Welfare "reform", NAFTA, DOMA, telecommunications dereg, financial dereg, and the abandonment of labor and walking class values to chase corporate money.

and more.

escalation of the drug war, increasing prison populations, privatizing prisons, and putting more unneeded cops on the streets.

That 90's boom was greasing the skids for the disasters that followed

no more right wing Democrats PLeASE!!!!

He was the least of two evils. We've moved on. We can do better.

We need to make an attempt to go left - we can't continue drifting slowly to the right. We've already drifted so far.

not again. for either one.

I won't make that mistake again.

Our supposedly "first Black president" lost my adoration for good Super Tuesday build up in 2008. He spat in PoCs faces with his dog whistle. It hurt worse from him because we were hoodwinked.

They went from being merely flawed to untrustworthy on a fundamental level. Someone who uses racist suspicion and hatred to gain power will do anything for power.

I never forgave him or her for playing the race card during the 2008 campaign. It showed how two faced they were.

of Bill.

NAFTA:Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1990 among the three nations, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed the agreement in their respective capitals on December 17, 1992.[5] The signed agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or parliamentary branch.

Bill Clinton at 1993 NAFTA signing, after a concerted effort to steamroll it through (I could provide more about how hard Clinton worked to push that and most favored nation status with China, etc. but you can Google that all.)


http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3927
Excerpt:

...I believe we have made a decision now that will permit us to create an economic order in the world that will promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment, and a greater possibility of world peace. We are on the verge of a global economic expansion that is sparked by the fact that the United States lit this critical moment decided that we would compete, not retreat.
In a few moments, I will sign the North American free trade act into law. NAFTA will tear clown trade barriers between our three nations. It will create the world's largest trade zone and create 200,000 jobs in this country by 1995 alone. The environmental and labor side agreements negotiated by our administration will make this agreement a force for social progress as well as economic growth. Already the confidence we've displayed by ratifying NAFTA has begun to bear fruit. We are now making real progress toward a worldwide trade agreement so significant that it could make the material gains of NAFTA for our country look small by comparison.
Today we have the chance to do what our parents did before us. We have the opportunity to remake the world. For this new era, our national security we now know will be determined as much by our ability to pull down foreign trade barriers as by our ability to breach distant ramparts. Once again, we are leading. And in so doing, we are rediscovering a fundamental truth about ourselves: When we lead, we build security, we build prosperity for our own people......

But NAFTA was a George H. Bush project agreed on finalized by the GOP, but needed to be ratified under Clinton.

He spent his entire terms aggressively pushing for the "free trade" agenda, and he steamrolled it over the objections of much of the base of the Democratic Party, including labor unions, the progressive members of Congress, non-right-wing economists, consumer advocates, human-rights advocates, environmental advocates, etc.

He loved his free trade. He was enthusiastic about it.

And if you think he was bamboozed by Bush and the GOP on it....well then that wouldn't say much about his ability to think, does it?

There were plenty of people speaking out against it - just not the corporations.

And let's say the did. So your argument is vote for me again - maybe I won't screw up as much as last time.
With all the big money they've raked in from speeches? I wouldn't make that bet.

Must've done something right.

Helped along by "free trade" policies pushed by Clinton

need to have you give them a history lesson.

Including our old friend Bernie (among many others who proved to be absolutely correct)

He's a charming man, but you shouldn't vote for POTUS based on something akin to a high school popularity contest. Clinton claims his position has changed on some of the things that irked me, but I wouldn't give him a chance to prove it.

when I think I voted for him twice.

But AntiDemocratic Underground largely would not.

Probably not.
though I'm a steadfast bernie supporter, I'll admit...
if Hillary gets in I want a moment, just a moment where bill takes the mic just after the applause die....and says with a giggle "Ahm Back"

Just to hear righty heads POP.

n/t

I voted for someone else in his first primary, but voted for him in both elections against the Rep. I might vote for someone else if he was running again (in a primary) but no Republicans presently in the running would I EVER vote for. I'd vote for Clinton again, he probably learned a lot his first go round, he's admitted some mistakes. His wife is a much, much, better choice this time around. She's always been more progressive than he, has a tougher, more disciplined character.

Damn right!

He legitimizes a war criminal
and before you say oh he's just being presidential
remember he never hung with or went to Jimmy Carters house

the economy, jobs (to include not just raw unemployment but wages) and foreign policy, are very revealing.

To paraphrase the Bard from Julius Caesar Act III Scene 2:

Here was a Clinton. Whence comes such another? (Hopefully soon)

I would venture (as stated by people) that many started out very enthusiastic because of his populist progressive rhetoric, and the shiny glossy veneer of the 90's Bubble before it burst.

