President Clinton's sexy words
God help me, there is nothing sexier than President Clinton laying the smack down. All his evils are momentarily forgiven in my mind when he goes on the warpath; you just can't help wishing he was back in office. Call it the "JFK halo effect", where the abilities of a former president seem to suddenly increase to Zeus-like levels once they are dead or years out of office.
On "This Week" on Sunday, he says what everyone has been saying, but with the authority of a man who could have whooped poor Al Gore and John Kerry in a primary.
"Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.
Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."
...
"On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.
"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.
"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."
Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."
On "This Week" on Sunday, he says what everyone has been saying, but with the authority of a man who could have whooped poor Al Gore and John Kerry in a primary.
"Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.
Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."
...
"On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.
"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.
"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."
Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."
8 Comments:
At 9:11 PM, Dennis said…
"Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq 'virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction.'"
I'm a bit confused then, though. After all, Clinton thought that there was urgency when he withdrew inspectors from Iraq in 1998 before he launched an aerial attack against Iraq's nuclear facilities.
And as he said on Larry King Live in 2003,
"Let me tell you what I know. When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions."
So, it was urgent in 1998 when Clinton pulled out inspectors who reported that Saddam was not fully cooperating, but not in 2003 when inspectors also reported that Saddam was not fully cooperating? Was there any more evidence in 1998? Certainly not. So what was Clinton's rush to bomb?
What makes it more hypocritical is that, until now when polls of support for the Iraq war have reached historic lows (below 50%), Clinton continued to publicly defend Bush's decision to go to war, with CNN's caption in this article from 2004 -- a year after the war began -- reads "Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq" . As the CNN article continues, "Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining 'chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material.' 'That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for,' Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998." Add to that the fact that those inspectors were withdrawn so that Clinton could launch his airstrike against Iraq, which he confirms in the quote from Larry King Live that he did not know if they were successful or not.
The fact is, Clinton defended Bush during his call for war when it was possible, and used the intelligence he had seen as his rationale for backing Bush on the issue, but now is singing a different tune. Can anyone say flip-flop?
And from the quote Brian posted, it seems Clinton now believes that the Afghan war is a waste of tax payer money too. Oh, and perhaps also that Bush is at fault for the damage and reconstruction costs of Hurricane Katrina... Since he thinks its absurd that we have to borrow to do that. Clearly, Clinton was a superior President because a Hurricane did not wipe out the Gulf Coast region when he was President and force him to spend that money. I see where he's coming from now... right.
At 9:12 PM, Dennis said…
Oh, and Clinton in his bombings had the British with him, so he, unlike Bush, was not virtually alone.
Oh wait a second; Bush had the British too.
At 9:12 PM, Dennis said…
And don't forget Poland! Clinton didn't have Poland. ;)
At 9:37 PM, Dennis said…
Here's that second link from 2004. Sorry about that.
At 9:38 PM, Dennis said…
www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/
Hopefully Brian will fix this, but this should be the link. Argh.
At 10:05 PM, The Oracles said…
Thank you Dennis for the full-frontal assault. Unfortunately, you missed the point of my post, though I apologize if I didn't make it clear enough. My discussion of the JFK halo effect was to make clear that I was not taking his quotes in the context of what he did in the past, but that the immediate emotional effect a Clinton smackdown has for me is similar to the effect that a JFK speech has. That is to say, that I am not saying he is right on all points,but that those few quoted paragraphs from him have more power to excite me than anything Gore or Kerry ever said.
That make sense? Because I would agree that Clinton is just as much a politician as Bush or Kerry, and just as given to hypocrisy as any politician. I was noting the emotional effect his words had, not the real-word application of them.
Oh, and in the future, consolidate posts into 1-2 at a time, eh?
At 1:41 PM, Eric said…
16DEC98 President Clinton: "Iraq has abused its final chance."
From my Oct 2004 "Perspective on Operation Iraqi Freedom" blogpost:
President Clinton Perspective, or where we were with Iraq:
President Clinton's Operation Desert Fox speech, 1998
President Clinton signs Iraq Liberation Act, 1998
Former President Clinton supports Operation Iraqi Freedom with Larry King, 2003
At 12:54 PM, Anonymous said…
Hitler's speeches in democratic Germany were also quite emotional. It's nice to see that as a member of the herd you care little for truth as opposed to emotional effect. Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaah!
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