kill one of your kids. Want to up the ante again? The answer from Libya was "No... we're done." What Reagan did was show folks like Al Queera that there was a substantial price to be paid for attacking US interests, and that you had better think long and hard about what you're doing. This same approach was used by the Soviets who responded to the sole kidnapping of a KGB operative in Lebanon by finding who the kidnapper was, then finding and snatching the kidnappers brother. Then they killed and dismembered the brother and left his remains on the doorstep of the kidnapper with a note indicating he would be next. The KGB officer was immediately released, and there was never another abduction of a Soviet citizen anywhere.

What Bush Sr. and Clinton did was forget that these people aren't impressed by sanctions, or nasty letters. They've been raised around death and violence their whole lives, and grew up in places where they passed dead bodies the way we pass dead squirells. Reagan had the balls to blow up a big chunk of Tripoli and civilian casulaties be damned, and it didn't take long for the civilians to tell the Libyan leadership that they had had enough. But Bush Sr and Clinton were both far more worried about the sight of Christianne Amanpour on CNN standing over the body of a dead innocent than they were about dissuading terrorists, so they adopted a measured response policy that mandated that we would hit others only as hard as they hit us. As a result of measured responses, when Bin Ladin blew up one of our buildings, we blew up one of his. It made Clinton feel like he was being a temperate guy, but to the folks in the Middle East it made it look like Bin Ladin was the equal of the US, and that Clinton was afraid of him. This led to more and more support going to Al Queera and did nothing but embolden Bin Ladin.

Had Bush Sr. and Clinton followed Reagan's example of using disproportinate force rather than measured responses, public support for Bin Ladin would have quickly wained and he would have been as terrified of American force as Quadaffi was. Had Clinton leveled a good chunk of Kabul, or blown up Bin Ladin when he had the chance, 9/11 doesn't happen.