bill clinton

Make no doubt about it; Republicans absolutely despise democracy. That's not to say they don't love the sound of the word, but when it is in actual practice, well they only like it when their person wins. Evidence of that can be seen in the actions and words of Republicans in comparison to presidential votes.

Let's start off with Bill Clinton. In 1996 he won the presidency by a whopping 9%. Did the Republicans look at that as a mandate or "will of the people"? Nope. Instead they started a witch hunt to try and remove him from office by the most extreme method this country has - impeachment. Not since 1837, when Andrew Jackson was impeached, has this happened and Clinton was only the second time in our nation's history.

Now let's go to 2008. Before President Obama even took the oath of office, Republicans were starting to beat the impeachment drums. Republicans started looking for anything and everything they could throw at him. But again, Obama won that election by 7%. So to the Republicans, a majority of this country is idiots and don't know how to vote. Democracy be dammed!

So here we are now, just a little over a week since another Obama victory. Sure it wasn't as big this time, him only getting the popular vote by 3%, but still, the people elected a Democrat. So how does the Republicans respond to this?

People in four states — Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington — have reported strange political robocalls from a birther group called Conservative Majority Fund, saying that they “suspect” Obama may be “guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors,” adding “there may be grounds for impeachment as is laid out in the Constitution.”

Got that? They don't know what crimes, but they think there has to be some. But on what grounds? Is it PWB (Presidenting While Black)?

Idiotic liars! This bullshit is getting ridiculous. When you talk about the economy the GOP wants to make you think that everything was rip roaring up until January 20th, 2009 and then tragedy struck. Obama took office and instantly our economy crashed.

They don't acknowledge or admit that the problems started long before that, like in 2007 when countless economists said we were entering a recession. Even during the summer of 2008 Republicans were adamantly denying the economic turmoil we were in. And they totally ignore the fact that their nominee for President in 2008, John McCain, made an unprecedented move to suspend his campaign to work on the economic crisis less than two months before election day.

No - these people live in a fantasy world built with lies. Take the report on the loss of American wealth I posted about earlier. The report covers 2007-2010. Now look how the right wing blogs report it.

Sacred Monkeys:

The Obama ‘Hope & Change’ Years: Median Net Worth of Families Fall 39% in the Past Three Years

PJ Tattler:

In the Age of Obama, the American family is getting hosed, according to a story in the Washington Post.

Weasel Zippers:

Fed: Americans’ Net Worth Has Plunged 39% Since Obama Took Office…

And The Lonely Conservative:

The extent to which some Republicans will twist history to try and sell Newt is truly amazing.This morning on Chuck Todd's show, former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va) was busy explaining how voters will forgive Newt for his past. As an example he brought up Bill Clinton:

Look at where Bill Clinton is today compared to back then.

Fine, let's look at where Bill Clinton was back then. Right after the House voted to impeach Clinton his approval rating spiked to 73%. According to Gallup, throughout the entire scandal he remained in the mid to upper 60% range, only dipping down to the upper 50's a couple of times.

Is Tom Davis idiotic enough to think that bringing up the 90's is a good thing for Newt? We had a booming economy back then and yet Newt was hellbent on destroying the President that lead us there. Americans on all sides of the aisles loved Bill Clinton, yet Newt was trying to destroy him. To make matters worse for Newt he was going after Clinton for an affair, while Newt was having the same thing.

Oh wait!

Today Newt says he was going after Clinton for lying to Congress. But Newt did the same exact thing at the same exact time. Newt was reprimanded by the House for "misleading" the ethics committee among other charges.

Sure the media has become a gossip factory. A lot of that started because of our Congress in the 90’s that investigated Bill Clinton for everything possible. Yeah everyone knows about Monica, but how about the White House Christmas card list or Clinton getting a haircut? That Congress turned everything Clinton did into a gossip style story.

Oh and that Congress? Well it was lead by Newt Gingrich.

But that was then and this is now. What Gingrich is talking about today is the sexual harassment stories coming out about Herman Cain.

Gingrich tells NBC's "Today" show that news organizations care more about scandal than ordinary citizens struggling to make ends meet.

The former House speaker says voters want a "solution-oriented leader" more than a scandal. He says it's up to Cain to handle in the way he sees fit. But Gingrich says there's a gap between the "gossip" he believes journalists pursue, and more deep-seated problems like economic stagnation.

