Obama's political jujitsu...

[liberalcommontater]

Anyone who has read Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals knows that the primary task of a community organizer is to empower powerless people. In their actions these people use their opponents rules against them, they use their opponents strengths against them, they do things that they enjoy doing but which antagonize and needle and rile their opponent, they do these small things to the great amusement of themselves and the consternation of their foes. I have been a union representative and negotiator and used some of these tactics myself. Consider that some of you are running with a meme that works for you because you want to believe in him, not because it is entirely accurate.

Obama is a disciple of Saul Alinsky, or so I've heard. (Correct me if I am wrong.) Obama's supporters probably see this as a strength that someone who understands the plight of the powerless would lead our nation. I am with you so far.

Hope.
Right on the issues.
New politics.
Noble.
Visionary.
Black...what is not to like.

vs

90's were dark times.
Corporate shill.
Old politics.
Gutter dweller.
Vision limited to herself.
Woman...what is there not to hate.

Except, the 90's were great. Tried to take on the insurance companies. There are NO new politics. She has received substantial support, some of us like her and think she sees beyond herself. Women are cool...what is there not to like. (Rhetorical please)

Could it be that the love Obama, hate Hillary falls more into the catagory of effective communication? Ala, Al Gore's redefinition by the media and Bush in 2000.

To quote Alinsky, "One can lack any of the qualities of an organizer-with one exception-and still be effective and successful. That exception is the art of communication. It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people."

[AllentownJake]

1. No one is questioning whether some people like her

However close is not proper wording for your Super Delegate assesment. Possible is the correct wording.

If Puerto Rico goes 60-40 for Clinton and MT and SD are 50/50

Obama needs 18 super Delegates or 10% and Clinton needs 199 Super Delegates. If 11 more Super Delegates endorse Obama She can't get the nomination.

[liberalcommontater]

2. Yes, but is it based on inaccurate perceptions, vilification...or reality?

[AllentownJake]

4. I used to like her

and after this is over if she reforms herself in the Senate I hope to like her again someday.

[liberalcommontater]

7. I hope she is able to campaign effectively for Obama...

in a decisive way that shows her strength in going the distance for the nomination and going the distance for the nominee.

[AllentownJake]

9. She will

She's a political animal and she has legislation she wants passed. McCain isn't going to pass it.

She'll end up writing the Healthcare reform legislation.

[liberalcommontater]

22. It would be a lesson to us all, wouldn't it? If she made the case to ...

her supporters to vote for Obama and they did so in overwhelming numbers. 60+ Senate seats, 20 more house seats, assorted other downticket seats...sounds yummy...and would go a long way towards healing.

[anigbrowl]

3. Too bad about her lack of communication skills. Fail.

[Exilednight]

5. The 90's weren't that great. Attempting to take on insurance companies is the same as .......

actually taking on the insurance companies. A's are not awarded for effort, and to be honest, it speaks volumes that Hillary failed to pass comprehensive health insurance while our party was controlling Congress.

Bill was short sighted when it came to the economy. Many of our economic down turns can traced back to the North American Free Trade Agreement. It's great that he created many new jobs throughout the beginning and middle of the 90's, but he did nothing to protect those jobs and did everything to give them away.

Bill folded with his "Don't ask, don't tell policy". All he needed to do was create a signing statement and then veto the Congressional bill, let be overridden and then take it to the SC who would have more than likely sided with him

He then signed DOMA into law when rethugs threatened with a Constitutional amendment, but didn't have the votes to back it up, and Bill folded like a cheap lawn chair.

Enron can be traced back directly to Bill's deregulation of the energy sector.

Several social programs were gutted from the federal budget under Bill's tenure and responsibility shifted back to the sates.

People have a tendency to look at the Bill's Presidency with rose colored glasses instead of an objective eye.

He'd start on a major domestic policy and get 1/4 to 1/2 way there and then stopped so he could declared partial victory.

[liberalcommontater]

6. Good points all....

I wish the Democratic congress he started with had had more gumption. Perhaps they would not have lost in 94. Somewhat lame I know, but he did have to contend with the Republican congress.

Have you seen "The Hunting of the President"? An interesting film that chronicles the republican smear campaign all through the 90's. I did enjoy Bill's ability to out manouver them. Not all to our benefit today.

