The two U.S. presidents before President Obama shared a stage in Canada last night, joking and refusing to offer criticism of each other or of the Obama Administration. Bush went so far as to describe Clinton as his "brother".
Excuse me? How nice that the two exes can perform on stage and collect nice healthy speaking fees. But what happened to all of the significant policy differences? Was all of that debate over the wars (and the war dead!) and social programs and AIDS and foreign relations...was all that just stagecraft of some kind? And now that y'all are out of office it time for back-patting and singing kum-ba-ya? Wink Wink Nod Nod: "Hey let's collect more money for our libraries, wasn't that a cool way to spend eight years???"
Honest: they stood on that stage and joked about cleaning up after their White House dogs. What about us? We had to clean up after you! I don't know who will be angrier about the vaudeville act...Bush supporters or Clinton supporters. Civility is one thing. Doing stand-up comedy for cash with someone you taught us to despise is despicable.
Standup comedy from two former presidents, one the successor of the other? It's entirely apropos, Tim!
ReplyDeleteBoth of them nincompoops, whose present aggrandizements are surpassed only by vivid recollections of their incompetencies and individual self excesses - one whom couldn't keep his zipper up, the other whose blithe ignorance allowed him to manipulate and be manipulated by others.
It wasn't once that I heard some say that Clinton was much like Bush. When I individually asked for those so asserting to defend their position, they did quite well.
I think both those bozos know they royally screwed America, and that we're paying the price for believing either one of 'em. That's one reason why they don't or won't engage in honest debate about issues and how to resolve them, and why one's methodologies may be better than the other's.
Both of 'em sold us down the river when it came to foreign trade - Clinton first screwed us with NAFTA, and then Bush kissed us afterwards with CAFTA.
Considering that neither one had stellar individual service records, and that Bush signed off on BRAC's (Base Realignment And Closure commission) closing numerous military installations (I've NEVER agreed with voluntary military emasculation), it's fascinating indeed to consider the following:
DLC | Blueprint Magazine | June 30, 2003
Clinton's Military LegacyPresident Bush owes a major debt of gratitude to his predecessor.By Steven J. Nider
Director of Foreign and Security Studies, Progressive Policy Institute
http://www.ppionline.org/ndol/print.cfm?contentid=251793
"The United States has had two big demonstrations of American military power on George W. Bush's watch that have been spectacularly successful. The irony here is that Bush fought these wars with the military Bill Clinton bequeathed to him.
"A commander-in-chief leads the military built by those who came before him," then-vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said during the 2000 campaign. "There is little that he or his defense secretary can do to improve the force they have to deploy. It is all the work of previous administrations. Decisions made today shape the force of tomorrow."
In fact, the Clinton administration actually spent more money on defense than the previous administration of President George H.W. Bush. The smaller outlays during the first Bush administration were developed and approved by then-Defense Secretary Cheney and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. The Clinton administration did not coast on Reagan-era procurement funding. During the 1990s, the Pentagon invested more than $1 trillion in developing and procuring new weapons and information technology that gave U.S. forces such an unprecedented advantage in the last two U.S. military campaigns. But more significant than the budget increases was the shift that occurred in the mid-1990s. That shift involved much greater emphasis on precision weapons, sensors, robotics, advanced communications, training, readiness, and orienting the intelligence community toward direct support of military operations. It was that shift that produced the superb military that not only swept through Iraq at a rate that defied historical precedent, but used its awesome force with unprecedented precision and effect, unprecedented low collateral damage, and unprecedented low casualty rates. It was the American Revolution in Military Affairs begun in the Clinton administration that was unveiled in Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom."