Going forward

[Penn]

Beginings and Endings

Originally posted by demsformd
Very true Heretic. I loved Clinton when he first ran and I noticed that he had immense potential. In my opinion, he exercised his potential in policy but his personal life just screwed his legacy. He could have been so much greater had he just kept it in his pants.

I'll differ with you in only one respect here, Dems: I did not love Clinton when he first ran, and thought even less of him in his second term, mainly because he demonstrated his appetite for sleazyness. I know certain sections of our American society blamed it on the "vast right-wing conspiracy", but darn it, there were way too many shady acts that he was involved in!
True, they could only pin a few on him in court, he artfully dodged the rest of the bullets.
Here's where the "other shoe drops", and where I agree with you: Bill Clinton did have a tremendous ability
to connect with people. Many of his detractors said as much in interviews, on TV and in the newspapers. It's not a direct quote, but it was to the effect that "once you sat down and conversed with him, you couldn't help yourself liking him", he had that charisma that won you over, made even his opposers start to see issues his way. If only he could have, as you say "kept it in his pants", he might have accomplished so much more, if only he had used this gift wisely, and kept his presidency honorable.
With that kind of gift, or ability, he should have gone down in history as one of our greatest presidents, but instead, he chose to thumb his nose at virtually everyone. I just don't think he'll be remembered favorably. Today, he still shows
us his propensity or "need" to stay in the spotlight. He can't or won't give it up.

penn

 

[MGKrebs]

Originally posted by Ken King
Check out this site, it shows what they still have. http://198.65.138.161/military/world/iraq/index.html I see a lot of ways to deliver WMD.

Hey! I like that site too! I check it all the time. He's got a countdown clock showing when we will attack Iraq. (He's had to revise it once, I think his original date was election day, or very close to it.)

 

[MGKrebs]

Originally posted by kelley
Same thing can go for Krebs. You sound like Krebs when you question Clinton's motives. Make up your own mind and don't just make decisions based on if you like the president or not. [/QUOTE]

And i did NOT vote for Clinton the first time. My admiration for Clinton comes from his intelligence, his ability, and his successes. (Don't bother arguing with me, I won't respond. Been there, done that.) Pretty much anybody who's ever been asked admits he is very smart, very well informed, one of the best pure politicians of the 20th century, excellent grasp of complex issues. I could care less that he had an affair. My Mother's affair before my parents got divirced had much more affect on me than his. He's not my preist or my sexual morality role model. Neither is Randy Moss, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Martin luther King. He was the President, and he was good at it.

You can dismiss the vast right wing conspiracy all you want, but it's true. And i can give you web sites that are keeping track of GWB's scandals (including body counts) if we're going to go down the road of rumor and innuendo.

 

[Penn]

The second time around . . . .

Originally posted by MGKrebs
Originally posted by kelley
Same thing can go for Krebs. You sound like Krebs when you question Clinton's motives. Make up your own mind and don't just make decisions based on if you like the president or not.

And i did NOT vote for Clinton the first time. Pretty much anybody who's ever been asked admits he is very smart, very well informed, one of the best pure politicians of the 20th century, excellent grasp of complex issues. I could care less that he had an affair.
(Barfing) So, can I assume you voted "yes" for Slick Willie for his second term, KNOWING what he'd already done in his first term? That sucking in on his lower lip got to you, and you thought "Aw, let's give him one more chance?" Poor sap!


My Mother's affair before my parents got divorced had much more affect on me than his. He's not my preist or my sexual morality role model. Neither is Randy Moss, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Martin luther King. He was the President, and he was good at it.

Geez, Krebs, that would seem to me an excellent reason NOT to support this morally bankrupt fool! You would have had a direct psychological link with his failings. You say he's not your role model as an American citizen, when it comes to sexual immorality? My God, man, he was supposed to be everybodys ultimate role model! OUR PRESIDENT!! It has been documented he couldn't keep his pants zipped in the Oval Office, while on the phone to fellow Democratic Senators discussing policy. What did that say about his respect for his peers? Did he laugh to himself while he was "getting a little", performing business at both ends?

So, you want to hold him up to your moral standards?

penn

 

[Heretic]

Back to the whole Kosovo issue. I think we half assed it and it drug on much longer than it needed to. I don't believe in half assing anything. I think since we dediced that we were going to do something we should have sent ground troops in with attack helicopters to handle the artillary.

