Opinion of Bill Clinton

[Sumner 1868]

Bad for America's mental health.

[Miles]

Good but overrated.

[windjammer]

Good but overrated.

This thread went much like I would expect a JFK thread to go.

FF all things considered - there's good, there's bad, and in retrospect he was vastly preferable to the other options. Considering where the country was in 1989, 1999, and 2009, I'll take his years over the others as well. I believe that Presidents inherit everything that came before them back probably a couple decades, and he did the best with what he had that I reasonably think he could have.

His policies?  As I've said before, his entire presidency was a rear-guard action against the cresting of the right-wing wave.  They are easy to slam from a distance– and will probably continue to look worse as time goes by– but I'm skeptical that anyone else would have done much better.  And some good stuff did come out of his first two years.

Agree.

[© tweed]

Does anyone take the term "humanitarian intervention" seriously in 2015? It sounds like Newspeak.

that was pre-9/11 language.  things were awkward between the collapse of Communism and 9/11.  with no Enemy, "humanitarian intervention" was invented.  we're going on offense because we're morally superior to the creatures we'll be dealing with.

after 9/11, no need.  call a guy with a weird name a "terrorist" and you're unlikely to face any uncomfortable questions.  serves the same function as calling the Sandinistas "communists" in the 1980s.

[Sol]

Obvious HP is obvious.

Though I will say that the basic idea (not the execution, obviously) behind intervention in Kosovo and in the former Yugoslavia--Kosovo in all likelihood would have turned into a full-blown genocide had there not been strong outside intervention. If anything, Clinton's Balkan policy wasn't hawkish enough; the U.S. should have aided the UN more in defending the safe zones. Additionally the US could have aided the Bosnians more; perhaps that could have allowed for a modern BiH with a more functional government structure.

[Beet]

We can play with counterfactuals until all of we give ourselves aneurysms. I doubt that we'll find useful answers there. What is most important is that when we ask important questions - e.g. What did Clinton do on behalf of the causes that most of us on the left care about? Did his decisions help the poor, the disabled, workers, minorities, and women? Did he make those decisions under a well-informed belief that the outcomes would help those groups on the margin? - it is puzzling to argue, in terms of Clinton's most important policy decisions, that the answers are consistently favorable.

Of course Clinton helped marginalized groups. For one thing, he is the only president since the Warren Court to have moved the SCOTUS to the left - when Ruth Bader Ginsburg replaced Byron White. Can you imagine if both White and Blackmun had been replaced by conservatives? You would basically have had a five-vote majority bloc led by Scalia from 1993 until at least 2005.

Some of the legislation passed during Clinton's first term would be almost unheard of today, even in the wildest ambitions of liberals - the Brady Bill, for instance. Or the 1993 revenue bill, which was to the left of anything ever proposed by Obama. While others, which scorn is currently heaped upon him for ("don't ask, don't tell") was actually a step forward. The Family and Medical Leave Act granted new rights to workers.

What Clinton did, however, is he changed the narratives on these issues. When a large ship is turning around, for a long time it will still seem to be moving in the wrong direction. By moving to the center on issues like regulation, crime, and welfare, he effectively destroyed the familiar right-wing narratives of the Reagan era, such as the "welfare queen", the "liberal mugged by reality", the "big inefficient government that can't do anything right". This was a prerequisite to new and different narratives emerging. The left had to get beyond the Great Society and address high crime rates and view of government as irredeemably incompetent. Clinton did all of these things. In the words of one progressive organization, the left needed to "move on" and that is what Clinton allowed us to do.

[Beet]

...and George Bush Sr. signed the Clean Air Act, not to mention the ADA. George Bush Jr. initiated PEPFAR.

Actually, Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act... Bush Sr. merely signed an amendment to it. As to the rest... so? I believe there was a thread recently about what you liked about George Bush Jr. A lot of people just said something ironic. I mentioned PEPFAR and genuinely praised him for it. (Edit: I was not the first or only one). It really is something he doesn't get enough credit for.

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Lol, first, he's blamed for intervening, then, he's blamed for dragging his feet not intervening? This is classic CDS. In any case, getting elected as a Democrat is more than could be said for his four of his five predecessors as Democratic nominee (and two of his successors). Which is precisely the point. One has to get elected in order to implement policy, and to get elected one needs a majority coalition, or at least very near one... which is what Bill built. Since 1992, Democrats have won the popular vote in five of six elections, whereas beforehand they had lost five of six. There are thousands of administrative decisions taken by agencies every single day which are effected based on who the president is, and hundreds of judicial decisions handed down which are affected by the temperament of the presiding judge(s). These are the actual governing of the country, not big-name bills.

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I assure you... political debate today looks nothing like it did pre-Clinton. In 1984, a white man on the subway shot four unarmed black men simply for them asking him for five dollars, and was cheered as a hero!.

[Beet]

Lol, first, he's blamed for intervening, then, he's blamed for dragging his feet not intervening? This is classic CDS.

Are you replying to me or are you pontificating into the great beyond? I don't expect you to keep up with my opinions but I don't appreciate being conflated with whichever ignoramus was blathering about "war crimes" and "imperialism" on the preceding page of this thread.

