Re: Is Clinton Still President?

[Tim Lohrmann <timlohr@yahoo.com>]

Scott,
  In the snippet you included below, the word "side"
was intended to mean the US--not one party or another.
The fact that you seem to have misunderstood that
makes my ultimate point. 
  There's plenty of blame to go around for the current
state of affairs. The fact that a person has a D or an
R beside their name on the ballot doesn't excuse their
acts or omissions as much as the partisans would like
to make it so.
  However, I would point out that generally and most
likely not for the best, the nation and the Congress
looks to the Executive branch for leadership on
international issues. This is so because the President
and his appointess control the Depts. of Defense,
State, Commerce and etc. 
  Further, the most notable aspect of Clinton's
leadership on the economy and etc. was that after the
1994 off year elections, he adopted the GOP agenda
with a very few exceptions. Abandoning many
traditional Democratic allies such as organized labor
was politically painless for him.
After all the major parties have an effective
political monopoly so there is nowhere else to go.
This monopoly forces third party minded "issue
oriented" folk to expend almost all their resources 
just gaining ballot status. Quite simply, the two
parties have grown more and more alike. The general
election campaigns then become the proverbial "pillow
fight over a tax cut," attracting fewer and fewer
voters to the polls. Of course, party faithful
continue to cheeer on their "R" or "D" team just like
they always have. It's just that they debate more and
more over less and less to an ever decreasing
audience.
TL
  
--- Scott Dredge <sdredge@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> --- Tim Lohrmann <timlohr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> -- SNIP on some excellent commentary by Tim --
> -- (by the way Tim...keep up the good work! --
> > war had ALREADY
> > been declared on the US years ago by the Al Qaeda
> > network. It's just that the Clinton administration
> > chose to do little or nothing about apprehending
> > these characters.
> > -- More snipping --            
> > War
> > is not peace just because one
> > side chooses to call it that. 
> > 
> 
> Declarations of War are not made by the White House,
> they are made by Congress.  Why didn't the
> Republican
> controlled Congress declare war on Al Qaeda if this
> was such a no brainer of the right thing to do?
> Maybe if they hadn't been so preoccupied with
> trying to destroy Clinton along with trying to get
> their petty legislative issue passed (ie, attempt
> to ban partial birth abortion, attempt to mandate
> Christian prayer in public schools, attempt and
> moderate success at banning homo marriages albeit
> little success at disallowing them similar rights
> as married couples, banning homo boy scout leaders,
> overturning affirmative action, eroding the
> Americans
> with Disabilities Act, etc., etc., etc.) then maybe
> it
> would have dawned on them that Osama bin Laden and
> Al
> Qaeda was the real enemy.  Instead they just wanted
> to
> attack the Democratics and the top dog in the White
> House.
> 
> Don't get me wrong Tim, your points are well
> taken.  I think there is plenty of credit to
> go around for both Clinton and the Republican
> Congress for the successes between 1994 and 2000
> and there is also plenty of blame for both for
> actions that could have been taken in terms of
> national security and the terrorist attacks against
> that were perpetrated against the USS Cole and the
> American embassy.
> 
> Like it or not, these two political forces need to
> work together on the important issues like keeping
> America and Americans safe from terrorism and they
> need to fight each other on the petty issues that
> smolder from the extreme factions of each party.
> And that's pretty much what we have.  I think it's
> a shame that things got so personally ugly in
> Washington over something as nationally unimportant
> as Monicagate when there was potentially so much
> more constructive work that could have been
> accomplished.  It's amazing how trivial Rudy
> Guliani's scandalous personal life became after
> September 11th.  Why was it so important to
> Americans during the days and weeks before the
> wake up call?
> 
> -Scott
> 
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