[PVnRT]

8. ...don't forget welfare "reform"

There was plenty wrong with the 1990's, and pointing it out is not "traitorous."

[Dogmudgeon]

12. You're joking, right?

I know you're no fan of the Clintons, but your points aren't even coherent.

"to be honest, it speaks volumes that Hillary failed to pass comprehensive health insurance while our party was controlling Congress."

To be honest, we had no control over Congress from 1994 until 2006. Hillary also had no legislative or executive power in the 1990s; not until she became a Senator in 2000, as wingnuts have long loved to remind us. ("I didn't vote for Hillary!" was a popular RW bumper sticker in the 90s.)

She headed a task force. It did research and fielded some proposals that were ridiculed by Republicans and Insurance corporations.

PERIOD.

"Many of our economic down turns can traced back to the North American Free Trade Agreement."

The only significant economic downturns that have happened since NAFTA passed were during the Bush administration. It's easy to find this stuff on Dow-Jones and Motley Fool. One Bush recession was a direct result of the 9-11 attacks and Bush's inability to deal with the economic fallout from them. NAFTA had a large number of effects; some were even beneficial; the places that were affected were quite hard-hit.

"It's great that he created many new jobs throughout the beginning and middle of the 90's ..."

Glad you think so. Sorry that most DUers don't give a shit.

(http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/08/b134891.html">This link is from a Clinton shill, to be sure.)

"... but he did nothing to protect those jobs and did everything to give them away."

Completely wrong. There was consistent positive growth in the number of jobs created under Clinton. Ralph Nader said angrily that we had been "anesthetized by prosperity".

(http://www.ppionline.org/ndol/print.cfm?contentid=252964">Here's a picture to look at.)

"Bill folded with his "Don't ask, don't tell policy". All he needed to do was create a signing statement and then veto the Congressional bill, let be overridden and then take it to the SC who would have more than likely sided with him."

Nonsense. No signing statement was needed; he was completely within his authority to unilaterally issue any order he wanted to, and the SCOTUS would have had nothing to say unless laws were actually broken. But DADT did nearly precipitate mutiny by several officers and Clinton had no one to back him up. This was in the newspapers, and the neo-Cons gloated loud and long over smacking Clinton down. (Sounds familiar, eh?)

"He then signed DOMA into law when rethugs threatened with a Constitutional amendment, but didn't have the votes to back it up, and Bill folded like a cheap lawn chair."

This doesn't even make sense. DOMA was a Republican (Bob Barr) initiative that Clinton basically "stole" by holding a well-publicized signing. It had the effect of humiliating Barr and Gingrich. All this stuff was in the papers.

In spite of that, I still disagree greatly with Clinton's support, tepid though it was, for DOMA. On the other hand, I have no need to spin it to make a series of compromises and wrong decisions appear worse (and different) than they were.

What are YOU sitting on?

"Enron can be traced back directly to Bill's deregulation of the energy sector."

Dereg started as a series of GOP initiatives. Clinton fucked greatly with them, much to the anger of Congress. He even defeated a few. But with others, he worked to pass. Some dereg was beneficial. Most of his economic initiatives worked out pretty well. It's in the Congressional Record.

"Several social programs were gutted from the federal budget under Bill's tenure and responsibility shifted back to the sates."

Read up on http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&hs=bhP&q=How+A+Bill+Becomes+A+Law&btnG=Search">How A Bill Becomes A Law. Also read up on the dozens of riders, exceptions, and provisions Clinton managed to get passed to reduce the damage.

And several social programs were started and expanded under Clinton. Head Start? The much-maligned Midnight Basketball teams? School nutrition programs? The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993? The "Brady Bill"? He initiated the legal workings of nearly all of that.

And how 'bout cutting the enormous Republican deficits down to size and turning them into surpluses?

But it's not hip to give Bill Clinton credit for anything.

"People have a tendency to look at the Bill's Presidency with rose colored glasses instead of an objective eye."

An objective eye that sees only the bad stuff, and makes up stories to fit an election agenda? You won't even look up simple historical facts, but you're presuming to school us on the supposed evil details of a man whose life has been public for three decades.

