Sarge Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Actually it was Clinton who agreed to give N Korea food and fuel in exchange for them shutthing down their nuclear program--which worked well. We actually have a treaty with them for this effect. the Bush government defaulted on these food and fuel agreements and thats why N Korea is doing the current Saber rattling. You need to check your facts. We did have a deal with the N Koreans as you described. However, it was a goatrope. North Korea kept right on with their nuke program all the while getting paid by us. How phucking stupid was that? That's like me saying, "I'll pay you a hundred bucks a month not to screw my sister", yet you keep on doing her all the while getting paid. Bush quit the terms of the sham "treaty" because we were giving them food and fuel for nothing. You aren't stupid enough to think they just started their nuke program up out of the blue, do you? Actaully, because we are such chumps......er, uh....nice guys, we're still giving them food as a "humanitarian" gesture. Too bad that food feeds their military. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Could the same question be asked for the last 4 Presidents? What exactly did they do? Someone should start 3 new threads Ronnie, Georgie and Georgie II. What did they do also? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Originally posted by redman Clinton is one of those who gets too much credit. He was lucky in that he got to experience the greatest continuous period of economic expansion in the last 50 years. And it happened despite the fact that he raised taxes. I have yet to hear a coherent explanation as to why he gets credit for that other than to have been in office at the time. Nothing wrong with that opinion, redman. But you'll hear the same thing from the left about Reagan and the fall of the Berlin Wall. You asked the question. What's the point if you are simply waiting around to say "that was good luck"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbear Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I'll take Nafta, government debt reduction, Gatt, keeping the peace for the most part, increasing international respect for America, and I'll go out on a limb and say he was ahead of his time on his healthcare propposal. I'll even grant that the first three were a combination of him and a Republican congress. What I have to ask is why we aren't having similar things happen under a republican administration? We get steel tarrifs. We get record defecits even if you dont' count the war spending. We get increases in government. I'm sorry, but Republicans might have been able to take all of the credit if they had continued along the path once Clinton was gone. In the keeping the peace department, I think many on here discount that slick willy was very adept at keeping everybody passably happy. Even though the intafada had begun, he had cease fires there and in Northern Ireland. I know, you'll say it was only temporary and didn't last. I can only reply, a permanent truce has to start somewhere, and it's hard for that to happen while everybody is shooting and blowing themselves up. I think his ability to appear to compromise also greatly increased America's prestige. You might say it was increased by doing wrong things, but I tend to think many on this board count international opinion a little lightly. With a sister in Germany, I hear all the time about the differences in opinions on Americanism now as apposed to 5 years ago. Clinton would never have just rejected UN emmissions standards. He would have gone along with them while they were in the news and killed them in congress when the spotlight was elsewhere. He was very adept at managing opinion here and abroad. That's something I'm not sure the right ever appreciated. I'll also go out on a limb and say that with increasing healthcare costs, don't be surprised to see a return to universal healthcare proposals. He was just ahead of his time and to the left of center at the time. We'll see if that comes back. Only time will tell. Of course there were lots of reasons not to like him as president. I wasn't thrilled with him by the end either, but I'm not willing to discount what he accomplished either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 The problem with this thread is that it asks what he accomplished. The answer is he accomplished alot. The real issue though is what did he accomplish that was/is helpful. A different animal. My answer is a short list. 1- NAFTA. A great program IMO. 2- He passed GOP sponsored Welfare Reform (albeit after 3 tries, but it still passed) 3- He re-energized the GOP. And shifted the swing voters away from the Dems. This was obviously unintentional, but a huge benefit for our country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I don't know if he helped the GOP win. If Clinton ran again in 2000, he would of crushed G.W.. How sad is that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 There is no way you could prove that Bandit, and no way I could disprove it. But just to play along. No he couldnt. W would have destroyed him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 W. barely beat a boring Gore. How would he of crushed the more popular guy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I would argue that Gore would have won if it werent for Clinton. He lost the middle of the road voters. Again, neither of us can prove this, but the fact remains that the GOP is much more powerful now than it was in 96. