Bill Clinton's worst policy decisions?

By no means do I intend this post as freeper-styled Clinton-bashing. And while it's always enjoyable to discuss the good things that President Clinton accomplished, I just thought it might be interesting to shift gears a bit. As such, here are what I consider to have been Clinton's biggest policy blunders:

1. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). The wholesale exporting of U.S. jobs to Mexico did not begin under NAFTA, but it sure as hell sped the process up. Since Clinton signed NAFTA into law in 1994, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of well-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs have moved south of the border, where the workers make only a fraction of what their American counterparts were paid.

2. THE FIRING OF JOYCELIN (sp?) ELDERS. Dr. Elders was Clinton's surgeon general. In late 1994, she came under attack from the GOP's Taliban wing for daring to suggest that masturbation was a viable alternative to teen pregnancy. Rather than defending Dr. Elders and her common-sense idea, Clinton caved into the right and fired her.

3. THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1996. Media deregulation was around for years before the Telecoms Act, but with this legislation--the most heavily lobbied in history--the rails were greased and the train's brakes were disabled. Thanks to Telecoms, a thimbleful of huge media conglomerates--all of them owned by right-wingers like Rupert Murdoch--now owns a good 90-95% of all the broadcast, cable, and print media in the United States. And the lack of diversity in ownership has resulted in a pathetic lack of diversity on TV and radio and in our so-called "news" papers.

4. THE BOMBING OF KOSOVO. In March 1999, Clinton ordered bombing raids on Kosovo in an attempt to unseat its horrendous dictator, Slobadan Milosevic (sp?). However, Milosevic remained in power even after Clinton left the White House and was only overthrown by Kosovo's first democratic election. Clinton's bombing of that nation resulted in nothing more than thousands of civilian deaths.

So, do y'all have anything to add?

and Gingrichism (welfare "reform")

...affected people's lives. Whether or not one approves, Clinton's blowjobs harmed no one!

it "ruined" Monica's life! Even the book deal, line of clothes (or purses) and TV show couldn't console her. Barf.

gratification did hurt the party, thus hurt the nation because repugs were seen as the party of character and they now rule. I mean, he knew he was being watched by the RW and any f'up would be used against him. It was stupid and a definite case of poor judgment. (imho)

Flame me if you wish, this is how I feel. :shrug:

I also didn't appreciate his statements last night on Letterman. When your nation is on the verge of ruin, you take a stand, you don't play politics.

entire nation, straight from the offal office

how does that stack up, ranger boy?

House and he screwed the pooch big time. We could have had it all, Gore would have been a lock, not even close. With Clintons expertise, orational abilities, without the albatross of what he did we could have wiped out the Repubs forever. His weakness put us where we are, how's that buycitgo guy.

care reform fiasco).

I'd put welfare reform on the list as well.

Forget that this discussion won't help anybody.....We want our entertainment

putting corporations above people is deplorable. Especially on a global scale.

Is the only legit gripe on your list IMHO.

wasn't it?

But since we're supposed to value human life so much here on DU, one would think "thousands of civilian deaths" in Kosovo would rank a little higher on the original poster's list.

But hate if you must.

In fact, Madelaine Albright actually PREVENTED other countries from helping, as well.

your #4: The bombing of Serbia wasn't intended to overthrow Milosevic ("US armed forces don't do nation-building!" screamed the GOP congress), it was intended to get Milosevic's troops and paramilitaries out of the Albanian areas of Kosovo. And it worked, sort of. I could nitpick things that could have been done better in that operation but overall I supported it.

my #4: Deregulating "dietary supplements" so that snake-oil salesmen can make basically any claim about their products they want without having to back it up scientifically.

I agree 100% with your first three, though.

For the simple reason, it decimated Milosovic's band of thugs. Hard to kill when you're military has been decapitated. Was it perfect? Hell no. But it was a noble effort, in stark contrast to our war for profit in Iraq. Just my opinion.

Of course if he would have vetoed it, the veto would have been overridden and then he would have had to explain his actions to the (still somewhat) conservative moderates whom he owed part of his election success to. In those terms, maybe it wasn't a blunder.

industry when they said they would not oppose the HMO version of "Hillary Care".

One does not trust the Insurance industry.

..that's one of my gripes with Bill, whom I otherwise worship.

The rest I don't know enough about.

It makes sense to have a special trade arrangement with Mexico and Canada, as we are their immediate neighbors. This was just the wrong deal.

The Welfare Reform Act was one of the biggest pieces of shit ever passed in the past thirty years. It's filth and I'm still dismayed that Clinton touts it every time he's on TV.

I shouldn't be surprised, though, because Bill turned into a conservative in his second term.

Thanks.

The Telecom act has fucked us far beyond what anyone could ever have imagined it might.

NAFTA...paved the way for all the outsourcing that has come along.

And the freaking right-wingers will not be happy until no one is having sex. Ever. Elders spoke the truth. Masturbation should have made them happy, but they showed themselves once again for the hypocrites that they are. They don't even want people having sex with themselves, fer cryin out loud.

FSC

conservatives are disgusted with their own bodies. I believe that is where their hateful, mean-spirited agenda comes from.

It was the worst of both worlds and set a negative tone for his whole first term.

I don't have issues with the aims of the program, however, it was rather poorly conceived.

Good call! :thumbsup:

The only larger blow to labor was Reagan's firing of the Air Traffic Controllers.

Big Dawg, you killed us on that one. Bad bad bad

OK, so maybe it's not as big a problem for our country as some of the other laws he passed, but ...

It completely eliminated fair use rights. It pisses me off that I can't make a backup copy of a CDROM that I legally purchased! Or that I can't transfer my old VHS movies to DVD so I can preserve them, even though they were legally purchased! (Many of them are not available on DVD, so I can't even buy them.) Or that I can't make a "compilation" CD of may favorite music so I can listen to it in the car, even though all my CDs were legally purchased!

I know, there are "ways" to get around these issues ... but I shouldn't have to go to the trouble of hacking something I paid for. I'm not selling copies and I'm not distributing them. Pirates always find ways to get around copy protection, so all this law does is eliminate the rights of the consumer.

Some copy protected CDs won't even play on a computer. :wtf: 95% percent of the time, I listen to my CDs while I'm at my computer! I paid for the damn thing! I don't think it it's too much to ask that I be allowed to listen to it on the machine of my choice!

/end of rant :smoke:

I'd have to say that one of the worst strictly political decisions he made was signing the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994. Democrats who supported him lost numerous seats in the House and Senate, and Gore lost several states because of his support for the bill as well. It is quite possible we would still have a Democrat-controlled White House, Senate and House of Representatives if it weren't for that stupid bill that never had any effect on crime.

In terms of humanitarian mistakes, Rwanda tops my list. Hundreds of thousands were hacked to death as we did nothing, ugh.

You hit with the big ones, but I would add this: Most of these decisions were made when he was in the triangulation period of his governance. In his first two years, he did make an incredible effort with Health Reform (though HMOs and the inability to sue HMO doctors for malpractice turned out to be a mistake) and he did try to make a change in laws that affected gays. This happened in the first two years of his first term and he was nearly eviscerated for it by the mainstream. Which, was the reason for his steady decline to the right.

I just don't understand why he did that one.