You know, I do wish the news would pay more attention to people struggling, but I also wish our Congress would too. We are nearly 10 months in since the Republicans have taken over the House and they have produced zero job creating bills. At the same time they have pushed legislation like honoring Ronald Reagan, limiting abortion rights and affirming “in God we trust”. So perhaps Gingrich should talk to the man who holds his old job, John Boehner, about this.

And about the “gossip”. Well it’s a little more than that Newt. The NRA has confirmed what happened, Cain has confirmed what happened and Cain’s piss-poor handling of the story has kept it alive. That’s not “gossip”, but rather fact.

There has been non-stop talk this week about Joe Sestak's job offer by the Obama administration if he wouldn't run against Arlen Specter. Now we have some answers:

Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he'd be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.

But the White House maintains that the Clinton-Sestak discussions were informal, according to the sources. The White House, under pressure to divulge the specifics of its interactions with Sestak, will release a formal statement later today outlining their version of events, including Clinton's involvement.

As Gregg points out, the fact that Clinton was actually involved in this shows how much the White House didn't want Specter to have to face Sestak in the primary. Regardless, I still don't see anything illegal, or even unethical in this. These are the type of games that happen in Washington all the time. Sure the people are tired of it, but Democratic and Republican administrations have both engaged in the same practices for decades. The Republicans calling for a special prosecutor is nothing more than a grand stand, but given that Clinton is involved now, I'm sure they will push it even more.

UPDATE:

Per a breaking news alert from AP, Clinton suggested an "unpaid, advisory role" to Sestak. So it wasn't even an actual "job", but rather letting Sestak stay in the House and also act as an advisor. Nothing wrong with that.

Yesterday Bill Clinton gave some advice to President Obama on his next pick for the Supreme Court:

S"But it's not predictable. I'd like to see him put someone in there, late 40s, early 50s, on the court and someone with a lot of energy for the job." Clinton said his wife would be "great" at the court but said she'd advise Obama "to appoint someone 10, 15 years younger."

Going with younger picks is a very interesting dynamic. Given the more contentious fights we see for confirmation we have seen recently, I also would have to say it’s something we will see much more. A lot of people thought John Roberts was awfully young, as well as Sam Alito. Could you imagine if Bush would have picked someone in their 60’s or 70’s? Those people would be retiring in the next decade or two and we would be back to another confirmation battle.

Here’s some interesting facts to put this into perspective.

• Up until the retirement of Stevens the average age of the justices was 69. When Rehnquist was around it was 71. Now that average will probably drop a few more years.
• The longest period of time with no changes on the court was from August 3, 1994 to September 3, 2005.

Another thing to take into consideration is that people live longer and retire later in life now. Appointing a 43 year old justice 100 years ago isn’t the same as appointing a 43 year old justice today. The one today would server an average of 10 additional years.

Throughout 2009 we kept hearing about the need new and more wide-spread financial regulation. That’s when the market was down. Now that it is back up, it looks like new regulations might take a back seat:

So what happened to Frank's initial fervor? The stock market recovery — the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up 67 percent since the March 2009 low — drained some anger from the debate, and after months of haggling over health care, legislators heard from their constituents that regulation was no longer a word with magic healing powers.

More important, Frank, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other left-leaning Democrats have had to deal with the New Democrat Coalition, a moderate group inside the party that shares many of the values associated with Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council, which was founded 25 years ago in the belief that Democrats couldn't win elections without a strong moderate platform.

As Paul Krugman put it yesterday – That ‘1937’ Feeling.

That seems to be the reason gaining the most traction, that Palin couldn’t work and the cost of defending herself against all the ethics complaints was too much to handle. Here’s a segment from FOX News where Sean Parnell, Palin’s successor, repeats just that.

I can buy that as a reason, but does that mean she is ready for the White House? Absolutely not. Think of Bill Clinton. During his tenure in the White House he faced over 50 ethics investigations, from Monica Lewinsky to who was on their Christmas card list, with only the former sticking. Throughout all that Clinton was able to  remain one of the most popular Presidents ever and do thinks like turn the deficit into a surplus.

So knowing that then who would be lay blame for these investigations on? Would it be the Democrats and liberal groups, who most likely filed most of the complaints against Palin, or would it be the Republicans, who started the entire culture of investigating our leaders? I would say the former. It would be nice if Republicans could also remember that. They thought it would be fun to bring ethics complaint after ethics complaint against our leaders, but when the tables are turned and the leader happens to be from their own party those investigations aren’t so much fun. It’s a level of hypocrisy that has very serious political consequences.