> > > Why Clinton keeps trying to placate the implacables
> > > is beyond me. It only enflames the paleo-cons (thanks
> > > Nathan, I like the term) all the more.
> >
> > Very simple: to save his ass.
>
> Well, ok, I'm dumb. Explain it to me. It seems to me that
No you're not. You've merely succumed to the common trait here of making simple things much too complicated.
> Clinton had to forcefully resist the Right at the beginning
> of his administration. For example, Travelgate. It makes
Travelgate was not about resisting the right, but about plain old rights of patronage. The clintons had only done what everybody else does -- really -- but for them the rules had changed, hence scandal. An added factor was the complicity of the elite media, whom the travel office serviced, as it were.
> perfectly good sense to me to fire the lot of employees,
> even if they are low-level, if you can't trust them. They
> were Republican loyalists and spies, weren't they?
they were people w/no business in a Democratic White House. that's enough. Nobody expects Trent Lott to hire a Democrat as his personal secretary.
> But the Right made an issue of it, and Clinton backed down.
> He should not have backed down. He needed to fight
> Gingrich to the death if need be at that point, or being
> president is a joke.
Right.
> . . .
> He conceded every fight necessary for him to fight, to
> save his ass, and now he loses his ass to boot.
>
> He needed to fight as bloody as it might be right at the
> start to save his ass. So, where is the sense of his
> placating?
Evidently he'd rather do that than try to create a strong Democratic Party. I presume it's his ideology.
In practical terms, he is offering potentially sympathetic circles of the G.O.P. policy victories as an alternative to the victory implied in removing him from office.
mbs