(http://www.perkel.com/politics/clinton/accomp.htm">Epic Fail)

"He'd start on a major domestic policy and get 1/4 to 1/2 way there and then stopped so he could declare partial victory."

The President can not write and enforce law without Congress passing it. He can not give orders to civilians. He would declare legislative victory, partial or otherwise, to mess with the GOP. It worked pretty well.

Interestingly, in the case where the President CAN issue orders, to the military, you chose to invent nonsense about the Supreme Court and signing statements.

There is much in the Clinton legacy to criticize. There is plenty just in NAFTA to criticize, but you couldn't even get your throw-away potshot right. Clinton was far from perfect; dozens of books have been written to TRY to belittle his successes. However, making accurate and honest criticisms would require you to research what happened, and to understand the basic workings of the government set down in the Constitution.

All this stuff can be found on Wikipedia. If you don't trust Wikipedia, there are plenty of links to primary sources. Google can also help you find primary sources. But blogs written by blowhards do not count as primary sources, not by the left any more than by the right. If you want to speak authoritatively about a subject, you have to at least crack a book or two or type a couple of URLs.

--p!

[Exilednight]

14. Allow me to rebut.....

To be honest, we had no control over Congress from 1994 until 2006. Hillary also had no legislative or executive power in the 1990s; not until she became a Senator in 2000, as wingnuts have long loved to remind us. ("I didn't vote for Hillary!" was a popular RW bumper sticker in the 90s.)

- Hillary put forward her health care proposal while Democrats still controlled Congress. She failed because she allowed rethugs to frame the debate and the pressured Congress into voting against it. Health care reform failed while the legislative and executive branches were controlled by our party.

The only significant economic downturns that have happened since NAFTA passed were during the Bush administration. It's easy to find this stuff on Dow-Jones and Motley Fool. One Bush recession was a direct result of the 9-11 attacks and Bush's inability to deal with the economic fallout from them. NAFTA had a large number of effects; some were even beneficial; the places that were affected were quite hard-hit.

- You must have short term memory loss. Outsourcing worked because of NAFTA. GE, GM, Ford, and many other manufacturing jobs were outsourced to countries like Mexico, Panama, Honduras, China, and India. These jobs were quickly replaced by tech jobs that included jobs for blue collar workers, but then Bill allowed for those jobs, like customer support and computer production, to be outsourced to countries like India and China. Don't you remember that this country was in a recession that started just as Bill was leaving office?

Nonsense. No signing statement was needed; he was completely within his authority to unilaterally issue any order he wanted to, and the SCOTUS would have had nothing to say unless laws were actually broken. But DADT did nearly precipitate mutiny by several officers and Clinton had no one to back him up. This was in the newspapers, and the neo-Cons gloated loud and long over smacking Clinton down.

- For a President to unilaterally issue an order, he uses a signing statement, less you forget that this is what we hold Bush in contempt for - his signing statements on torture and secret prisons. The bill I'm talking about is the one the rethugs introduced to be a homosexual against the UCMJ. There's a difference between a standing order and military law, although the line can often be blurred and part of the UCMJ is disobeying a direct order. Nobody, not even the President, can override UCMJ, but the rethugs didn't have the votes to pull it off. Also, thank you for proving my point about Clinton not having the balls to stand up to the military. What were the generals really going to do? Roll tanks up on the White House lawn? Let them threaten all they want, let them resign and be proven wrong.


Read up on How A Bill Becomes A Law. Also read up on the dozens of riders, exceptions, and provisions Clinton managed to get passed to reduce the damage.

And several social programs were started and expanded under Clinton. Head Start? The much-maligned Midnight Basketball teams? School nutrition programs? The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993? The "Brady Bill"? He initiated the legal workings of nearly all of that.

And how 'bout cutting the enormous Republican deficits down to size and turning them into surpluses?

- Let's be honest here, Bill balanced the budget because he was forced to. I know that he expanded many programs, but he also reduced the federal spending on those programs and shifted the burden to pay for those programs back onto the states. He actually campaigned in 1996 and touted the fact that he cut the programs. At the time it wasn't that big of a deal since the economy was humming along, but it was short sighted and no one thought of the possibility of an economic down turn.

