LMAO @ people on DU who think they are smarter than Bill

And LMFAO @ people on DU who think the Obama campaign is smarter than Bill.

Bill's the most popular perhaps. Not necessarily the most respected.

of the actual job you did. Good point.

To half of America, Reagan is a saint.

.. made him seem inept and weak when the fact is, he was neither. The truth is, that Carter had inflation that was far lower than that which this fascist pig in the White House currently has, and that the foreign affair "fiasco" Repukes would like you to think was a fiasco, actually wasn't. However, look around you and see what the current pig in office as done to not only foreign affairs, but our money, our economy, and our military guys abroad and in graves.

Carter was, like H. Clinton, the victim of marketing by Repugnicans. They did a good brainwashing job on our country. They're still doing it.

people could see that.

He wasn't any tougher than Carter.

I know a lot of us like to think of Gore as a former President.

I wish every night I would wake up the next day under a Gore Administration! B-)

The whole last 7 years of Bu$h-Cheney were just a very bad dream.

Or for people in Iraq or New Orleans - an absolute nightmare.

:sarcasm:

did you create that?

but I believe I found it right here on DU.

:evilgrin:

Carter has the Nobel Prize, I think he's more respected around the world than Bill.

:yoiks:

they got him on a blowjob. Impressive!

I would like to go back the the Harding administration that was called the most corrupt administration in history, however we don't have that far to go back in historw with the Bush number 2 administration being called the most corrupt administration still in the White House.

I would like to go back the the Harding administration that was called the most corrupt administration in history, however we don't have that far to go back in history with the Bush number 2 administration being called the most corrupt administration still in the White House.

You never give the opposition "wiggle" room!

hahahahahha thats funny

..in the oval office...but go ahead and lmao...

:eyes:

He's a pretty good, but his penchant for stepping in dog turds suggests that he is not as slick as most people believe.

He's got so much charisma, though, that some folks are mistaking it for intellect.

more and more and losing it's allure. x(

Edit: changed one word

that very few of the responses in this thread will have anything to do with Clinton's intelligence.

Several will involve his penis.

I mean, come on. He was *only* a Rhodes Scholar.

in decades is fair game.

after the impeachment fiasco, and he had the highest approval rating at the end of his term of any post-WW2 president?

Yeah, he looks really stupid.

You, apparently, weren't one of them.

He was dumb as hell to wag his finger and lie.

He won't be the last.

If not for the bullshit investigation, it would have never been necessary. It could have been handled as a private matter, exactly as it should have been.

either admitted it or said "that's a private matter," the reaction would not have been so great, nor would he have allowed the Republicans to hijack so much of the nation's time.

Did the grand jury give him the option of saying "that's a private matter"?

Frankly, the reason I don't hold it against him is because I simply cannot say with any certainty that I would have done any different in the same situation. When one is forced to address such an issue in full view of the public, the natural reaction is to be defensive.

People, and particularly politicians, lie all the time. If you're looking for a saint, you're not going to find one who is also a politician.

leading to the "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" remark, since the question was "is there not "was there ever..."

The lie people remember, and the lie that he badly erred in telling, was the finger-wagging statement to the public. Politicians lie all the time, yes. But that was a monumentally stupid lie. The mere fact that it did not undo his entire presidency is not evidence that his judgement is infallible.

And really, that's all we're talking about here--whether his judgement is infallible. OP implies it is, by laughing at those who "think they're smarter" than Clinton. Many disagree, by pointing to the blowjob as evidence of fallibility.

I never said that I think he is infallible. Infallibility is irrelevant in the context of the OP.

Lying about an affair says nothing about his level of intelligence. Zero.

Nobody. The OP is directed at those who are saying that Clinton is acting stupidly. By laughing at that idea, the OP is declaring Clinton's obvious intelligence to be a mark of effective infallibility. The Lewinsky scandal is proof positive that Bill Clinton is capable of acting incredibly stupid at times.

It's his/her assertion, not mine.

I think you're reading way too much into the OP. Clinton is one of the best political campaigners in a generation. Thinking that one can "outsmart" him on that front is probably underestimating him.

He lost numerous legislative battles, most notably his humiliation on health-care reform. He lost two years of his Presidency to Monica. Clinton had many victories, but was not without his losses. And it is crucial to remember that, despite his much-vaunted skill at political campaigning, he never broke 50% of the vote--had Ross Perot not ran in 1992, there likely would have been no President Clinton.

When was the last time Bill lost a political campaign?

The "Ross Perot factor" has been debunked about a thousand times. Do a search in the archives and you might learn something.

He lost in '74, won in '78, lost in '80, and recaptured in '82. He won in '92 with 43% of the vote, and again in '96 with 49% of the vote. A good record, but hardly indicative of one who "cannot be outsmarted."

Should he have said, "It's a private matter." and then just stopped. Personally, I would have loved him to say that, but at the time I just don't think that would have washed with folks. He thought that what he said was technically true, altho I am sure he knew damn well "technically" doesn't cut it. Frankly, he probably didn't have any choice at that point. It got away from him earlier. Maybe he could have gotten around it earlier, I just don't know...

What do you think, Occam?

"I did previously have a sexual affair with Ms. Lewinsky. I was wrong to do so, and I apologize to my family and to the nation for any and all repercussions my actions have had. However, this is fundamentally a private issue, and out of respect for my family, I intend this to be the last public statement I will make on this matter. Thank you."

I remember him saying something about an "inappropriate relationship" in that address. Everybody knew what he meant. I don't like "sexual affair" terminology because some people, myself included, feels that it just TMI and it plain embarrasses us. But, then, that's me. I think the rest of what you said is quite right...

I believe that is a common mistake among the male population. In most cases, the "other brain" is vastly overrated.

How much quantum physics has he studied?

Does he know how to win elections? Uhm, well it helps if you are an ex-President (celebrity status) and have big money backers. This isn't like a chess game where each side starts out with the same number of power pieces. BTW, I think I could probably beat Clinton in chess for whatever that is worth. My rating is about 1800. What's his?

I got a 175, FWIW. I wouldn't be surprised if he was smarter than me, though; he's quite brilliant.

And he did it twice.

Smart enough yet?

and that Reagan and Bush both took the White House twice, I am not sure how that proves his intelligence.

high marks.

So though you may have thought he sounded like a Republican, most of the rest of us didn't.

according to wiki, it was a weak field and most people dropped out because they figured Bush would win anyway. Clinton won the nomination way before I got to vote in a primary.

"The candidates in 1992 were considered one of the weakest starting grids the Democrats had ever chosen. Most of this was due to President George H.W. Bush's sky-high approval ratings in the wake of Operation Desert Storm. The press anointed front-runners for 1992 included Bill Bradley, then a New Jersey Senator, Jesse Jackson, who finished second in 1988, Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, and Jay Rockefeller, a Senator from West Virginia. But each bowed out early. Neither Bradley nor Rockefeller considered themselves ready to run, Gephardt seemed to accept Bush's re-election as a sure thing, and Gore had opted to spend more time with his family in the wake of a tragic accident that threatened the life of his young son. The most notable front-runner Mario Cuomo, decided not to run on December 20, 1991, the final day to apply to run in the New Hampshire primary.

When the early straw polls were finished, Bill Clinton was the candidate on the rise. The other primary contenders were Douglas Wilder, Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin, Paul Tsongas, and Jerry Brown. Clinton's victory in the Florida straw poll over Harkin made him the early front-runner in the post-Cuomo vacuum."

Progressives, such as Tom Tommorrow, for example, did not give him high marks.

their representatives.

Way to go - nice diss on the voter!

and two of Reagan. This isn't "Who wants to be a millionaire". Sometimes the audience is wrong.

I'm just pointing out two facts - 1) there is not always a lot of representation in the primary process when early states and donors make more of the decisions than voters do, especially voters in later states, and 2) Clinton was not very progressive on economic issues. Those facts don't become false just because they might diss the voters.

I'm talking about Democratic voters choosing their representative.

Democratic voters didn't give you two Bush terms. We didn't even give you one.

And neither did voters at large.

You may have heard of a little problem with vote suppression and then the Supreme Court making a special ruling for Bush to not count out the votes.

Did you hear of those things? Or not? Because I can give you some links.

On your points:

"there is not always a lot of representation in the primary process when early states and donors make more of the decisions than voters do, especially voters in later states"

And yet it's the only way we have to determine representation - through primary voting. Sorry if you and Tom Tomorrow feel a little left out.

