Student:
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... SO if FLA holds the folks that manufacture Crown Royal should send a big ol' thank you to Shrub cause God knows I'll be keeping em in business the next four years. While I was recovering from too much whiskey and too little sleep this a.m. I did in fact hear Amy and the prez go at it. What I heard is what I will miss; a prez that can talk his way out of a paper bag...but it was a great interview, i really liked what he(Klinton) had to say about Iraq.
Buzzanco:
what did Clinton have to say about Iraq? Your point about Clinton talking his way out of paper bag really speaks to the tragedy of his career. The guy has amazing political skills, the best I've ever seen and probably up there with FDR. Yes, what did he use them for? To what purpose did he put his intelligence and capabilities? Basically, as I see it, he spent 8 years messing over the people who always supported him--gays, blacks, labor, women--while giving a blank check to the Goldman Sachs junta. In my book, he's worse than Ray-Gun, Bush and Shrub because he might have done something, and he chose his own ambition. And what did "we" get for it: welfare "reform" [excuse me, the "Personal Responsibility Act"], the 1996 crime bill, Nafta, and so on. One of my favorite authors, the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano, said that society was divided between "the fuckers and the fucked." I know into which camp I'd put Clinton.
As both a Sicilian and a Commie, I value loyalty to one's friends and allies--the "people"-- above all, and Clinton failed totally on that. I think, when we look back on this period after a while, we'll see the "end" of the "sixties." People who got a sense of democracy and empowerment in that period latched onto Clinton as one of their own and they blindly followed him, always believing that he really did share their values. But it was a fool's paradise: 22 year olds who couch their opposition to Vietnam in terms of their "viability" in the system are not and won't be radicals or revolutionaries. Those who blast Sister Souljah, Lani Guanier, Jocelyn Elders when they're in trouble aren't race rebels. Politicians who take labor's money and votes and then force NAFTA down their throats aren't comrades. People who talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk aren't friends of the people--Just posers.