And how 'bout cutting the enormous Republican deficits down to size and turning them into surpluses?

- There was never a surplus, this is a myth. Certain funding isn't included in the federal budget, like Social Security, pensions, and medical spending. The budget showed a surplus, but if you include the cost of all spending payments you will see that Bill did in fact run a deficit. It's amazing how much people don't know about the economy.

What's the real deficit: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm

[Dogmudgeon]

25. Same problem -- you won't read history.

You're still continuing to make the same mistakes -- including not checking your facts. No one expects perfection, but it looks like you didn't check anything out.

For example, Bill Clinton did NOT negotiate NAFTA, nor did he sign it. He DID get several pieces of legislation passed to blunt its effects. I don't think I've ever heard a leftist Clinton hater acknowledge any of it.

And that big recession in 2001? It lasted for the whole second quarter of the year. It barely registered as a recession, driving the economic index down a whopping 0.5%. It makes more sense to blame the GOP for its talking point about how Clinton created a recession. They started talking that up in January of 2000. Then you needed to switch to a different argument to "prove" Clinton ran a deficit, but gave no figures, only a pro-business article. And your timing on the IT outsourcing explosion is likewise wrong. I was a computer programmer from 1997-2003 -- outsourcing really only hit hard in late 2001. Non-IT outsourcing has had different histories in different fields, and a huge shift occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Nor did you look up anything about signing statements or executive orders, or the controversy over gays in the military and DADT. And Hillary still didn't have executive power. What you have are off-the-cuff anti-Clinton urban legends passed down from people in the "progressive" press nursing old grudges.

Your parting shot was likewise puzzling. Why did you post a neo-conservative, unabashedly rightist point of view on "big gummint" if you are trying to prove that Clinton is such a right-wing bastard? And USAToday's analysis itself diverges from the GAO material it cites. But who looks things up? Citations and URLs are there for the mere appearance of scholarship in most of the press.

As I've said before, Bill Clinton was not a perfect President -- merely a damn good one. But why should I even have to?

There are a lot of people on the Left as well as the Right who have a deep, irrational hatred of the Clintons. A lot of them hang out in this forum. Even if definitive evidence shows that they are incorrect, they merely invent a new revisionist history or explanation that sounds good. The idea that the Clintons are incapable of any positive act and have no redeeming qualities is something that would be expected from Republicans, not Democrats; but more to the point, it's just plain incorrect. The number of people here who have sworn eternal distrust and rejection of Bill or Hil is depressing, because it means that as the Democratic party becomes more successful, we "Freeperize". Hate and outrage replace objective thought and fantasy replace reading. This is how the Right acts. Why should we?

If people can't even be bothered to make sure that their facts are straight, I'm not sure what we have other than a beauty contest. I'm sure you'll continue believing how bad Bill Clinton is, and you will have a lot of company. As it has done so many times before, this same attitude will bite us in our collective ass. I will be writing much the same thing again in 2018 when someone assails "the failed Presidency of 'Bogus Barry' Obama" (or whatever epithet sticks to him), "The Best Republican President We Ever Had, ha-ha."

--p!

[liberalcommontater]

29. Agreed...

Bill's record as a liberal or progressive was mixed, but the times were different. I recall most people I know quite pleased with his treatment of the Republicans, but squeamish about enthusiastically supporting him. I had a Clinton/Gore bumper sticker and was parked in front of the donut shop when a woman drove up behind me, hopped out of her car and gushed how happy she was to see the sticker. She experienced the same thing, people were generally ok with what he was doing, but reserved and perhaps cynical about public displays of support.

Once a president has to make decisions as opposed to campaign speeches and navigate the political terrain of his/her time hope is replaced with realism. I think you are spot on. Thanks for posting.

[Irishonly]

43. He didn't sign NAFTA?

xpanding Markets for American Products

* The Clinton Administration forged a bipartisan coalition to pass NAFTA, after concluding tough negotiations on side agreements covering workers' rights, the environment, and import surges. Exports to Mexico rose 23 percent in the first 11 months of 1994.
* President Clinton led the fight to pass GATT, which lowers tariffs worldwide by $744 billion over ten years -- the largest international tax cut in history. GATT cuts tariffs on manufactured goods by more than one-third overall and eliminates tariffs in major markets in a number of sectors in which the U.S. is particularly competitive.

http://www.perkel.com/politics/clinton/accomp.htm

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Clinton said he hoped the agreement would encourage other nations to work toward a broader world-trade pact.

