The Bill Clinton BS tour continues:

Fresh off of 3 lies earlier this week:

• That all he knew about the Nevada caucus rules was what he read in the newspaper.
• That the caucus rules give culinary workers five times the representation of others.
• That giving casino workers the same ability to caucus as others who aren't working on Saturday is "unfair" (because he compared casino workers to a third, much smaller, group of people)

He's at it again. Bill Clinton now claims that a union organizer, following Bill in the casinos, was leaning on culinary workers to vote Obama. That Bill witnessed voter suppression:

Today [Friday] when my daughter and I were wandering through the hotel, and all these culinary workers were mobbing us telling us they didn’t care what the union told them to do, they were gonna caucus for Hillary.

There was a representative of the organization following along behind us going up to everybody who said that, saying 'if you’re not gonna vote for our guy were gonna give you a schedule tomorrow so you can’t be there.' [to caucus]

That's incredible. Who is going to engage in voter intimidation in the presence of the former president along with his entourage (press, Secret Service)? If Bill is going to make claims like that, he should back them up, but he didn't.

Greg Sargent, adding to the comment thread of his story writes:

I meant "eye opening" in two senses -- both that the charges themselves are "eye opening," but also in the sense that it's eye opening that Bil would make them...

Another commentator:

He's a former President, and he's going around attacking a fellow Democrat with rhetoric and charges that seem plainly dishonest.

I can safely predict one thing: If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate in November, there will be little enthusiasm for her. She'd probably win (the economy will be bad) but it will be a shallow win, without the kind of big-majorities in the House and Senate that are needed for substantial reform.

Okay, might as well put it out there. Why do people like Bill and Hillary so much? To me, they're unpleasant for a variety of reasons (Hillary is unlikeable* and conservative on many issues; Bill is unlikeable* and a 24/7 bullshitter who did real damage:

• Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (aka welfare reform, which has some odious provisions)
• Financial Services Modernization Act which is part of the reason we have today's banking problems (repealed Glass-Stegall)
• The give-away of the electromagnetic spectrum to the television companies. Think of what kind of political reform we could have if the digital spectrum was granted along with a must-carry-for-free-rule for political ads. It would greatly reduce the power of money in politics.
• Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which weakened Habeus Corpus
• Bill's active opposition to helping out while the Rwanda slaughter was going on (not only did he do nothing, he declined to provide transport vehicles that the UN was asking for, which were ready-to-go and would not have required U.S. troops on the ground).
• His support of free-trade agreements.
• His failure to live up to his pledge to the nation, that he'd keep his pants on while president. (And as long as he was going to violate that pledge, his reckless actions were pure selfishess - he couldn't have a tryst with a thirty-five year old lawyer from the Commerce Department who knows how to stay mum?) I don't care about the moral issue, but Bill wasted the time and energy of Democrats for at least two years with this.

Those policies that Bill Clinton endorsed had a negative impact on regular folks and the poor. Sure, the economy did well, but does that mean he's given a pass on everything else?

* - Hillary unlikeable because of a sense of entitlement. Running for Senator from New York overwhelmingly because she was a spouse of a politician was audacious. Bill is unlikeable because he lies in your face.

CODA: Supporting the Clintons today because of unfair attacks by Republicans in the previous decade is not smart.


posted by Quiddity at 1/19/2008 12:28:00 PM