Talk:Bill Clinton/Archive1

This is an archive page, last updated 7 October 2021. Please do not make edits to this page.

Archives for this talk page:  , (new)(back)

Not encyclopedic

Not very encyclopedic, I'll admit. But I figured I should get it started.... --Gulik 16:59, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

Famous Clinton Quotes

Just to inspire people to put some George Bush ones up.--Bob_M (talk) 15:38, 10 June 2007 (CDT)

Chickenhawk?

Should Bill Clinton appear in Category:Chickenhawks? He did not serve, yet did prosecute a war or three during his presidency. Unless the term is strictly ideological in meaning, I think a brief, pointlessly heated debate on the subject is called for. (I did vote for Clinton in '96 though, and I do think he was a good president otherwise.) EVDebs 01:34, 23 November 2007 (EST)

Hmmmmm, maybe? I always thought of chickenhawks as people who didn't serve, but seemed overly willing to go to war and put our own troops in danger. The war in the Balkans was conducted at at several thousand feet against an army with limited capacity to fight back in those circumstances, and while there is no "safe war" it is far cry from putting many thousands of troops into the midst of chaos without any plan for getting out. Actions in Iraq and Somalia weren't wars, as such, but I suppose that shouldn't necessarily equal a disqualification on those grounds. I guess we have to define "hawk" well too. Seems its a term for someone who is anxious to get involved in a war. Not sure if Clinton counts. Somalia, as I recall, was meant to be a mission to safeguard food and provisions. Were FDR and Wilson hawks? Wilson actively tried to keep the US out of WWI, and succeeded for a while. I'd like to hear other opinions. DickTurpis 01:47, 23 November 2007 (EST)

Here's my contribution to the pointlessly heated debate. I reckon to be a hawk you actually have to want to start wars, rather than seeking to end them. I can only think of one war that Clinton went in to during his presidency, that being Kosovo. Somalia, I suppose you could argue, is a joint Bush the Elder and Clinton screw up. Both of those, though, were essentially pacification and peacekeeping missions. There was already wars going on, and the point of deploying forces was to stop them. Didn't work in Somalia, but went pretty well in Yugoslavia.

This is quite a different thing from the wars of Bush the Younger, which involved invading places that were otherwise mostly peaceful and flattening them. Compare Bush's Somalia conflict to Clinton's. The first time round the objective was to end the civil war, the second time round it was to end... er, six months of the Wrong Sort Of Peace^TM. You have to be a really dedicated hawk to greenlight destabilising a war torn region that's just trying to get back on it's feet for no more reason that ideology. --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 01:55, 23 November 2007 (EST)

I basically agree. I think my hesitation is that after reading so much crap at CP, I am very wary of holding liberals and conservatives to different standards, or even the appearance of such. I really don't want to come off sounding like the political mirror of Assfly, with his "oh that situation was different so it wasn't deceit" rationalizations. But the situation was different in very significant ways. Though your standard of a war already going on and deploying troops to stop it sounds a bit like Vietnam, does it not? DickTurpis 02:04, 23 November 2007 (EST)

In a way, I suppose, yes. But in another, more accurate, way; No. The Vietnam war was a direct precipitate from the earlier colonial war. Essentially, the Viet Minh had forced the war to the point where the government forces were in an extremely poor strategic position, and were inclined to srike a deal. The ceasefire agreement partitioned the country and called for elections and national reunification.

In the end, of course, the elections never happened. The US was antagonistic towards the peace accord, being the only involved party not to have signed it. The US backed Diem regime refused to hold elections, and that tended to piss the populace off. The Vietnam war got started as a civil conflict in south Vietnam, in which the US was already involved. While you can't exactly blame the US for starting the war, they didn't really do everything in their power to prevent it, like calling for free and fair elections. The US were hardly seeking to keep the peace either, they had a distinct side they were on and were seeking to win the war. --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 02:30, 23 November 2007 (EST)

Well, I never meant to imply that the situations were the same, just that one could, and did, frame the situation in the context that there was a war going on already, and we had to try to end it, and stop the spread of communism to boot. Quite different from the invasion of Iraq, but every situation is unique anyway. But to the original point: is Clinton a chickenhawk, I'd be inclined to say no, just because he didn't appear anxious enough to go to war. Not that he had he to, or anything. DickTurpis 09:49, 23 November 2007 (EST)