I guess my point is, no matter what side people stand on the Kosovo question, they always seem to find whatever negative it is, that they don't like and highlight that. Clinton literally can't win here, and this is a classic manifestation of CDS... which is a social syndrome, not an individual one.

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A sample size of six on each side is pretty damn big when you're talking about presidential elections. If you flip a coin and it comes up tails 5 of 6 times, then an event happens, then you flip the coin and it comes up heads 5 of 6 times, what is the probability the event was not significant? And it's not just wins and losses... if you look at which states Clinton made reliably Democratic, it's more than any other Democrat since FDR.

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Being used and being effective are two very different things.

[Lief 🗽]

Appointed Breyer and Ginsburg, two of the best Supreme Court justices we've ever had = FF.

[IceSpear]

As traininthedistance pointed out, part of what's going on is, he's being judged for his actions 20 years ago as if the political environment was the same as it is today. Of course, when Bill Clinton announced his run for the presidency in 1991, not only the Democratic party but the collective left was in the worst shape since 1789. Taking the first steps in the long road back will look unpopular now, when all of the rewards are simply assumed.

This. FF

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

As traininthedistance pointed out, part of what's going on is, he's being judged for his actions 20 years ago as if the political environment was the same as it is today. Of course, when Bill Clinton announced his run for the presidency in 1991, not only the Democratic party but the collective left was in the worst shape since 1789. Taking the first steps in the long road back will look unpopular now, when all of the rewards are simply assumed.

This. FF

Yeah, things were so much better after he lost the House for the first time in 40 years after ramming NAFTA though. And then signed lots of right-wing legislation into law.

[SATW]

Just so you guys know, this is why some people don't take the left seriously. The Far-Right is crazy, but the Far-Left lives in this fantasy utopian world that does not exist.

Bill Clinton brought your party back to relevancy.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Just so you guys know, this is why some people don't take the left seriously. The Far-Right is crazy, but the Far-Left lives in this fantasy utopian world that does not exist.

Bill Clinton brought your party back to relevancy.

Lets ask Tom Foley what he thought of that relevancy.

[The Mikado]

Sure, moving from Michael Dukakis' 46% of the vote in 1988 to Bill Clinton's 43% of the vote in 1992 is a sign of a once-in-a-lifetime political genius. Simply not losing ground when the other party's candidate collapses due to a party schism is a political feat worthy of a mastermind.

EDIT: Seriously, though, all sarcasm aside, it is healthy to remember that a larger share of Americans voted for Michael Dukakis to be their president in 1988 than voted for Bill Clinton to be their president in 1992 when considering the degree to which the Democratic Party was in peril in the late 1980s, and I think there's a very strong case indeed to be made that the cure (the Clintons) was far worse than the disease (especially since the Democratic Party was clearly already on a rebound from 1986 onwards).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

That couldn't have anything to do with how violent crime peaked in the early nineties, right? Variations on the soundbites that you cite in your post - (i.e. "welfare queen" "liberal mugged by reality", "big inefficient government that can't do anything right") - remain staples of Republican rhetoric today, just as they have been for the past several decades. To claim that Clinton ended the appeal of these lines is laughable.

Being used and being effective are two very different things.

They are very effective in states Clinton lost like Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia and Georgia, oh wait...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

As traininthedistance pointed out, part of what's going on is, he's being judged for his actions 20 years ago as if the political environment was the same as it is today. Of course, when Bill Clinton announced his run for the presidency in 1991, not only the Democratic party but the collective left was in the worst shape since 1789. Taking the first steps in the long road back will look unpopular now, when all of the rewards are simply assumed.

This. FF

The left was in far worse shape in 1896 (Democrats got the blame for the Depression and rather than embrace the populist insurgents who took the party over, the public embraced the pro-business GOP for the next two decades), 1908 (The stock market had crashed, the economy went into a Depression and WJB still lost to Taft), and 1920 (The base ethnics had literally abandoned them, crashing the decades old base in the Northern cities and leaving them just the most conservative element in the Party, the South).

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

As traininthedistance pointed out, part of what's going on is, he's being judged for his actions 20 years ago as if the political environment was the same as it is today. Of course, when Bill Clinton announced his run for the presidency in 1991, not only the Democratic party but the collective left was in the worst shape since 1789. Taking the first steps in the long road back will look unpopular now, when all of the rewards are simply assumed.

This. FF

The left was in far worse shape in 1896, 1908, and 1920.

And they were certainly in worse shape after the 1994 elections than in 1992. And the Democrats lost House seats in 1992, and didn't have a change in the Senate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

As traininthedistance pointed out, part of what's going on is, he's being judged for his actions 20 years ago as if the political environment was the same as it is today. Of course, when Bill Clinton announced his run for the presidency in 1991, not only the Democratic party but the collective left was in the worst shape since 1789. Taking the first steps in the long road back will look unpopular now, when all of the rewards are simply assumed.

You could say the same of Attila the Hun. A comparison that might be more to the point:

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Grover Cleveland is a far better example to be used then James Buchanan.