What put me off of Clinton very quickly was that he never seemed to commit to something, he had more of a lets let the cards fall where they will. If he had a bill that failed instead of finding out why and revamping it and working harder to get it through he pointed fingers and began with the partisan rhetoric.

His term was succesful, but I believe its because he never really accompolished anything, the country was on cruise control and his inability to get anything done was what made things work out so good.

It became clear to me that the only person he was looking out for was himself.

 

[kelley]

Well Heretic politics is all about self-survival. Your boy Bush does a pretty good job of worrying about himself and relying on Karl Rove to politicize the war and other things.

 

[kelley]

I have a technical question. How do you change your status statement? Like mine is "one of the gang" but some have different ones.

 

[Heretic]

Up at the top of this window there are several buttons, click on the one that says user cp (dont ask me what cp is) and then click on edit profile, its in there.

And if you ask me all presidents do to much for self survival. I wish they could only serve one term so they would do their job instead of being busy keeping their job. I also dont think a sitting vice president should be able to run the very next term, campaigning takes avay time that they should be doing their job IMHO.

 

[kelley]

Originally posted by Heretic
Up at the top of this window there are several buttons, click on the one that says user cp (dont ask me what cp is) and then click on edit profile, its in there.

And if you ask me all presidents do to much for self survival. I wish they could only serve one term so they would do their job instead of being busy keeping their job. I also dont think a sitting vice president should be able to run the very next term, campaigning takes avay time that they should be doing their job IMHO.

Hell yeah! Couldn't agree more.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by MGKrebs
Originally posted by Ken King
Check out this site, it shows what they still have. http://198.65.138.161/military/world/iraq/index.html I see a lot of ways to deliver WMD.

Hey! I like that site too! I check it all the time. He's got a countdown clock showing when we will attack Iraq. (He's had to revise it once, I think his original date was election day, or very close to it.)

What about this one, http://www.un.org/documents/scres.htm you ever go there?

 

[MGKrebs]

At the risk of contradicting myself and responding to a Clinton comment...

By almost any objective measure, clinton's term was a success;

-(relative) peace
- budget surplus
- great economy
- low unemployment
- lower crime

Clinton may not be responsible for all of this, but at LEAST he let it happen and he didn't screw it up.

Anyway, when it comes to setting criteria for president's, I think Economy and Peace are at the top of my list. Sexual behavior was never a criteria for me. Now if somebody got caught getting friendly with a sheep, I would have a problem. But millions of people have affairs every day. That doesn't make it right, but it's a problem that is very common and very much within our normal experience of human behavior. It's not shocking or rare. It happens. And almost everyone who has ever done it has lied about it.

I dealt with my mother's problem long before anybody ever heard of Bill Clinton. (My father is still bitter, however.) But none of that matters because Clinton is gone (sorta), and Bush is treading on thin ice as defined by my criteria. He better kick it up a notch.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by MGKrebs
Anyway, when it comes to setting criteria for president's, I think Economy and Peace are at the top of my list. Sexual behavior was never a criteria for me. Now if somebody got caught getting friendly with a sheep, I would have a problem. But millions of people have affairs every day. That doesn't make it right, but it's a problem that is very common and very much within our normal experience of human behavior. It's not shocking or rare. It happens. And almost everyone who has ever done it has lied about it.

And just how often does the Chief Executive lie when providing a deposition to a Grand Jury? A little personal integrity ranks above the two political issues you mention when setting criteria for that position.

 

[MGKrebs]

Deja Vu.

How often does a Prez get called to testify?
About a case eventually thrown out for no merit?
After a 7 year, $70 million dollar investigation?
Plaintiff being paid by a wealthy political enemy?
Which testimony came down to a technical definition of certain words?
And whose jury (The United States Senate) chose not to convict?

Look, Ken, we've been through this. We're not gonna agree on it. But maybe we can agree on something. You suck. Agreed?

 

[MGKrebs]

Originally posted by Ken King
A little personal integrity ranks above the two political issues you mention when setting criteria for that position.

Personal integrity covers a lot of territory. Where is Bush's integrity when it comes to breaking promises regarding the environment and workplace safety? And whatever DID happen when he was supposed to be serving in the National Guard? And why didn't he file those Harken papers until months after the stock sale, FOUR TIMES? During which time the stock tanked. Oh, yeah, and he was on the audit committee. And how come his friends and business partners got to condemn and seize dozens of properties to build the Rangers baseball stadium?

Integrity? You're gonna have to narrow the focus a little if that's your criteria.