"Clinton was not very progressive on economic issues."

No one said he was the most Progressive on economic issues. But he was very broadly popular with Democrats, and even across party lines. So your dissatisfaction, and even Tom Tomorrow's, doesn't outweigh the feelings of the brpad consensus of the Democratic party.

So you agree with me that Clinton won by sounding like a Republican?

This campaign finance and primary process is also not "the only way we have to determine representation" either. It's the way things are, partly because of "representatives" like Bill Clinton. You also don't sound very sorry if some people feel left out. In fact, you sound kinda smug about it. Clinton was broadly popular and that makes everything okay, even if he did a crappy job. Also, Eisenhower was popular too, and so was Bush after 911, and Bush Sr. after the Gulf War, but I would not support them for the Democratic nomination either.

There isn't one progressive economy and one republican one. For that matter, I note you didn't even sat Democratic but Progressive.

Democrats cover a range, and Bill Clinton was in it.

That Bill Clinton was popular means most people - Democrats included and especially - thought he did a good job.

You have EVERY freedom to feel he did a bad job. Most people felt otherwise.

who has never read either "The Other America" or "Looking Backward". There certainly are two, or three economies, maybe four - rich, middle class, minority, and poor. Like Bellamy's analogy of the coach - some people ride and some people pull.

I spent the 90s working sh*t jobs and didn't really get on the good job train until May 2004. In fact, as I so recently found out, I am still not on it, being a guy with 8 years of college stuck working as a janitor. A $13 an hour janitor with good insurance, but a janitor nonetheless.

From the editorial I posted in GD:

"Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the top 1 percent of households grew by 78 percent, reports Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent."

Between 1983 and 2004. In other words, much of it happening under Clinton.

don't measure up to your standards on economic policies.

My personal economics have nothing to do with it. I work in the non profit sector and already earn less than market for similar work, and for nearly two decades that work has been with low income and marginalized people.

You have shit to tell me about low income life in the United States.

Bill Clinton is a maverick politician and campaigner...if people think he doesn't know what he is doing, or Hillary's campaign doesn't know what he's doing, they are stupid...

Of course, the primary season is more than finding out who the best campaigner is. If that's all it was, all the Democratic candidates could have saved their time and money and just installed Hillary as our nominee. She (and Bill) are the best campaigner(s).

Bill is a brilliant guy, but we've seen that his lust for power (and other things) can make him damn stupid.

You're for Edwards now?

And I've never been for Hillary. But you knew that.


Edit: Kooch was my first choice, but we've seen how well that's working out.

