Thursday, November 17, 2005
Why blaming Clinton now may not be such a good idea ( He may swat you around )
After nigh on 6 years of being subjected to a seemingly endless litany of righty hot air where-in everything from white house keyboard malfunctions to 9/11 were blamed on Bill Clinton, this administration finally crossed a line. As previously posted here, administration figures and other Bush apologists have taken to quoting president Clinton to justify the Iraq war. Well president Clinton saw fit to respond, and he isn't too happy with being used like this, as he makes clear,much to the chagrin of the neocon toadies... I won't mention any names ( coughtuckercarlsoncough ). Here is a snip of what Mr. Clinton had to say:
Unfortunately there simply is no way to blame Clinton for this one. As my earlier post makes clear, while president Clinton was hardly a fan of Saddam, his policy was long term containment. And his success in carrying forth this policy is self evident now that president Bush saw fit to march in to gather up non-existent WMD.
Yet I wonder at the effectiveness of blaming a former president who left office with over 60% approval ratings from a president with approval ratings hovering in the mid 30's. I understand the desire to bask in the reflected glow of president Clintons popularity, but the track record of the current administration is such that they only mentioned Mr. Clinton when they were slamming him around. So to now go to his sage words in justification of your own failed policies rings untrue, and frankly a little desperate. I'm glad that he saw fit to hop off that particular bandwagon, and eagerly anticipate Hillary following suit.
As for some pundit getting all hot about president Clinton speaking truth in an Arab land... I say shame on you mr. pundit. The actions that have done so much to set the Arab world against us need to be condemned by our leaders. If only the ones still in power would travel overseas to offer their apology and start us down the road of making this right we would be far better off. Telling the truth overseas is not unpatriotic, and in fact is a welcome reprieve from the current example we see as president Bush beats the rhetorical war drums (read lies without shame) on his trip to Asia.
"It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country,"Now let us not hold our breath for the administration, having mistakenly used Mr. Clintons supposed support for the invasion, to realize the error of their ways and pay attention to Mr. Clintons correction of their self delusion. It is obvious that when something goes haywire, they will blame Clinton without fail. With the Iraq debacle going seriously off track we should have anticipated a fall back to this same old tired Republican tactic.
Unfortunately there simply is no way to blame Clinton for this one. As my earlier post makes clear, while president Clinton was hardly a fan of Saddam, his policy was long term containment. And his success in carrying forth this policy is self evident now that president Bush saw fit to march in to gather up non-existent WMD.
Yet I wonder at the effectiveness of blaming a former president who left office with over 60% approval ratings from a president with approval ratings hovering in the mid 30's. I understand the desire to bask in the reflected glow of president Clintons popularity, but the track record of the current administration is such that they only mentioned Mr. Clinton when they were slamming him around. So to now go to his sage words in justification of your own failed policies rings untrue, and frankly a little desperate. I'm glad that he saw fit to hop off that particular bandwagon, and eagerly anticipate Hillary following suit.
As for some pundit getting all hot about president Clinton speaking truth in an Arab land... I say shame on you mr. pundit. The actions that have done so much to set the Arab world against us need to be condemned by our leaders. If only the ones still in power would travel overseas to offer their apology and start us down the road of making this right we would be far better off. Telling the truth overseas is not unpatriotic, and in fact is a welcome reprieve from the current example we see as president Bush beats the rhetorical war drums (read lies without shame) on his trip to Asia.
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