To be perfectly fair, I still think Clinton's on the bubble of the definition. I am, however, not trying to draw a moral equivalence; while Clinton certainly had some corruption issues (mostly as regards cronyism and petty white lies -- at the end of the day, surely if things like Juanita Broaddrick and Vince Foster were substantively true, the "VRWC" would have dragged his ass out of the White House parking lot from the bumper of Ken Starr's limo post-impeachment), the Clinton White House wasn't anywhere near the wholesale festival of blatant corruption and imperialism that the Bush administration is. But he did ride out his draft eligibility in England as a Rhodes Scholar. I guess the fundamental questions are a) does that qualify as draft evasion (keeping in mind Cheney, IIRC, had a teaching deferment, and qualifies as a chickenhawk in almost anyone's book) and b) would Clinton be considered a hawk? I would say a weak yes to a, mitigated by the fact that Vietnam was a complete train wreck that even some of its masterminds admitted turned out to have been a bad idea, and a neutral-leaning-towards-no on b. But I'm not particularly sure about either answer. EVDebs 01:57, 24 November 2007 (EST)

I think the first question is irrelevant. All the so-called chickenhawks took legal means to avoid service, whether it was joining the Texas ANG (or was it the reserves, I forget), going to school abroad, "having other priorities", or what have you. None of them, as far as I know, ever fled to Canada or such. The "chicken" part refers to anyone who didn't go to war at a time when many did, and this is certainly true of Bush, Cheney, and Clinton. The question is whether the wars and military engagements Clinton got involved in count him as a hawk, and if he is, then yes, he's a chickenhawk. I think we all seem to agree that it would be a slight stretch to really call him a hawk, but some cases are borderline. DickTurpis 02:12, 24 November 2007 (EST)

As a president, one has an easy way to be labelled a hawk - sending troops somewhere to fight. How big a fight or what the reason is might come into play. The standard that applies to other people is probably a better one - hawks tend to argue publicly for entering conflicts. Again, how and why matter. Some people are obvious and easy to label such - the Iraq war boosters who did not serve being a great example. So, anyway. Clinton is certainly a "chicken" (for this purpose), having avoided service in Viet Nam. But do we have any real evidfence of him being a "hawk", i.e. arguing publicly to start a big fight somewhere? As some said above, he is probably just on the outside of the bubble. Oh, and remember, a Democratic president these days has to manage to seem "tough" and very pro-military to avoid being ripped by the GOP as weak on national defense. human 15:33, 24 November 2007 (EST)

From Chickenhawk

Some liberals get really offended (see the NH Gazette link) when people call Bill Clinton a chickenhawk, as if bombing Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan are somehow peace-loving activities. Bill Clinton evaded the draft, just like every other well off liberal AND conservative of that time. Well except for John McCain, but McCain came from a military family. He really actually thought he was serving his country when the Gooks were kicking his ass for 5 years.

That point aside, Bill (and Hillary) Clinton supported the war in Iraq back in 2002, just like John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Colin Powell, and Bob Gates did. Al Gore opposed the war, but he wasn't in political office at the time. Iraq under Hussein and Osama (I mean Barack Hussein Obama) opposed the war too, but he was just a two bit state senator in Illinois. Who gives a shit what your state senator thinks?

On the other hand, some conservatives try to equate bombing Iraq and Kosovo with a 5 year long war in two countries. Sure, 3000 Albanians died in Kosovo. But no Americans died. That's the important thing. We all know we really don't give a shit about the Albanians. I mean, after all, haven't we learned anything from Wag the Dog?

The real point is, a lot more people have died in international conflict directly or indirectly caused by George Bush than under Bill Clinton. Since we all know liberals don't believe in absolutes, and thus this is why they don't believe in God, Bill Clinton seems as much of a pacifist as Buddha (OK maybe the liberals do believe in an idol, I mean some sort of supernatural being) and as much of a war hero like Forrest Gump.