"I PICK THE GOD DAMN terror of the fucking gods out of my nose! Pardon my language. But YEEEEEHAW, let the sons of God and man bear witness! Even in the belly of the Thunderbird I've been casting out the False Prophets; I'm busting a gut and blowing my O-ring, and ripe to throw a loaf! For I speak only the fucking Truth, and never in my days have I spoken other than! For my every utterance is a lie, including this very one you hear! I say, `Fuck'em if they can't take a joke!' By God, `Anything for a laugh', I say. I am the last remaining Homo Correctus, I am the god damn Man of the Future! I'll drive a mile so as not to walk a foot; I am a human being of the first god damn water! Yes, I'm the javalina humping junkie that jumped the Men from Mars! I drank the Devil under seven tables, I am too intense to die, I'm insured for acts o' God and Satan! I was shanghaied by bodiless fiends and alien jews from a corporate galaxy, and got away with their hubcaps! I cannot be tracked on radar! I wear nothing uniform, I wear no god damn uniform! Yes baby, I'm 23 feet tall and have 13 rows o' teats; I was suckled by a triceratops, I gave the Anti-Virgin a high-protien tonsil wash! I'm a bacteriological weapon, I armed and loaded! I'm a fission reactor, I fart plutonium, power plants are fueled by the sweat from my brow; when they plug me in, the lights go out in Hong Kong! I weigh 666 pounds in zero gravity, come and get me! I've sired retarded space bastards across the Cosmos, I cook and eat my dead; YAH-HOOOO, I'm the Unshaven Thorn Tree of the Atlantis Zoo! I pay no taxes! The Devil's hands are my ideal playground! I hold the Seven-Bladed Windbreaker; the wheels that turn are behind me; I think backwards! I do it for fun! My imagination is a fucking cancer and I'll pork it before it porks me! The say a godzillion is the highest number there is. Well by God! I count to a godzillion and one! Yes, I'm the purple flower of Hell County, give me wide berth; when I drop my drawers, Mother Nature swoons! I use a python for a prophylactic; I'm thicker, harder and meaner than the Alaskan Pipeline, and carry more spew! I'll freeze your seed before it hits the bathroom tile! YEE! YEEE! I kidnapped the future and ransomed it for the past, I made Time wait up for me to bleed my lizard! My infernal breath wilts the Tree of Life, I left my spoor on the Rock of Ages, who'll tear flesh with me, who'll spill their juice? Who'll gouge with me, whose candle will I fart out? Whoop! I'm ready! So step aside, all you butt-lipped, neurotic, insecure bespectacled slabs o' wimp meat! I'm a Crime Fighting Master Criminal, I am Not Insane! I'm a screamer and a laugher, I make a spectacle of myself, I am a sight! My physical type cannot be classified by science, my `familiar' is a pterodactyl, I feed it dipshits! I communicate without wires or strings! I am a Thuggee, I am feared in the Tongs, I have the Evil Eye, I carry the Mojo Bag; I swam the Bermuda Triangle and didn't get wet! I circumcise dinosaurs with my teeth and make 'em leave a tip; I change tires with my tongue and my tool! Every night I hock up a lunger and extinguish the Sun! I'm the bigfooted devil of Level 14, who'll try to blow me down? I've packed the brownies of the gods, I leak the Plague from my nether parts, opiates are the mass of my religion, I take drugs! Yes, I'm a rip-snorter, I cram coca leaves right into my arm-veins before they're picked off the tree! Space monsters cringe at my tread! I wipe the Pyramides off my shoes before I enter my house. I'm fuel-injected, I'll live forever and remember it afterwords! I'm immune! I'm radioactive! Come on and give me cancer, I'll spit up the tumor and butter my bread with the juice! I'm supernatural, I bend crowbars with my meat ax and a thought! My droppings bore through the earth and erupt volcanoes in China! Yes, I can drink more wine and stay soberer than all the heathen Hindoos in Asia! YEEE HAW! Gut Blowout! I am a Moray Eel, I am a Komodo Dragon, I am the Killer Whale bereft of its pup! I have a triple backbone, I was sired by the Wolf Man, give me all your Slack! I told Jesus I wouldn't go to church and He shook my hand! I have my own personal saviors, I change 'em every hour, I don't give a fuck if there's life after death, I want to know if there's even any fucking Slack after death! I am a god damn visionary, I see the future and the past in comic books and wine bottles; I eat black holes for breakfast! I bend my genes and whittle my DNA with the sheer force of my mighty will! I steer my own god damn evolution! I ran 'em out of Heaven and sold it to Hell for a profit! I'm enlightened, I achieved `Nirvana' and took it home with me. Yip, yip, YEEEEEEE! I'm so ugly the Speed of Light can't slow me down and Gravity won't tug at my cuffs! When the Rapture comes, I'll make 'em wait! They'll never clean my cage! Now give me some more of..."

(Tape runs out.)

(oh, OK, I stole this from the Subgenius folks: http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classics/The-Brag.html)

Karl's not that smart. He's just willing to do shit that a normal human with morals would never consider.

campaigns.

Oh wait... :blush:

it seems to work for him.

How many men have never had a BJ? When the chance for one strikes most would accept the offer no matter where they were standing.

2008 and people pretend people don't get and give BJ's? Like Hillary says lets have some reality here!

Only that it was kind of stupid, and that it was especially boneheaded to lie about it.

At the same time, I would say that the investigation was ridiculous, and a waste of money. And if for all those millions of dollars all they could get on the man was that he got a blow job and denied it, it makes him far cleaner than I expect anyone to be.

