How much were we hurt by Clinton's sex scandal?

[The Backlash Cometh]

Let's be truthful. How much of that triangulation that Clinton spinned as his brilliant brainchild, was actually a capitulation for staying in office after he was impeached? How many of those parole pardons were questionnably paybacks?

As much as I admired Clinton at the time for holding on, I wonder if in the long run, we would have been better off if he had stepped down and allowed Al Gore a chance.

[HopeHoops]

1. His blowjob didn't hurt me a bit.

But I never figured out what he saw in Monica in the first place.

[Maru Kitteh]

49. Did you enjoy George W. Bush? Was that fun?

Let's face it, if Bill had just kept his zipper in the upright position that monkey wouldn't have had a banana's chance in monkey hell of ever getting in. There would have been no reason for a supreme court decision because it would have been Al Gore in a LANDSLIDE.

So yes - it DID hurt you - unless you really enjoyed those Bush years.

[seabeyond]

2. help us lose 2000. gore didnt bring him in cause he had to distance himself. nt

[madmom]

5. I don't see it that way. Gore didn't bring him in because he WANTED to distance

himself. Clinton was still very popular, and I think would've/could've helped him.

[seabeyond]

11. different interpretations. i very much saw it in that manner. why bush good ole boys rw, coalition

got such a foothold.

[rfranklin]

28. Gore won the election...and Clinton had very high ratings...

but it got them close enough to steal it in Florida with the help of the felonious five at the SCOTUS.

[adigal]

39. I think Clinton damaged their team...so we had GW Bush

I truly think that Clinton harmed our nation beyond repair because he couldn't keep it in his pants.

[seabeyond]

46. agreed... was clear that people had had it with clinton behavior. nt

[eShirl]

44. AND I think Gore chose Leiberman because L had shaken his finger at Clinton

or, at least partially because of it?

[seabeyond]

47. i think so, too. nt

[Obamanaut]

3. Don't know about 'we', but 'me' not at all. I would imagine the Clinton

family was set back a bit, and in my opinion it should have stayed there rather than in all the news.

[elleng]

4. We were all pretty badly hurt, due to the distraction, LONG TIME,

but repugs wanted something, and did their best to make Arkansas/land deal/Hillary's job into issues.IMO he was right to hold on, even considering the adverse aspects.

As to Gore we was robbed, and THAT was the big mistake (including his imo ill-advised distancing from Clinton.)

[Rageneau]

6. I think he deserved all the BJs he got.

Say what you will, the "longest period of peace and prosperity in modern American history" oughta be worth something.

But I have no idea what you mean by "capitulation for staying in office after he was impeached," considering that that trumped-up, kangaroo-court 'impeachment' didn't happen until very late in his second term.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. I don't disagree it was a witch hunt. I just wonder how much of his

triangulation was actually a capitulation. Whatever you can say about Clinton, he wasn't pushing Democratic ideals in those last four years.

[Zoeisright]

7. Absolutely not. That would have fed blood to the rabid repukes.

He didn't break the law. Do a little research. It sure was a disgusting distraction that wasted millions of dollars and the country's time. It should have been the final nail in the repuke's coffin, but unfortunately the American public isn't that smart.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. I think that we had an obligation to resist the right-wing onslaught because

it had political motivations. On the other hand, I suspect that Clinton did his part to appease the right-winger by selling us out. Too many deals.

[MrTriumph]

8. His behavior hurt the Democratic Party badly and distracted our gov't..

x

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Our world would certainly have been different today if Clinton had

kept his dick in his pants. That is a sad truth.

[NNN0LHI]

9. If he could have ran for a third term I believe he would have won against Bush decisively

He left office with about a 65% approval rating.

Don

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. I don't doubt that. He had that "thing."

[Scuba]

10. He left the gov't coffers filled and the Democratic Party bankrupt. Asshat. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Yes. This asshat thanks you for the reminder.

Not trying to sell the man short.

[leveymg]

12. Clinton should've set a good precedent by refusing to talk about it.

All he had to say is, "This is a matter between my wife and me. We'll have to work it out. It's private - yes, I have a private life - none of your business. Next question."

He should have taken every opportunity to talk about his own agenda and how the GOP was screwing the country. It would have deflated the issue. Just refuse to play the game by the opposition's rules, stick to your guns, and you'll usually win.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. He would have been better off taking that approach, than getting on

national t.v. and lying.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Exactly. I'm not a Clinton fan and would have shed no tears if he resigned.

But, he should have told the media and the politicians to piss off. And, "the people" too.

[Bake]

13. At least the Big Dog didn't post pics of his johnson on the freakin' internet!

Bake

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. Did Al Gore invent the internet by then?

[Bake]

21. In the 90s? Sure.

But nobody had broadband and smartphones.