The above was removed from the Chickenhawk article mainly because of undue weight issues, but also because it stomped on a very tentative consensus. If there's a point to it, it appears to be just a weighing of both sides of the argument, but regardless it doesn't belong in the Chickenhawk article. It might belong here. Opinions? EVDebs 01:10, 13 December 2007 (EST)

Chickenhawk, again

Is this a rational site or just another one of those goddam Democrat-apologist websites like Daily Kos and its ilk? Either we hold Democrats to the same standards as Republicans and Libertarians (and for the most part, they're *all* hypocritical dirtbags) or else what's the point?

Also, if there's no consensus for putting Clinton in the chickenhawk category, a case could equally be made for also not putting anyone else in it. Secret Squirrel 20:06, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

And let's be honest, just what do these Clinton-Gore apologists think would have happened if Al Gore and Joe Lieberman had been in the White House when 9/11 happened? Same exact invasion of Iraq and same exact Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act, that's what. The only difference would be the Democrats would be the ones cheering the invasion and the antiwar sentiment would feed into support for the Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan wing of the Republicans. Nader was right. You can prove me wrong by including Clinton in Category:Chickenhawks and taking down that ridiculous New Hampshire Gazette essay defending him. Secret Squirrel 20:33, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

• Calling someone a chickenhawk is a pretty serious accusation, and furthermore the NHG pretty much wrote the definition of the word. Blunt-forcing the issue isn't going to get general agreement on the issue; we still have to have some standards around here, so we can't use the label. If you'll recall, I myself was the one who raised the issue in the first place, and I came away unconvinced that we could safely make the assertion. As far as I'm concerned, Clinton is in a gray area, which means we can't apply the label with any kind of certainty. Also, no, I don't think Gore would have gone into Iraq, or at least not with the gleeful illogic and jackrabbit speed that Bush did. Afghanistan, yes. But Iraq? I don't think that's an answerable question, especially since Gore wasn't known to have it in for Iraq the way the PNAC crowd did anyway. EVDebs 21:28, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

• You know, Clinton could have ended the sanctions against Iraq as soon as he got into office, refrained from using military force in the former Yugoslavia and Haiti, and not bombed Iraq. Otherwise I don't see any gray area. He clearly favors, and did order himself, the use of U.S. military force on several occasions. And although this alone probably shouldn't count against him, his wife voted for the Iraq War resolution. Secret Squirrel 21:33, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

• We can argue back and forth endlessly, but there still needs to be a consensus. In any case, Yugoslavia and the Iraq bombing aside, the Clinton administration still wasn't as quick on the trigger as Bush 43 was, and Clinton was constantly criticized for not being hawkish enough. No, he did not serve. Yes, he fought wars. But the question was whether he treated war as a primary policy option or a secondary one -- that's what defines a hawk, and I don't think Clinton fit that mold. EVDebs 21:42, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

• There is no consensus for allowing the Hew Hampshire Gazette to define the term either. In any case the term goes back well before NHG, I think to Iraq War I or even Vietnam, and Al Franken definitely used it in the early 90s. Secret Squirrel 21:48, 19 August 2008 (EDT)
• Also, I'm not so sure the question is whether they treat war as a primary or secondary policy option - the practical difference is minimal. The question is whether they treat war as anything other than an absolute fucking last resort that is completely off the table as an option unless there is no other way -- and the only one I can think of from the 20th century that qualifies is World War II. Clinton didn't just involve the U.S. in one war, he involved us in several, which looks like pretty quick on the trigger to me. Clinton got us involved in more wars than Bush did. Secret Squirrel 21:55, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

• Well, one way or another, I'm standing down on this debate until we get some other voices involved. My arguments remain. EVDebs 22:03, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

I basically agree with Debs - Clinton may have caused the death of people via weapons of military destruction, but calling him a "hawk" is only possible if all non-pacifists are lumped together as "hawks". And how his wife votes has nothing to do with the issue. ħuman 22:40, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

This isn't about being a pacifist or not, it's about being willing to use military force as a first resort, which Clinton clearly did on at least 5 occasions. Frankly the refusal to include him discredits the whole "chickenhawk" argument as just being a partisan Democratic Party thing. (Sourcewatch goes us even one better by including Pat Buchanan on their list of chickenhawks, which is ridiculous since he has been against every war since the Berlin Wall came down - yet they exclude Clinton too.) Secret Squirrel 05:32, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

• About Al Gore, given that his running mate was Joe Lieberman my guess is he would likely have either found himself taking his marching orders from PNAC (and therefore invading Iraq), or risking a nasty public split in the administration with his vice president. Gore was also Clinton's public point man in getting NAFTA passed, which says a lot about his political modus operandi. Secret Squirrel 05:57, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

That's one hell of a leap - the fictional President Gore taking orders from the PNAC??? ħuman 16:35, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Why'd he pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate then? Secret Squirrel 09:27, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

I read somewhere that Clinton sent the military on more than 30 missions -- can that be true?

