Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Why Do We Want to Re-live the past?


Last night, the NFL Network was replaying the Superbowl XXXVI between the Pats and Rams in New Orleans in 2002. George HW Bush was the honoree to toss the coin before the game. What a nice man, but what a mediocre president. It made me think...how on earth did we elect his son to be president in 2000 (and more incredulous, again in 2004)?!?!?!?

It also makes me think about Hillary's run for the presidency. Why do we want to go back to the Clintonian era? Haven't we had enough of them? She is running a campaign of inevitability, but do we really want monarchical imperialism in the US? If she gets elected and then gets re-elected in 2012, it will be 28 years with either a Clinton or Bush as President (and HW was VP from 1980-1988).

Don't get me wrong...the Clinton era in the 90s wasn't too bad. The deficit was eliminated and the economy was booming. It was largely peaceful times, save Kosovo and Somalia.

But, was Bill Clinton SUCH a great president that we need to re-visit that type of managerial style?

Let's look at list of the failures of the Clinton Presidency...

1. Political, social and human failure in Rwanda and Somalia
2. The Monica Lewinsky Debacle and Clinton’s subsequent impeachment.
3. Failure to solve the health care problem
4. Al-Qaeda comes to the fore with the bombing of two US embassies in Africa
5. The Don’t-ask-Don’t-tell compromise for gays in the military
6. AIDS upswing on the rise especially in Africa.
7. The North Korean Safe Nuclear Technology debacle
8. Failure of negotiations between Israel and Palestine
9. The COLLAPSE of the economy and stock market in 2000-2002 (as much as I dislike Bush, it wasn't his policies that caused the 2 year slow-down...the recession started in the third quarter of 2000...Bush took office Jan 2001)
10. Failure to capture/kill Osama Bin Laden
11. Widespread corruption in his administration- 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself

I think we need a whole new change in this country, a revolution. We need to change the bureaucracy and the old guard. It has nothing to do with Hillary being a woman. I think it would be GREAT for the US to have a woman president. But, we need CHANGE. Obama and McCain would be starts...although I would really like to see Bloomberg jump into the race as an Independent.

2 comments:

Will said...

who did you steal that list from??!? Pat Buchanan??!?

Need I remind you that "we" did not elect Bush. Is it time to out yourself Steve?

Anonymous said...

Steve, excellent points. For more info on Bill check out this article http://www.slate.com/id/2182938/nav/tap3/