[Beet]

The point seems to be that Clinton's policies are so indefensible on their own terms ... Qualifications of this sort are unfailingly a sign that any substantive disagreement is about to be dismissed as the product of the other party's madness, malice, or ignorance.

Lol, am I supposed to debate every true leftist who insists that Hillary killed Vince Foster? Have I not engaged you? Bill Clinton's policy in question here (Kosovo), I defended the substance of at the outset of this discussion. That doesn't change the fact that there are legions of people out there who will twist any Clinton action in a negative way, and then twist the precise opposite action in a negative way as well.

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Actually, it is fair to blame the fact that we had a Democratic president elected in 1992 for the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994. But the reason I don't look at it, is because the presidency is more important than Congress.

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Do you think presidents have an impact on the prospects for their parties at all, then? If everything is determined by "fundamentals", then why does it even matter who a party nominates? Why does it matter which policies are enacted? If, as you argue, incompetence and wrong policies and wrong political strategies are rewarded with a growing coalition, victories at the presidential level, a booming economy, a balanced budget, falling welfare rolls, falling poverty rates, peace abroad, broad-based incomes gains, and respect around the world, then what is the reward of competence and good policies and good political strategies?

Clinton's substantive policies and political strategies were right for the time when he was in office. I see a lot of liberals saying, "well, that hasn't continued... poverty isn't falling anymore, wages are stagnating, crime peaked in the early 1990s... and Clinton's policies are an inappropriate to action." Which is all true. Times change, the facts change, and so our positions change. Bill is no longer president, and hasn't been for 15 years. If he were president today I'm sure his own policies would be very different.

[IceSpear]

Sure, moving from Michael Dukakis' 46% of the vote in 1988 to Bill Clinton's 43% of the vote in 1992 is a sign of a once-in-a-lifetime political genius. Simply not losing ground when the other party's candidate collapses due to a party schism is a political feat worthy of a mastermind.

EDIT: Seriously, though, all sarcasm aside, it is healthy to remember that a larger share of Americans voted for Michael Dukakis to be their president in 1988 than voted for Bill Clinton to be their president in 1992 when considering the degree to which the Democratic Party was in peril in the late 1980s, and I think there's a very strong case indeed to be made that the cure (the Clintons) was far worse than the disease (especially since the Democratic Party was clearly already on a rebound from 1986 onwards).

Are you seriously peddling the myth that Bush would've been re-elected if Perot wasn't in the race?

[MT Treasurer]

Sure, moving from Michael Dukakis' 46% of the vote in 1988 to Bill Clinton's 43% of the vote in 1992 is a sign of a once-in-a-lifetime political genius. Simply not losing ground when the other party's candidate collapses due to a party schism is a political feat worthy of a mastermind.

EDIT: Seriously, though, all sarcasm aside, it is healthy to remember that a larger share of Americans voted for Michael Dukakis to be their president in 1988 than voted for Bill Clinton to be their president in 1992 when considering the degree to which the Democratic Party was in peril in the late 1980s, and I think there's a very strong case indeed to be made that the cure (the Clintons) was far worse than the disease (especially since the Democratic Party was clearly already on a rebound from 1986 onwards).

Are you seriously peddling the myth that Bush would've been re-elected if Perot wasn't in the race?

Mikado didn't mention that. However, when he says that going from 46% to 43% isn't exactly a major achievement or realignment, he's right. Michael Dukakis was the wrong candidate at the wrong time and this whole "move to the center in order to win" argument that Clinton put forward didn't help the party that much (see 2000/2004, 1994). Michael Dukakis might even have won if he had run in 1992. Clinton's strengths and achievements are overrated.

[The Mikado]

Sure, moving from Michael Dukakis' 46% of the vote in 1988 to Bill Clinton's 43% of the vote in 1992 is a sign of a once-in-a-lifetime political genius. Simply not losing ground when the other party's candidate collapses due to a party schism is a political feat worthy of a mastermind.

EDIT: Seriously, though, all sarcasm aside, it is healthy to remember that a larger share of Americans voted for Michael Dukakis to be their president in 1988 than voted for Bill Clinton to be their president in 1992 when considering the degree to which the Democratic Party was in peril in the late 1980s, and I think there's a very strong case indeed to be made that the cure (the Clintons) was far worse than the disease (especially since the Democratic Party was clearly already on a rebound from 1986 onwards).

Are you seriously peddling the myth that Bush would've been re-elected if Perot wasn't in the race?

Mikado didn't mention that. However, when he says that going from 46% to 43% isn't exactly a major achievement or realignment, he's right. Michael Dukakis was the wrong candidate at the wrong time and this whole "move to the center in order to win" argument that Clinton put forward didn't help the party that much (see 2000/2004, 1994). Michael Dukakis might even have won if he had run in 1992. Clinton's strengths and achievements are overrated.

^^^

This guy gets it.

[Beet]

Clinton got 3 million more votes than Dukakis. And 38% of Perot voters said they would have gone for Clinton in a two-way race. That's 7.5 million more votes, for a total of 11.5 million more votes in hypothetical a two way race.

[Lief 🗽]

ummm are people actually arguing that Bill Clinton wasn't a better politician than Michael Dukakis? We may have reached #peakatlasforum.