-- Rem^Beau 08:44, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

I don't know, can it? I read somewhere that Bill and Hillary had over fifty people killed... could that be true? ħuman 16:35, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

The fact that Ken Starr is still sucking oxygen makes me disinclined to believe the "Bill Clinton: Murderous Criminal Mastermind" theory. And I have to suspect that if President Gore had been in charge on 9/11, attacking Afghanistan and capturing bin Laden might have been his FIRST priority, rather than the annoying distraction from Iraq that Bush seems to have treated it as. Squirrel sounds like he's just trying to justify Bush's incredibly bad decisions. --Gulik 16:52, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

WTF? No, I'm dead-set opposed to Bush and his policies. I'm pointing out that Democrats when in office have also been a bunch of warmongers and I am getting tired of this hypocritical antiwar stance only when the other party is in power, that refuses to be antiwar when it is a Democrat in the white house. Secret Squirrel 09:27, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Squirrel -- don't you get it? If you don't toe the party line, that makes you a Bush-lover. Didn't you have a grandmother that voted GOP? I thought so. You didn't know IMMEDIATELY that Sadam didn't have WMDs? Somebody may just have to rip up your Lib-Dem papers to set an example.

It seems no one else is going to note that your posts above are dead on, and obviously so. Exposing hypocricy in your own ranks merely gives aid and comfort to the enemies of Correct Thinking, ya know. Sorry it had to be just a Lousy Libt to comment in your support -- hope that doesn't do you too much damage.

-- Rem^Beau 23:52, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

"Party line" my ass. This is about ignoring consensus. As my past posts on the subject will show, I'm on the fence about it myself. To me, that means leave it out until further consensus is achieved, a proces which Squirrel is completely ignoring. Or need I remind you that he's crossing a line that you haven't? EVDebs 01:40, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Consensus my ass. There is no consensus for including Reagan either, in fact the vote there is running 3 includes, 4 don't includes, and 2 abstains (of which one of the abstains is mine). No consensus. Yet here is what happens when I remove Reagan from the list: it is immediately reverted. I'll let you do the honors of removing him this time if you're really all that concerned about consensus. Secret Squirrel 20:33, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

I'm still waiting and you are or were just online and editing - no Reagan removal yet? What's the delay? Secret Squirrel 21:40, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Actually no, sorry, I didn't have a grandmother who voted GOP, but I suspect more than one grandparent crossed party lines out of the D column once and only once, to vote for Wallace. And I knew immediately that Saddam never had WMDs, which is my point: I knew this back when almost every "liberal Democrat" (excepting Kucinich) was beating the drums for war and going right along with Bush's program and trying to outflank Bush on their "concern" over Saddam, and then two years later they all do a 180 and pretend they were always anti-war and heap all manner of abuse on the likes of lil' ol' me for having the NERVE to vote for the hated Nader in 2000 when they know damn well it was their own Democrats who gave Bush the green light in 2002 and if Gore had been in the white house we'd be in Iraq just like we are under Bush. But I get your point anyhow. Secret Squirrel 20:59, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Title

As I look at Category:Presidents of the United States, every other president is titled as they were "known". And this Pres. was known as "Bill Clinton". Or do we rename George Herbert Walker Bush, Richard Milhouse Nixon, etc.? ħuman 01:31, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

That woman

Do we need so many references to that woman?--Hillary Rodham Clinton 14:49, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Apparently Bill was never a libby now.

That's the new claim by a bunch of online conservatives, since he restructured welfare, helped pass those good old bank deregulations, and went all NAFTA (our Canadian liberals liked the agreement too, those crazy libertarians!). To them, he's apparently more capitalist than Obama.