 

[Heretic]

Hey Krebs that reminds me when I was in NC I saw a campaign sign for a judge, his slogan was "He's done a good job so far" I thought darn maybe they should change that to "He ain't F'ed up yet"

 

[Heretic]

I wouldn't exactly call Clintons tenure peaceful.

Terrorist attack on the WTC in 93
Rawanda
Somolia
Hati
Kosovo
Cruise Missiles to Iraq in 98 after weapons inspectors kicked out
Iraq constantly shooting at US planes in the nofly zone
Kobal Towers in Saudi Arabia terrorist attack
USS Cole Terrorist Attack
US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania
Cruise Missiles to Afganistan afterward

Im sure I've missed something

The media just didn't care about most of this stuff so it was in the background. The price of Yahoo stock was a bigger story I guess.

 

[Frank]

I'm not sure I'd call 'peace' a designation of 'success'. By that yardstick, we'd definitely have to make FDR or Churchill a colossal failure, but Neville Chamberlain a success. Sometimes, war IS the correct choice, if an unpleasant one.

I'm somewhat reluctant to 'credit' Clinton with the budget surplus, since it's my belief that the Republican Congress did this - and they shut down the government trying to force a balanced budget, which at the time Clinton not only openly refused to do, but was still projecting that one *might* be possible in seven to nine years. Key Democrats in the Senate were repeatedly saying "we don't need a balanced budget". Doesn't anyone remember the balanced budget amendment (which was defeated)? It's Congress that does the budget. The first Democratic Senate in over six years, and we immediately have a deficit.

 

[Ken King]

Re: Deja Vu.

Originally posted by MGKrebs
How often does a Prez get called to testify?
About a case eventually thrown out for no merit?
After a 7 year, $70 million dollar investigation?
Plaintiff being paid by a wealthy political enemy?
Which testimony came down to a technical definition of certain words?
And whose jury (The United States Senate) chose not to convict?

Look, Ken, we've been through this. We're not gonna agree on it. But maybe we can agree on something. You suck. Agreed?

Maynard,

You are such an ignorant little dweeb, you won't read any material that factually relates to the topic, you won't actually understand what it was that took place with Clinton a couple years ago unless you get beyond the sex. Trying to "bob and swallow" too much Lil' Buddy.

I guess you hang out here because you don't have any friends in Georgia, why don't you just drag your sorry DU @ss back there so that we can get back to reality. You're boring me Son.

 

[Penn]

Still don't get it, do you . . .

Originally posted by MGKrebs
At the risk of contradicting myself and responding to a Clinton comment...

Anyway, when it comes to setting criteria for president's, I think Economy and Peace are at the top of my list. Sexual behavior was never a criteria for me. Now if somebody got caught getting friendly with a sheep, I would have a problem. But millions of people have affairs every day. That doesn't make it right, but it's a problem that is very common and very much within our normal experience of human behavior. It's not shocking or rare. It happens. And almost everyone who has ever done it has lied about it.

To some people this may sound naive, but in my view there are only a couple of handful of human beings on this earth
who ought to hold themselves above "having common affairs everyday". The President of the United States is one of them. I'm at the mid-century or so mark, so I can go back to many presidents in time. If asked about pre-40s, I only know what I've read. But with Ike on up, I lived those years, and none of them even came close to Clintons' alleged need for sex. As you know, Monica wasn't the first of the so-called "bimbos". I don't need to list the others, you've heard of them on the news.
I suppose the things that gaul me are- as smart/savvy, intelligent/wellread, politically gifted, all the other kudos you can hang on Bill Clinton, he couldn't resist the urge; whether as Governor of Arkansas, or as the U.S. President. Get it through your head, Maynard, when you reach the Oval Office, you are no longer "common folk" any longer!! You are LEADER of the most powerful nation on the earth. Doesn't that mean anything to you?
I'm beginning to rant, so I'll get off the soapbox. But if anybody thinks I'm right or wrong, let me know, either by PM or heck, just post it. Sorry, I just think the US Pres ought to hold him
or herself above all that "common" stuff; it' a moral, honorable duty that I think should be upheld.

penn

 

[Ken King]

Re: Still don't get it, do you . . .

Originally posted by penncam
To some people this may sound naive, but in my view there are only a couple of handful of human beings on this earth who ought to hold themselves above "having common affairs everyday".

Well, my wedding vows said "foresaking all others". That is how I will live my life and treat my wife.