But they became disillusioned as he pushed through a largely Republican agenda of free market free trade globalization (outsourcing American jobs, decimating American industries), deregulation, and gutting of the social safety net (welfare deform), etc.

Instead of actually strengthening the fundamentals of the American economy, we threw a drunken cocktaail party, and Bill Clinton served the cocktails....Now we're experiencing the hangover.

Or I suppose the evil socialist Berniee Sanders has been in his basement cooking up a magic potion to delude so many people who obviously are unable to thin k for themselves.

so no, this is a real issue.

Is what is slowly killing the Democratic Party. The only reason it hasn't joined Labour in GBR and the Liberals in Canada is because there is not yet a viable alternative. Your and your fellow 3rd wayers are doing your best to make that happen however.

Do you really think the 1990's were a pixie paradise that only got ruined when GW got into office? We lived in a state of collective illusion back then. The fundamentals of the economy were being undermined underneath the glittery "we'll never have an economic downturn again" surface of the Big Bubble.

http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_viewpoints_laborday_99/
Economic ‘Boom’ of the 1990s is a Bust for the Middle Class

By John Schmitt | SEPTEMBER 6, 1999.
For the last few years, the American economy has been on a real bender. Consumer spending, fueled by mounting personal debt and a gravity-defying rise in the stock market, has set off an economic boom that has boosted job prospects and incomes across the board. Like any night out on the town, however, all good things must eventually come to an end. This time, the negative personal savings rate, the spiraling trade deficit, and the threat of a sudden drop in the stock market are the leading candidates to spoil the party.

The big question facing middle-class Americans is: when we wake up to smell the coffee, what will we have to show for the 1990s? The short answer is: not much, even if Congress passes an ill-advised tax cut sometime this year.

Economists like to measure economic performance over a complete business cycle. This avoids exaggerating the bad news in downturns or the good news in upturns. The last business cycle reached its peak in 1989, when the unemployment rate hit a low of 5.8%. Using 1989 as a benchmark, the economy has grown substantially more productive in the 1990s, but working families have seen little of the gains.

The average American worker now produces about 12% more in an hour’s work than he or she did back in 1989, but, after adjusting for inflation, the typical worker’s wages have increased only 1.9%. The typical woman (up 3.4%) did better than the typical man (down 1.8%), but she still earns only 77 cents for every dollar earned by her male counterpart. Given that wages and salaries are the main source of income for middle-class Americans, it’s not surprising that the inflation-adjusted income of middle-income families grew just $285 between 1989 and 1997 (the most recent available data).

Meanwhile, the share of middle-income workers with some form of employer-provided health insurance (on their own or through their spouse) actually fell between 1989 and 1997, leaving almost 30% of those in the middle without coverage.

The recent good times have provided only temporary relief from long-standing economic woes facing the middle class. Over the last two decades, the playing field has shifted decidedly against working Americans, to the advantage of their employers. The decimation of American manufacturing, encouraged by our international trade policies, has cut into a key source of middle class jobs, especially for the three-quarters of the work force without a four-year college degree. The decline in union representation — from over 20% at the end of the 1970s to only 14% today — has also undermined the bargaining power of Americans in the middle. The erosion of the buying power of the minimum wage — now about 20% below what it was in the 1970s — has taken the bottom out of the labor market and put pressure on wages well above the federal minimum......

At a basic level, the President has to run the economy and foreign policy. Those are the two main areas of his job.

We can break the economy down to the federal budget, making sure people are employed, making sure those jobs are good jobs, making sure there is GDP growth.

President Clinton did a fantastic job on that.

In terms of foreign policy, in the post WWII era, I dont think the US has been seen in such a positive light by the rest of the world as during the last 4 years of the Clinton years. We're starting to get back there now with Obama, but the Clinton foreign policy was a resounding success.

In addition to those main aspects of his job, the President should promote freedom and equality for his people. While Clinton failed to completely integrate LGBT into the military, he tried and then had to settle for DADT. That's both a partial failure and a partial success.

The other stuff that folks harp on are generally minor compared to the main aspects of a President's job.

They undermined controls on finance abuse. They weakened the standing of organized labor. They made the situation of the poor worse. All of which you are high-fiving for a selfish short term gain. We are paying for those policies in spades now.

There are now more news sources on television and online than you can shake a stick at.

The organized labor accusation is nonsense as is the one about the poor.

Broadcasting and cable ae almost complete monolies -- look at who controls all those channels. And the wonderful alternatuves you cited RT, a propaganda artm of the Rusian givernment. Al jazerrah (a good channel) owned by wealthy foreign oil families.

As for the Internet, the corps aretightening their hold on that thanks to deregulation. Comcast is initiating new pay rules that will make it more expensive to spend time online. Any benefits of the Internet are slowly being taken over too. (I will give props to Obama;s FCC for a couple of actions to protect that. But that's a rare exception.)