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 fair enough. Its all in cycles. The people vote for one group, then that group gets a few years to let everybody down....then the other guys get elected and get their years. The Circle of Life.........................errr Politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Bufford, You're dead wrong on the last part of this. Bush and Gore both received more votes than Clinton in either of his runs for office. Both Gore and Bush would have beaten Clinton handily in a head to head race. People tend to remember Clinton as something more popular than he was. He wasn't that popular. He would have gotten shelled in an election race this time around with just about any competent opponent. As for Clinton and what he did there are a few points that are good here, but good is relative since there's very much a counterbalancing point to go with it. The economy was booming. We entered a new age and Clinton was the leader during this time. While credit can be given, what can't be ignored is the widespread and unchecked corruption in business during that time. The scandals of Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom and the dozens of others were going on during Clinton's watch too. So, he deserves similar credit for being the man in office during the greatest period of economic growth in our history just as he deserves similar blame for being the man in office during the greatest period of economic fraud in our history. Except, he ran the SEC and didn't get it to make a difference, unlike Bush's SEC which has done more to uncover and punish the fraud than anything Clinton's SEC did in eight years. Clinton deserves credit for "peace"? I'm not sure how, but, please bear in mind, Clinton wanted his Presidential legacy to be peace in the Middle East. Before he left office he told Arafat that his mistake as President was thinking he could work with Arafat and he helped poison the waters with the Bush administration by telling Powell not to work with Arafat as he can't be trusted. So, in the end, his major aim as a President was to bring peace to a region and he failed. If that's his legacy, so be it, but, it wasn't a positive end. It was a sad one. Earlier in this thread someone wrote that raising taxes to pay down the budget is not a bad thing. First off, yes it is. More in a second on that. More importantly though, the deficit didn't start to come down until the last couple to few years of the Clinton White House when the economic boom was just outrageous, especially gains on the market that fed revenue. Still, it's ludicrous to be so brainwashed to think it's not a bad thing to raise taxes to pay down the debt. It's always a bad thing to raise taxes. The only time it's an ok thing is during a period of war. The reason it was a bad thing for Clinton is because he could simply have cut government spending. He didn't. He could have done the good thing of paying down the debt by simply spending less than they brought in. It's a novel concept, but, people need to understand, if the government took 100 percent of our earnings and still had a deficit, they'd have to cut spending. So, my thought is, let's start that cutting now. Overall Clinton was not a President that got a lot done. He was impeached. He had a hostile Congress on one side of him and he had his own lack of center to guide him and he was guided poorly by not really standing for anything but what was the majority view in polls. Leadership by poll does not make a President good. Bush is an interesting guy to judge now as he seems to lead from positions that aren't clearly the popular view. How this will effect him down the road remains to be seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Art, you're always right. seriously though, I am not talking about numbers. The totals for every election are different, especially if its going to be a close one. People feel that if their guy is either way ahead or getting blown away, they don't need to vote. That wasn't the case in 2000. As much of a dirty perv as Clinton is, I think he would of beaten Bush. Especially in the debates. Doesn't matter if what he is saying is true or not. The guy can talk and connect with a crowd while not looking like he was reading the teleprompter. Gore looked stale and boring while reading the prompter and Bush looked at times like he didn't fully understand what he was saying. He's got smart people writing for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Originally posted by DrunkenBoxer This new flare up in violence int he middle east came immediately after bush took office. -DB This is simply not true. The flare up in Palestinian violence came when Clinton was pressuring Barak and Arafat into a settlement on the status of Jerusalem. Barak agreed to give back 95% of the West Bank, along with part of Isreal proper to equal 100% in land the areas taken in the 67 war. In addition, Barak agreed to a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Rabin's widow decried Barak's concessions, saying her husband would be turning in his grave if he could see what Barak was giving up. Arafat still refused to make a commitment, since doing so would cause him to lose support of his primary base - which is not West Bank residents but rather diaspora Palestinians