Bake

[Uncle Joe]

24. That corporate media slander and libel against Gore gained easier traction because of Clinton's lie.

I believe that if Clinton had either told the truth upfront or just kept his mouth shut, Gore would've been much better off, particularly in the more moderate/conservative areas of the nation where the margin of error wasn't so great.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. Wouldn't have Gore faired better if he had been video'd making that quip,

since it wasn't quite the way it went?

[Uncle Joe]

31. There is a video that originated from a Wolf Blitzer interview on CNN and Gore

when asked by Blitzer what separated him from Bill Bradley was clearly citing his leadership and initiations of his legislative record in promoting the Internet.

Gore never claimed to have "Invented the Internet" and the corporate media knew it; but they promoted that lie in one form or another from the morning talk shows to prime-time news commentary, to cable propaganda BS to Sunday morning political programs to late night comedians making jokes.

The lie was told by the corporate media so many times that Gore's credibility after a stellar political career became a subliminal issue if nothing else, Bush was given a free pass and who knows many people have died since those days because of this institution wide, fourth estate, promoted slander and libel.

In spite of it being directed at him, Gore wasn't the true victim of the corporate media's abuse of its' sacred duty, the American People were.

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. There's tape of Gore using the word "promote?"

[Uncle Joe]

40. Since you asked, here is the exact quote and link.

http://articles.cnn.com/1999-03-09/politics/president.2000_transcript.gore_1_21st-century-american-people-shadow/2?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

BLITZER I want to get to some of the substance of domesticand international issues in a minute, but lets just wrap up alittle bit of the politics right now.

Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nominationprocess, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours,a former colleague in the Senate What do you have to bring tothis that he doesnt necessarily bring to this process

GORE Well, I will be offering Ill be offering my visionwhen my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to drawpeople toward it. I feel that it will be.

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people.Ive traveled to every part of this country during the last sixyears. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our countrys economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

During a quarter century of public service, including most ofit long before I came into my current job, I have worked to tryto improve the quality of life in our country and in our world.And what Ive seen during that experience is an emerging futurethats very exciting, about which Im very optimistic, andtoward which I want to lead.

Gore is clearly speaking about his legislative record in Congress and the corporate media knew it.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

Gore’s remark would be widely attacked. But surprise! At the time Gore made his statement, it received no attention whatever. Blitzer didn’t ask Gore to explain his remark; he showed no surprise at what Gore had said. And in its on-air promotions for the taped interview, CNN showed no sign of thinking that Gore had “made news” with his comment. Meanwhile, major papers which covered Gore’s interview completely ignored the comment. On March 10, for example, the Washington Post ran a full report about the Gore-Blitzer session. But the paper only discussed Gore’s remarks on U.S. relations with China. On March 11, the Washington Times’ Greg Pierce reviewed the interview in his “Inside Politics” column. But Pierce only mentioned what Gore had said about early campaign polling. Similarly, the AP’s dispatches about Gore’s interview completely ignored his Internet comment. And another major organ passed over Gore’s statement. On March 10, the Hotline—the widely-read, on-line digest of the day’s political news—ran extensive excerpts from the Late Edition Q-and-A’s, but omitted the Internet remark altogether. In fact, in the first two days after Gore’s appearance, no press entity remarked, in any way, on what Gore said about the Net. Gore’s comment would be critiqued, attacked, burlesqued and spun over the course of the next twenty months. But it evoked no reaction from the press—none at all—at the time Gore made it. Repeat: No one in the press said even one word about Gore’s statement at the time it was made. No one showed the slightest sign of thinking Gore’s comment was notable.

Why did Gore’s comment provoke no reaction? Perhaps because Blitzer and others knew that Gore had taken the leadership, within the Congress, in developing what we now call the Internet. Gore was explicitly discussing his achievements in Congress, and if “I took the initiative” meant “I took the leadership,” his statement was perfectly accurate. (Extemporaneous speech doesn’t always parse perfectly. Everyone in Washington knows this.) Indeed, as Gore’s remark began attracting wide scrutiny, some journalists reviewed his congressional record—and a wide array of Internet pioneers described his key role, within the Congress, in creating what we now call the Net. In the March 21 Washington Post, for example, Jason Schwartz quoted several Internet pioneers, including Vinton Cerf, the man often called “the father of the Internet.” Cerf praised Gore’s role in the Net’s development. “I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president,” he said. Meanwhile, Katie Hafner, author of a book on the Internet’s origins, penned a short piece in the New York Times, quoting experts who said that Gore “helped lift the Internet from relative obscurity and turn it into a widely accessible, commercial network.” On March 18, Gore tried to clarify his remark in an interview with USA Today. “I did take the lead in the Congress,” he told Chuck Raasch; he described his Internet work in detail. Raasch quoted Gore’s explanation—but it was mentioned in no other paper.

(snip)

Duh! Within the press corps, everyone knew that Gore was the leader, within the Congress, in creating what we now call the Net. Indeed, by the time of the 2000 election, even one of Gore’s long-standing foes was praising his work in this area. On September 1, 2000, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed the American Political Science Association. His remarks were broadcast on C-SPAN:

GINGRICH: In all fairness, it’s something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is—and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got , we were both part of a “futures group”—the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the ’80s began to actually happen.