Yet they somehow seem to forget that he pressed to start true universal health care, raised taxes almost everywhere (with the exception of low-income earners) and balanced the budget (which was never a big deal for Republicans, but for some reason is now). The only "true" lefties were Jimmy Carter and LBJ, and their economies were crap (domestic policy under Johnson was crap?), so therefore, liberalism has never worked.

Ah, how I love historical revisionism, where a move to the Third Way is now far-right. Ugh.

/rant Osaka Sun (talk) 01:33, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

"surplus"

The national debt increased every year under Clinton. It seems to me that it follows that there was no surplus. At the very least, there is a surplus only under a particular accounting method. I don't see how anyone can possibly disagree with that.Fdof (talk) 20:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

So, when people from the Democrat party whine about how "Bush turned a surplus into massive debt with the wars and part D and his tax cuts" why do no Republicans trot out your numbers to prove that there never was a "surplus"!? Also your link sux, it's not a proof of what the edit states, it's just one guy's (yours?) opinion and even that was refudiated by the comments. It comes out. C®ackeЯ 21:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

1. It is proof of what the edit states.

2. It consists of objective facts. Something isn't an "opinion" merely because you disagree with it.

3. If you have a counterargument, present it.

4. "Refudiated"? Is that supposed to be ironic?Fdof (talk) 23:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Plus, as a percentage of GDP, the national debt definitely went DOWN during the Clinton administration, then skyrocketed during the Bush administration. An individual, business, corporation or household can afford to take on more debt if it's making more money while simultaneously paying against the debt. Now, with the Bush tax cuts and House Republicans engaging in active cockblocking of generating more revenue, we're missing the "making more money" part while still taking on more debt. -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

That is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether there was a surplus.Fdof (talk) 23:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

It is entirely relevant because it's how you crunch the numbers. Macroeconomics runs on debt, so it's rare for a country to have zero. But the amount of debt that is affordable can fluctuate based on the size of the debt proportioned to what you can pay off. Merely defining "surplus" how you like to say that there's no "surplus" in the way everyone else talks about it is just bullshitting. ^moral 01:29, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

As long as there is a payroll withholding tax (FICA tax), there will be growth in the National debt. As each of the 134 million workers have 15.3% of their labor taxed (7.65% withheld from workers paychecks and 7.65% contributed from employers), the government assume a debt as a promise to pay in the future. Hence, the 15.3% of the aggregate total of workers paychecks is the prime source of growth of the National debt. The more people employed, the greater the growth of the debt. The more hours they work, the greater the growth. The higher the payscale, the greater the growth. The more overtime, the greater the growth. The National debt, unlike a mortgage or credit cards, can not be "paid down" by labor, because labor is the cause of the spiraling National debt. This is the structural flaw (one of many "structural flaws" of the US economy) preventing longterm sustained recovery due to the political implications involved in reform. The various "voucher" proposals, privatization (401(k)'s, for example), turning it into a "safety net" program, etc. are the code words for repealing the FICA tax, or allowing workers to "privately manage" their own retirement accounts while maintaining a government mandate forcing people to buy private "retirement insurance". nobs^{Corporations are people, too} 14:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

President Clinton did not have a surplus or a balanced budget. The national debt increased every fiscal year.

30 September 1993 = 4,411,488,883,139

30 September 1994 = 4,692,749,910,013 (Increase of 281,261,026,874 in FY1994)

29 September 1995 = 4,973,982,900,709 (Increase of 281,232,990,696 in FY1995)

30 September 1996 = 5,224,810,939,136 (Increase of 250,828,038,426 in FY1996)

30 September 1997 = 5,413,146,011,397 (Increase of 188,335,072,262 in FY1997)

30 September 1998 = 5,526,193,008,898 (Increase of 113,046,997,500 in FY1998)

30 September 1999 = 5,656,270,901,615 (Increase of 130,077,892,718 in FY1999)

30 September 2000 = 5,674,178,209,887 (Increase of 17,907,308,271 in FY2000)

30 September 2001 = 5,807,463,412,200 (Increase of 133,285,202,313 in FY2001)

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm 67.82.249.72 (talk) 03:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

signed into law pro-business amendments to portions of the New Deal (some utterly disastrous years later)

heh heh heh....what would this be...hmmm... repeal of Glass-Steagall? nobs^{ISIS is SISI spelled backwards.} 15:00, 22 January 2015 (UTC)