NAFTA, a trade pact between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the three nations. The passage of NAFTA was one of Clinton's first major victories as the first Democratic president in 12 years--though the movement for free trade in North America had begun as a Republican initiative.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5584

[C_U_L8R]

10. Sometimes the most obvious answer is correct

Perhaps Obama is simply the better candidate.

He certainly deserves all the credit.

[sandnsea]

11. From your perspective

The 90's.

Trade opened with China and India.
Deregulation of banking, telecommunications.
Limits on welfare assistance.
Lies about Iraq WMD after Iraq had been bombed.
Lifting speed limits instead of embracing alternative fuels.
Education credits that only helped the upper income.
Trading public land for ski resorts.
Global trade expanded corporate power and sweat shops.

Everything that is wrong now was implemented in the 90's. I guess Clinton just made a lot of mistakes.

[liberalcommontater]

18. Everything wrong now was implemented in the 90's? No.

[FrenchieCat]

13. the 90's were great?

Losing both houses of congress, and the following "accomplishment" were great?

K. :crazy:

THE RISE OF THE DLC

its mission was far more confrontational. With few resources, and taking heavy flak from the big guns of the Democratic left, the DLC proclaimed its intention, Mighty Mouse-style, to rescue the Democratic Party from the influence of 1960s-era activists and the AFL-CIO, to ease its identification with hot-button social issues, and, perhaps most centrally, to reinvent the party as one pledged to fiscal restraint, less government, and a pro business, pro-free market outlook.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/1/24/16457/4867

Hence the DLC via Bill Clinton's Presidency gave us among other things.......

NAFTA

Clinton Signs NAFTA
12/8/93"I do want to say, also, a special word of thanks to all the citizens who helped us -- the business leaders, the labor folks, the environmental people who came out and worked through this; many of them at great criticism, particularly in the environmental movement and some of the working people who helped it. And a group that was quite pivotal to our success that I want to acknowledge specifically are the small business people, many of whom got themselves organized and came forward and tried to help us. They made a real difference. " Bill Clinton at NAFTA signing Ceremony
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/legacy/120893-speech-b...

1996 TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT

Clinton Signs The Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. The goal of this new law is to let anyone enter any communications business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has the potential to change the way we work, live and learn. It will affect telephone service -- local and long distance, cable programming and other video services, broadcast services and services provided to schools.
http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html

WELFARE REFORM ACT

1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
On August 22, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 Conference Report to accompany H.R. 3734, the controversial legislation which repeals the 60 year old social safety net for the poor and requires welfare recipients to work. The legislation is very much like H.R. 4, the previous welfare bill that the President vetoed at the urging of NOW and other advocacy organizations. And, like the previous bill, the President received severe criticism from community activists, women's rights, social service advocacy, labor, minority, and religious groups in embracing this Republican-led effort to change the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=1996_Welfare...

BANKING REFORM BILL

Clinton signs banking overhaul measure
November 12, 1999
The biggest change in the nation's banking system since the Great Depression became law Friday, when President Bill Clinton signed a measure overhauling federal rules governing the way financial institutions operate.

Congress passed the bipartisan measure November 5, opening the way for a blossoming of financial "supermarkets" selling loans, investments and insurance. Proponents had pushed the legislation in Congress for two decades, and Wall Street and the banking and insurance industries had poured millions of dollars into lobbying for it in the past few years.

"The world changes, and Congress and the laws have to change with it," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Texas), who has fought for years for the overhaul. Gramm said the bill would improve banking competition and stability.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/11/12/banki...

DOMA

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- HR 3396 or Public Law No. 104-199 -- on 21 September 2000. It defines marriage as an act between heterosexuals and frees one state from being required to honor the same-sex marriage conducted in another state. As of this writing, 39 states have laws based on DOMA; 18 of those are amendments to the state constitution.