opposed to any compromises with Israel that might diminish their right of return. Clinton applied more and more pressure, and the radical Palestinian element used a visit by Sharon to the Temple Mount as a pretense for returning to the Intifada and rioting. All this was happening while Clinton was still in office, and Bush merely inherited it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Some points about the Clinton Presidency from a non-Republican, non-Democrat (In case you don't read my posts, I'm a Libertarian) Clinton made two major accomplishments on the Economic front that he deserves considerable credit for: NAFTA and GATT. He took the lead in both situations and assembled bi-partisan support. Steel exports quintupled in the 90s, and the average salary in export-related industries was I believe around 50% higher than other industries. Clinton was actually far more principled regarding free trade than W (who passed damaging tariffs on steel imports as a sop to Union Workers). Clinton's successes in the economy and particularly in the budget were primarily due to concessions he made to the GOP congress. In particular, most of the increases in revenue were primarily from capital gains, not from his '93 tax increases. The capital gains tax cut that Congress finally got through in the mid-90s did exactly what its proponents claimed it would do. It actually increased revenue and created an entire new "investor class" of middle-class Americans (approx 50% of the population now owns stocks either directly or through mutual funds). Clinton's original budget proposals had $200billion dollar deficits projected for over 10 years. Again, credit should go to the supposedly "extreme" GOP House for extending the limits set in the Bush 1990 agreement through 2000. Also, the Congress was the leading force behind "ending welfare as we know it." To Clinton's credit, he recognized the public support behind these movements and signed off on them. He had a brilliantly effective procedure for capitalizing on all these things. He would start off by vocally opposing such measures as "extreme" or callous, and threaten to veto them. Then, when it became obvious the legislation would go through, he would demand some insignificant token additions that he would claim would "protect innocent Americans" from whatever social ramifications. Had things backfired, he could then have claimed he was opposed to them, but had things forced down his throat. When things went successfully, particularly in the case of wlefare or the budget, he would subsequently claim he was behind them from the beginning, and claim all credit for them. One thing Clinton did push for, that Congress refused to deliver, was a reform of Corporate practices and conflicts of interest. This might well have prevented the severity of scandals like Enron,but it's hard to say. By the same token, the GOP congress is to blame for letting spending and the budget go back to he!l in a handbasket. Hastert, who replaced Gingrich, turned out to be a horrid choice for the country. He made political deals by following the example of 80s Dems - buying everyone off with pork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JackC Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Art, Isn't it true that reforms requested by the Clinton SEC were shot down by the Republican congress? Clinton would have crushed W like a grape in 2000 IMHO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckydevil Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Clinton would have beaten Bush, but it would have been close Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I think I sense a poll in our midst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbear Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I wanted to add one more thing Clinton did or benefited from (depends how one looks at it). I thik Clinton inspired some confidence in his ability to handle the economy. I think a lot of the stock markets volitility relates to the misguided but still prevanlent belief that Bush is an idiot. People still worry he'll mess things up more. I agree though I disagree with the rationale. I think people generally thought Clinton was doing a good job sheperding the economy. They trusted him to do right by the economy no matter how wrong he was in his private life. To some extent, that positive belief in him was self fulfilling. Even though it's been pointed out on here many times that the inflection point in our economy's growth happened under Clinton, most people still believed the economy was going to be okay. I'd also argue that the lack of belief in Bush has hurt the economy. Confidence in the economy was sky high under Clinton (unreasonably so) and it's down in the dumps now (exagerated fears). The ability to make people believe everything was going to be alright is an underappreciated gift of the Clinton presidency that probably prolonged the boom times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckydevil Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 gbear................ good......cough.........cough...........post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inmate running the asylum Posted February 12, 2003 Share Posted February 12, 2003 What did Clinton accomplish in office? He had a good time with Monica. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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