Economically, there was an artificial, temporary stimulant with the tech boom. But the fundamentals were ignored, and -- worse -- the demise of long-term broadly based prosperity was undermined and allowed to deteriorate.

For example, remeember how "call centers" were touted aso one way to revitalize towns that had lost their manufacturing base? (Never mind that they paid a relative pittance.) But our wonderful "free trade" policies made that a temporary fix, when those wonderful ne call centers were shopped over to India.

That;s just one micro example how the so-calledd prosperity was an illusion. We didn't pay attention, and we're paying the price now.

DU has jumped the shark...Bill was a very good President.

are determined to believe things were just terrible back then. LOL!

I remember making the most money I ever made and still having recruiters calling and begging me to leave the job and offering all kinds of more money and benefits and other stuff to do it.

Only now is it starting to get that way again, 15 years later.

I think that was part of the media's hatred of him...he was smarter than they were and it bugged them.

Bill Clinton led the country to that success. WE had a budget surplus of six trillion. Unemployment was at 4.0 percent on average. 3.6 (percent some months.) What happened?

George W. Bush!

I am older but wiser now. Bless the internet, too - we don't have to just take the words of pundits or believe campaign slogans any more.

That said, if the choice were Clinton or Bush again, I guess I would, maybe...

But if Obama could I would vote for him in a heartbeat.

"Won't Get Fooled Again"

My objections to either Clinton are nearly identical. Because their policies are extremely similar.

and in retrospect, that may have been one too many. Not that there was really any choice in the matter.

we had then. So the question is pretty much moot.

If the question is should we repeal the two term limit then I'd have to say I really don't know. Each side has some pretty good arguments. But I don't think that alone is what our problems are about.

As time goes by, the disaster that was the Clinton presidency will become more and more apparent until it is finally accepted that Clinton was not a hell of a lot better than Bush Jr.

-welfare "reform"
-repeal of Glass-Steagall
-media consolidation
-militarization of police
-growth of private prison industrial complex

I would not vote for that slimeball for dogcatcher.

was George H. W. Bush, and the alternative in 1996 was Robert Dole. And those were the days when the opposition were still relatively sane. Mr. Clinton believed in the power of good legislation to make people's lives better, and he studied hard how how to shape that policy. Even if all of it didn't work the way he wanted, he did, and does, want to know how what he did affected people. And I was happiest with my second vote for him, when he was quoted as saying: "I haven't even thought of resigning." He was, and is, sane and hard working, and quite effective at what he does, by all reports. I'm quite curious to know how he would go about balancing the budget and reducing the debt again, in the face of this seriously dysfunctional congress. But if our luck holds, we will have the benefit of his advice, without paying him a dime, in due course. The Clinton Foundation will be paid, of course, by those who can best afford to.

Tsongus, Brown and Harkin - even Kerrey - might well have been far better Presidents. 1992 was a strange year. It was a year that saw GHWB implode BEFORE Clinton became the nominee. However, a year before - when people decided whether to run, GHWB was at a very high popularity after the conclusion of the first Gulf War. Imagine if Mario Cuomo had run. He would have been substantially to Clinton's left.

In fact, looking back, the fact that the Democratic party ignored the already apparent Clinton personality flaws - as he lied and blamed others both on Genefer Flowers and the draft - because of his obvious charisma and charm had impacts that lasted for decades. (Just consider whether with any other of these men as President if GWB, a man known to have been a mean drunk until 40, could have run on bringing honor and dignity back to the White House when running against a former Eagle scout married to his high school sweetheart. )

Looking to pigeonhole members perhaps?

I thought he was a pretty good president, all things considered.

the stuff he did has not been very good. I would surely want him over any republican.

NAFTA, "welfare reform," the Telecom Act, bank deregulation.

FUCK NO. He did enough damage to the country.

Personally, I'd rather have another Obama term.

(He got around the term limits thing. But....

And clearly it's meant to say "you voted for Bill, then, how can you not want Hillary now?"

It's absurd. I voted for Bill Clinton twice, and if it was 1992 or 1996 I'd do it again. Then I'd go home, and watch a movie on a VHS tape.

Point being, it's not 20 years ago. And Bill Clinton was a better president than some, but many of the decisions he made during that time have not aged well.

Conversely I think Obama will be judged far better by history than it may appear today.

Too many Hillary people seem seriously stuck in the past. "What? Legal pot? Oh no no no. 'Soccer Moms' want to hear about how we're gonna get tough on drugs! Now of you'll excuse me, i need to go dance the macarena" etc.

It's weird that in some ways the 90's seem like a totally distant era of the past.....In otehr ways it seems like yesterday.

The sense of time gets stranger as one gets older

Its easy to forget that the people hitting voting age next year were BORN the year the whole monica lewinsky thing started.