On Friday, September 20, prior to signing the Defense of Marriage Act, President Clinton released the following statement:

I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages and this legislation is consistent with that position. The Act confirms the right of each state to determine its own policy with respect to same gender marriage and clarifies for purposes of federal law the operative meaning of the terms "marriage" and "spouse".
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/gaymarriage/a/DOMA.htm

CHINA TRADE DEAL

Clinton signs China trade bill
October 10, 2000
he measure is considered the most important U.S. trade legislation since passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. But it faced a long campaign of opposition from labor, human rights and conservative groups who wanted to retain the annual review of trade relations with China.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/10/... /

(ACTUAL LINKS AVAILABLE HERE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5587196

[liberalcommontater]

19. Compared to now, yes.

For our soldiers, yes. For ordinary workers, yes (for a time). For the composition of the Supreme Court, yes. For our relations with other countries, yes. For our standing in the world, yes. For everything that Bush has done that Clinton and then Gore would not have done, yes.

[FrenchieCat]

23. The only thing that happened in the 90s were GOP policies signed by Clinton

With the chicken coming home to roost as we speak. If you don't think that relaxing the Banking regulations didn't invite the mortgage crisis that is happening now, I've got a bridge for sale that you must buy.

Etcetera for the rest.

[liberalcommontater]

24. You must have been living elsewhere during the 90's or been in

diapers. Agreed, that Bill governed to the center and even strayed over and stole a few of their issues, to my dismay, but he was nothing like Bush.

If you feel that Bill was so bad and Bush even worse, what are your expectations of Senator Obama?

[JVS]

27. Whether the 90's were great or not (and for some they definitely weren't) is really not important

It's not as though another Clinton presidency will re-create the economic conditions of the 1990's. We do not have a planned economy, and while government can respond to the economic conditions, it cannot dictate the economic conditions.

[liberalcommontater]

31. No, but I clearly remember the financial markets reaction to the

commitment by Bill to balance the budget. Once that was a given the financial markets lost their fright and loosened all kinds of money for all kinds of investments.

[eridani]

33. Not strictly true. He managed to slow down the Repuke assault on our living standards

The 90s feel better to lots of folks for the same reason that you feel better when you temporarily stop getting hit in the head with a hammer.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. what part of - HER Vote for the Iraq War - don't you get?

Ever thought that maybe that's why she has lost so badly in states like
North Carolina and Oregon?

Think we don't have hard working white people in our states?

The WAR - we have strong anti war sentiments in our states.

We have military personnel who have paid the price for Hillary's political calculations.

She of all people should have stood up against this war - it would have made a difference,
maybe prevented it.

But she didn't.

She SOLD OUT>

[liberalcommontater]

20. Edwards voted for the IWR too, but was given a pass

It was not a vote for war; it allowed military force if UN resolutions mandating inspectors were not observed. But the inspectors DID go in, and the UN was happy with their work. Which means that there never was a legal basis for the invasion.

If this is your standard let's hold every single politician accountable who ever voted for war funding.

Bush is the culprit.

You already know what Obama has said over the years - we were misled by Bush/Cheney.

[quaker bill]

35. Given a pass?

I recall he left the race rather early. The only candidate that voted for IWR to last long was Hillary.

"If this is your standard let's hold every single politician accountable who ever voted for war funding."

This is utter BS. One cannot compare a vote to supply the troops already in Iraq to the vote to authorize military action against Iraq.

Yes, I imagine Hillary was mislead, curious that Sen. Bob Graham wasn't. He was chair of the Sen. intelligence committee and a Democrat. The only Democrat with security clearance equal to G.W.Bush's. He actually saw the intelligence, all of it, and advised Dems to vote against IWR, this was his role in the Dem Party process. To review the intelligence (all of it) and advise party members on what to do. It is a shame Hillary did not listen.

[kevinmc]

16. That's a good book .. n/t

[liberalcommontater]

21. Yes and I wish Clinton had read it too. nt

[Bigleaf]

17. Obama is BJ Penn. Clinton is Sean Sherk. Bad night for Sherk tonight.

[cliffordu]

26. This bullshit about the Clintons creating the boom of the '90's

is just that.