[The Backlash Cometh]

43. So, everyone latched on to the word "create?"

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our countrys economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

Wonder how easily this would have been corrected in today's world where people are learning to respond quicker.

[Uncle Joe]

48. I believe that as the Internet is stronger today, it would be more difficult for the corporate media

to carry out such a blatant display of libel and slander over a sustained period of time.

Having said that, the corporate media as an institution either knew or should have known what it was doing, even in 1999 they had video, transcripts and the Congressional Record, this was deliberate.

My own theory is the corporate media was especially motivated to trash Gore because he did champion the Internet.

The corporate media or at least the owners and upper management saw the growing Internet as a direct threat to their business model and monopolistic, one way, top down control over information dissemination and delivery to the American People.

Believing the Internet threatened their advertising dollars and political message control, facing the prospect of diminished power, influence and wealth, they took their hatred out on Gore, just as in mythological lore, Zeus punished Prometheus for stealing fire for humanity.

[The Backlash Cometh]

52. Thanks. I'm book marking this.

[Uncle Joe]

53. The ultimate compliment.

Peace to you, :hi:

[EFerrari]

30. Didn't that event pretty much make Fox?

[Uncle Joe]

35. FOX was made before this slander, OJ and Lewinsky helped make them. This was institution wide and

so called liberal and moderate parts of the corporate media participated as well.

There were a few isolated incidents where responsible journalists bucked the trend and called the corporate media on their disgraceful behavior, if my memory serves me correctly, Paul Krugman was one of them, but the vast majority of the corporate media either went along or remained silent.

[EFerrari]

36. I meant, didn't the Monica scandal put them over the top?

I remember that's when we stopped watching it. The weekends were especially horrible, non-stop drivel.

[Uncle Joe]

42. If it didn't put them over the top,

it certainly helped.:(

[jwirr]

23. I think it helped the rethugs win in the next elections. For a long time

his actions were what people thought Democrats were. I have never quite forgiven him,not for his actions but for the effect it had on our party.

[The Backlash Cometh]

26. It took GWB destroying all the good that Clinton did for everyone to

get their priorities straight.

But, it was a challenge.

[KeyserSoze87]

27. I think Clinton should have been removed from office, while Bush had every right to stay in office.

After all, ruining a dress is far worse than stripping citizens of their civil liberties, lying to the American people about going to war with a country that never posed a threat, being responsible for the largest security failure in history, and presiding over the largest economic downturn that we've seen in decades.

:sarcasm:

[adigal]

41. You are comparing apples and oranges

Just because Bush is a monster doesn't make what Clinton did any less harmful to the Democratic Party.

[KeyserSoze87]

50. I guess that is true.

What Clinton did was still pretty embarrassing for us. I bet Gore would have won if Clinton had nothing to do with Lewinsky.

[Nye Bevan]

29. If Clinton had kept his penis in his pants, Al Gore would have become President.

The problem was that Gore did not want to involve Clinton too much in his campaign, in the wake of the Lewinsky thing. A huge mistake IMO- if anything, the backlash against the prudish Republican "managers" who pushed the impeachment would have helped Gore's cause.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

33. But, Clinton had a potential career as a spokesman for cigars and stain remover.

[mod mom]

34. It wasn't his promiscuity that bother me but his corporatism hidden by false

concerns of caring about people.

[wickerwoman]

37. I remember him trying to talk about al Qaeda and Republicans saying "Wag the dog! Wag the dog!"

So I would say potentially we were hurt quite a bit by it but mostly because the press wouldn't move on.

The truth is this crap is going to come up every few years and mostly it will be their guys and sometimes it will be our guy but the fact doesn't change that its a juvenile distraction from the really heavy lifting that needs to be done both by the government and by journalists.

[alc]

38. we'll never know what didn't get accomplished

because Clinton was busy with this or because he had lost his pull with congress or influence on citizens to write their congressman.

[karynnj]

45. In retrospect, a President Gore, in office about oe year, might have been

hard for Bush to beat. Especially as people would have seen him and his family to a degree where it would have been harder for the media to cast him as "boring". Anything that increases the likelihood that there would not have been a second President Bush is good.

However, it would have destroyed President Clinton as it would likely have meant his party forced resignation on him. (Nixon only resigned because it was clear there were enough votes to throw him out. With Clinton, it would have taken about half the Democrats agreeing to throwing him out. I really see no likelihood of him resigning after the Senate vote as it was. Much as I am not a Clinton fan, I think that that Clinton has the ability to be one of the few Democrats heard.

[LeftinOH]

51. The scandal hurt Gore enough to lose us the 2000 election, IMHO. n/t

[Atman]

54. Don't you remember? It made all of our kids have sex on the internet.

Clinton made it okay to post BJ picks and have sex with Jewish girls. It was a tragedy of epic proportions.

.