A brief comparison
I've been kinda busy lately. I have just one brief comparison before I head off to bed.
I'm a bit fuzzy on anything that hasn't happened in the last fifteen minutes, but I do seem to remember promises in the 2000 presidential campaign to "restore honor and dignity to the White House," the oft-repeated mantra of George W. Bush. It really aggravated the right that the White House's previous occupant was not forthcoming about an indiscretion that could have destroyed his entire family. So how's he done?
I'm a bit fuzzy on anything that hasn't happened in the last fifteen minutes, but I do seem to remember promises in the 2000 presidential campaign to "restore honor and dignity to the White House," the oft-repeated mantra of George W. Bush. It really aggravated the right that the White House's previous occupant was not forthcoming about an indiscretion that could have destroyed his entire family. So how's he done?
- Tom Delay: indicted on money-laundering charges.
- Scooter Libby: indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice.
- Karl Rove: soon to be indicted for outting a CIA agent.
- Bill Frist: under investigation by the SEC for insider trading.
- And let's not forget starting a war based upon fluffed intelligence. Why? Because Saddam is "the guy who tried to kill my dad."
Bang up job, boys. Bill supposedly lied about fooling around with an intern. And I say "supposedly" because Ken Starr made sure to not to ask him if he'd engaged in oral sex with Monica Lewinsky. After all, you can't impeach the man if you give him the chance to tell the truth.
Don't know about other Republicans out there, but it sounds to me like we've done a lot worse than the previous administration in the "honesty and integrity" department. Makes Clinton's White House look like a friggin boy scout meeting.
I'm out.
posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood Clark Bar at 11/07/2005 12:38:00 AM
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5 Comments:
nice to see it all outlined as such, relly gives a pretty image.
still, your President is nowhere near our (*sneer*) prime minister (*sneer*, again for good measure) on the broken promises issue and ceirtainly not on the satire opportunity..
Honestly, I'd trade you any day of the week. Sure, he kinda f'd up following Bush into the war, but I tend to think his motivations were much more idealistic than Bush's. I used to complain about Clinton, too. Gotta be careful or one day you might wake up with...I don't know. Hague?
"hague plague", I heard somewhere..
berlusconi idealistic? no way! the guy is a living joke, has no political agenda other than safeguarding his own returns and has not had an ideal since
since
since
.....
I am at loss here
well you'd trade me (would not recommend it) but I most surely would not want to trade you
yesterday I went to the cinema
again.
to watch viva zapatero
again..
Oh, Burlusconi. Yeah. You're probably right there. I was talking about Tony Blair. Blair's alright in my book. Burlusconi...He reminds me too much of Tony Soprano. Not something I look for in a head of state.
Never heard of "Viva Zapatero", but if it's on the Spanish Prime Minister, I think I'll pass.
This comment follows your original post by over two weeks, and I wonder if you still feel the same. You admit to being fuzzy on anything that hadn't happened in the last fifteen minutes, and were on your way to bed. I wish my fuzziness were so limited, but I still can't see a comparison between the honor and integrity of these two presidents being resolved in Clinton's favor.
What aggravated the right was not that Clinton was not forthcoming about indiscretions. It was that a Yale lawyer would obtain a fraudulent affidavit, present it to a judge, lie under oath, and have his minions claim he was just lying about sex. He is a man who had his political thug James Carville attack the personal character of women who accused him of harassment, assault or rape, while claiming to be a champion of women's rights. He is a man who escaped judgement in the White Water scandals because his associates, the McDougals, were willing to go to jail rather than testify against him.
The fluffed intelligence that you refer to was in part developed during the Clinton administration. The policy of regime change in Iraq was also that of Clinton, but Bush acted on it. Should we mistake Clinton's ineptitude at effecting his stated policy as prudent restraint? Was it dishonorable or lacking in integrity for Bush not to wait for further inspections? We have the words of John Kerry telling us that to wait for inspections was a stalling tactic by Saddam, as he had thwarted the inspectors at every opportunity. We have the recorded words of nearly every Democratic leader saying the same things Bush told us, but we are to believe that when Bush spoke, he lied, because he really wanted to attack Iraq, and everybody else was fooled. This all assumes that everyone's sole motivation for war was WMD, dispite the words of the President at the time, and the congressional resolution.
You list in the comparison Delay and Frist. They are not part of the Bush administration. He didn't appoint them and doesn't control them. (As an aside, the weaknesses of the Delay indictments is a whole other topic worthy of comment, but I go on too long as is.)
Karl Rove has not been indicted and may never be.
The Libby indictments may only be based on inconsistencies in his testimony on details with that of other witnesses.
Please don't take this next comment as condescending, because its not meant that way, but you are a mature adult now, exposed day after day to a media clearly unfriendly to Bush, while during the Clinton years you were at an age less inclined to follow such issues in as much depth.
I know, spoken like an old fogey. Guilty as charged.
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