Go back and look at what happened in Silicon Valley during that time and the resulting bubble in the NASDAQ.

Everyone looks at the DOW and says "OMFG, Bill did a GREAT job..."

But really, not so much. it was the NASDAQ. Proof??

"The dot com bubble" Oracle, IBM, Apple, Microsoft Windows -> -> Windows 95 and the whole innernet innertubes explosion.......


People were giving out bushels of money on the thinnest of ideas, and, like the real estate scam that has just recently burst, the bubble went south right before Clinton left office.

[liberalcommontater]

30. By any reasonable measure the 90's, while not perfect, were

so much better that the last 8 years, to say they were not is simply convenient forgetting.

[cliffordu]

44. I never said they weren't. They just weren't his good work.

NAFTA, the gutting of the welfare system and the ease by which he jobs are shipped overseas are all turds on his plate, though.

[Radical Activist]

45. The primary isn't between Bill Clinton and George Bush.

Something else that hasn't come up yet in this thread is Clinton signing the telcom act that gave us the media conglomerates destroying our electoral process.

Eight years of things not being that bad isn't enough for some of us any more. If the next Democratic President, like Bill Clinton, does no more than blunt the worst of the GOP agenda, and makes no significant progressive advances, then I'd call that a huge waste. I don't want another 4 years of things not getting any worse. I want progressive change. That's why another Clinton just won't do.

[JoFerret]

28. Great marketing campaign

Interesting. Thanks.

[liberalcommontater]

32. No one else responding seems to get that. They want ot nit pick the details...

the 90's were not great for everyone...

Glad you got it.

[JoFerret]

34. Love is blind

but the romance does not last for ever.

[NashVegas]

40. And Of Course the Irony

Is that Obama, if he becomes president, will triangulate as much, if not more.

I've read enough excerpts of "Audacity" to get an eye-opener. I have the very strong notion Obama is being pushed as a way to get out in front of the current populist movement, and control & divert it to more fascist-friendly waters.

[Radical Activist]

42. Heh That's my view of both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

They were pushed as populist center left leaders so that neoliberal trade policies could be more easily passed and more power given to corporations, which is exactly what happened under Bill.

[NashVegas]

46. Is It Any Wonder, Then

Why so many say there's virtually no difference between HC & BO, as candidates?

[Radical Activist]

48. Skepticism is understandable.

But yes, I do wonder why people say that when one candidate has a solidly progressive record and a background in left wing movement activism as a community organizer, while the other has a history of pandering and corporate capitulation including serving on the board of Walmart and dolling out favors to Monsanto, among others. So I think people who say there's no difference must know almost nothing about Obama.

[quaker bill]

36. There is no magic and no deception

All candidates work to make the "issues environment" amenable to their campaign, this is not news. It is simply politics, the way it has always been practiced. Some candidates simply do it better than others.

[liberalcommontater]

37. Agreed. nt

[OzarkDem]

38. Obama has no moral compass, no ethics, no loyalty

to anyone except himself. That's the key problem that makes his work destructive as opposed to constructive.

[liberalcommontater]

39. I like Hillary too, but what makes you say this?

[quaker bill]

47. Exactly whom

is a Presidential Candidate to be loyal to? Pray tell.

Each candidate feels that they are the best person to lead the party, if not, then why run? In this context, doing all you can to win is the highest of party loyalty. Next after this in party loyalty would be leaving the race gracefully when you come up short.

Should a Presidential Candidate be loyal to his / her opponents? If so, would that include the notion of not calling other candidates in his / her party incapable of being commander in chief?

[Radical Activist]

41. You lost me in the second part. What are you trying to say?

That Hillary is a community organizer like Obama but doesn't communicate as well?
The fact that Hillary is corporate friendly and dropped pushing for universal health care for a decade after '93 are legitimate points that didn't start with Obama. Obama didn't force Hillary to be a pandering flip-flopper in an age when voters crave someone with conviction.

Disciple is a strong word but I'm sure Obama was influenced by Alinksy and those who knew him.

I think you're on to something in the first part. Obama's political jujitsu is how opponents always end up hurting themselves when they go ugly more than they hurt Obama. Its exactly what we need from a nominee in a day when the GOP knows no other game than playing dirty.