I agree that the investigation was a mockery and that Clinton, all things considered, was far more good than bad.

with the level of scrutiny being applied, any lie would only make the situation worse.

trying. I don't believe any married man of any stature, large or small, would not try to lie. Give the guy a break. He already paid a very large price for that BJ. Why do Dem's have to use the Repig battering ram on him this many years later? He's done his time as they say. Repigs will surely notice our hypocrisy. We were with him before we were against him on this BJ issue. I find it shameful. Maybe we could do the one thing regarding this BJ that they couldn't. Stone him in the streets, mark his forehead, etc. Things like this do not bring the unity that Obama talks about. It is divisive and everyone should call it so when ever it is written here on DU.

He lied about it under oath. He could have said "none of your damned business", then there would be a ruling on it. His lack of respect for The Law is appalling - which is probably why he pioneered extrajudicial outsourced torture (i.e., "extraordinary rendition")

He tried not to lie. I felt sorry for him and still do. What those bastids did to him was more disgusting than any thing I have ever witnessed, except maybe Martha. Not to mention how they tried to force Susan McDougall to lie.

But what he did was also very wrong. It would be good if you acknowledged that.

Dem's are using Repig talking points.

He EXPLOITED a 21 year old in his employ. If he were a professor at a University, he would have been in big trouble.

She never filed any charges of sexual harassment. That tells me she did feel harassed.

the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment instances go unreported. It is for that reason that any appearance of impropriety ought be avoided in superior/inferior interactions. As Cali correctly points out, a professor getting blowjobs from students under the desk would likely lose his job.

big time at the hands of the republicans. There is no need to for Dem's to take up their war on Bill for them.

points against Democrats?

And while I think everyone needs to be subject to criticism, I don't support bashing - especially if doing it means using LImbaugh's old scripts.

counter to the notion that questioning Bill Clinton's judgement is laughable.

and wasteful investigation IS a Limbaugh talking point.

and the egregious lapse in judgement involved with engaging in a sexual affair while in office in the age of 24-hour news.

The issue isn't "Clinton is bad rargh," it's that the OP is wrong to say that Clinton's judgement is beyond question.

that are virtually indistinguishable from what Limbaugh and Coulter were saying at the time.

:-)

And so does my husband.


And we both come from highly educated families, and friends.

He was a Rhodes Scholar, and there have been reports that his IQ is in the genius range.

Perhaps what shouldn't be on a Dem website are unsubstantiated claims to the contrary.

Bush and the Corporations. I heard Hillary say that NAFTA needs to be done over to close those loop holes. She knows what needs to be done to correct that very distructive venture.

country. It shouldn't be.

where there was no free trade. But time has marched on and the best we can do is try to make these trade agreements fair to the workers and consumers here in the USA. Our companies who have left the US or have off-shored our jobs need to pay a high price for that and those that stayed or come back need to be rewarded. Sticks and carrots. Then every loop hole in those agreements need to be closed! I am as mad as hell about NAFTA/CAFTA! But, I also know we need to join the rest of the world in FAIR trade. Times have moved on.

... they are the key to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer... worldwide.

no, wait, that's Chuck Norris. my bad

he wouldn't be supporting Hillary.

So..go LMAO and BTW.."Hand in your blue book"
D+

I think some people have an unhealthy fascination with having Bill back in the WH. It's no different than Bush supporters who would love to think of a reason to keep him in the WH.

We only have to be smart enough to recognize a line of BS. Bill is a marvel, but some of his smarts we could do without.

LMAO that bill thinks we're as stupid as he wants us to be to fall for his dumbass remarks. LMAO that you fell for it (OP) that is.

Then again, my friends work at RAND, Fermilab, and various other nerd-farms.

he's acting real down right dumb now. So he wasn't so smart afterall.

Since his judgment tends to screw it up.

He's brilliant when he chooses to be.

Don't ask don't tell Bill. Even if Barack was first gay presidnt how progressive is that. =)

at dirty politics "smart" but ... whatever. Is all fair if it brings you a "win"? What is worth loosing to do so?
I hope that he/she/they realize that they are doing a great job of alienating many within the party, hopefully, not permanently. What will a "win" mean then?

with anything? Until he began his mud-slinging campaign against Obama, I thought the world of Bill Clinton. I don't hate him now, but he's slipped quite a way in my opinion of him.

Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Although some still think they had all the good ideas...

Chelsea proves that Bill and Hillary once had a healthy marriage.

I guess Bill was stupid enough to risk destroying it.