This is what a Democrat looks like
There is another CDS Fest going on over at Ian Welsh’s place:
Gosh , all the partisan BS about Clinton, Hillary and Obama. and ever wonder why the right wing wins ALL the time?
One of my earliest memories was the assassination of JFK – I was only three years old but I remember my mom telling me that our President was dead. Growing up I watched the Vietnam war and the anti-war protests on television.
I remember the Watergate hearings, the Nixon resignation, inflation, oil embargoes, gas lines, terrorism at the Munich Olympics, the Iranian hostage crisis, dead marines in Lebanon, US victories in Grenada, Panama, and Kuwait. I even recall polyester leisure suits, platform shoes and disco.
The Democrats have controlled Congress for most of the fifty years I’ve been alive, but only held the White House for twenty-two of those years, including the first eight.
I recall my thirties as a time of peace and prosperity, a better time than any other period in my life. The guy who was in the White House back then was Bill Clinton. Lots of other people remember those eight years as a positive experience, which is why Bill Clinton still enjoys high approval ratings.
If the Democratic party can’t use the only two-term Democratic president since FDR as some sort of a role model, what do they have to offer the voters?
Ronald Reagan promised to reduce deficits and the size of government but instead he increased both, yet the Republicans treat him as a god-like figure. Every GOP candidate swears fealty to the Reagan legacy. None of them dare criticize The Gipper.
Lots of Democrats on the other hand run away from the Big Dawg. Many activists on the left despise him and call him a Republican. But if Bill Clinton was a failure, what’s an example of a successful Democratic president?
FDR?
Sure, Roosevelt was successful but there aren’t too many voters left who really remember what it was like when he was president. My mom is seventy-six years old and she was only eleven when FDR died.
Is it any wonder that the Republicans keep winning?
Democrats need to take the Clinton legacy of peace and prosperity and build on it, not tear it down.
BTW – Obama IS NOT a Clinton Democrat.
Filed under: Bill Clinton, Clinton Derangement Syndrome | Tagged: Bill Clinton, Clinton Derangement Syndrome |
The Confluence 
To give you an idea how bad the CDS is over there, this is the title of the post:
BTW – It’s not Ian, it’s his readers.
I noticed in O-ville. As they get bitter against Obama’s latest, some say “he is almost getting as bad as Clinton”. I an sure his skin color will always keep him one inch above.
meanwhile, the other reason they keep winning: the media.
Millbank makes an appearance in my Morning Sneeze
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/morning-sneeze-media-to-obama-stomp-on-the-seniors-good/
Cal gets its shot at No. 1 Oregon
Take the Ducks, give the points.
Or, “Just Say Yes To Quack!”
Can these Ducks say, sufferin’ succotash!!
Here’s an irony: the same people who ignored our warnings about Obama are now writing books saying Obama is just like the Clintons. So much for the theory that progressives are smart.
And the whole point of their bloody fights was that Hillary was EVIL, and Obama was NOT LIKE THE CLINTONS.
They fugging deserved what they got.
I went over to Welsh’s post, and its letter column.
I see now my old case of CDS was mild at best, or maybe I never really had it.
Even when I thought Bill and/or Hill were too conservative, I never thought they were evil, as it seems some of those people in the column think.
Of course, back during Big Dawg’s terms, I hadn’t yet learned to assume that the Official Left Media,
*cough* The Nation, The Progressive, Z, Mother Jones *cough*
were trying to sell me BS 24/7, just like the Corporate Media–just BS from a different breed of bull than the Corporate Media raises.
I subscribed to all of those magazines during Big Dawg’s years in the White House. 🙄
To clarify a bit: By the mid-1990s, I had learned to distrust the Corporate Media, but I didn’t really learn to distrust the Official Left Media until they were all assimilated into the Oborg Collective.
Also, perhaps I should have included Rolling Stone in the OLM classification, at least in its political capacity.
There is a big difference between saying “Bill Clinton could have been better” and saying “Bill Clinton was bad.”
Ivory Bill, you forgot Pacifica stations (i.e. KPFA, etc.).
Trixta–I live in Arkansas; how would I know about those stations?
Clinton’s popularity stems not just from the peace and prosperity, but also from the fact that he’s TRULY a talented politician, who can speak off the cuff and actually sound intelligent, who doesn’t tend to come off as arrogant, etc.
Others, such as W and Obama are talented at sounding stupid and arrogant at the same time!
I wonder if in hindsight, “good progressives” will tend to forget Obama and go back to fondly remembering Clinton. They’d better, because after this current Democrat fiasco I predict it will be 20 years before a Dem is in the White House again.
I sometimes think that one of the reasons why they love to insist that the national displeasure with Obama is “because he’s black” , is so they don’t have to face the reality that he is damaging the liberal “brand” for a long time to come.
Because to the public he IS a liberal and a progressive. No one cares if we scream and holler and say he’s not.
The right does the same thing, to no avail. They insist that GWB is NOT a conservative. Doesn’t matter. He claimed to be, he’s on their side, so they have to deal with that association. People will judge the GOP, and conservatism by his performance. Same with Obama and the left.
That’s the way the world works. It makes no difference whatsoever that we try to disown him and say, “But…but…but…he’s not a liberal! He’s really a republican!” Yes he IS a lefty, to the public. This is what happens when you choose a narcissistic moron as your standard-bearer. You can’t decide later that he “doesn’t count as one of ours”. Oh hell yes he does. That shit won’t fly when the right pulls it, and it won’t fly for us either. We own him, just like they own GWB.
People will remember the most important fact – he’s a DEMOCRAT
Word.
I think it’s mostly peace and prosperity though. As he said recently: “You have to make people feel like winners”. He did and we remember.
THEY don’t want us to – because he took “their money” and gave it to commoners. And they won’t allow this to happen again.
Actually, Progs have ALWAYS used Bill Clinton to prove their Left-wing credentials to each other. It’s a default mode really, a mind-set which grounds their identity as “Left of ” this or that. This mindset is also responsible for leaving BO out of the equation when criticizing the current state of affairs. For example, on the disastrous economy they will mention “Clinton’s Larry Summers or Geithner or Rubin, etc.) but then conveniently omit that these (and others) are, in fact, Obama’s guys. BO is often propped up as a victim of the Clintons.
When an NFL team wins a Superbowl the rest of the league tries to lure away their players and assistant coaches.
But if they don’t do well with their new teams nobody blames the old coach.
myiq,
You really *must* stop reading my mind at night. You and Maxine:
http://syd4.blogspot.com/2010/11/omg-maxine-is-reading-my-mind-plus-why.html
I am getting creeped out waking up and reading this stuff every morning!
Hey… wait a minute…. are *you* writing for Hallmark????
SYD
I can hear the voices in your head.
Yes. But…. are you also writing for Hallmark??
What do you think?
We let him work.
Tabloids are here – with Obama’s new reality
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/tabloids-obamas-new-realities-banks-screwing-us/
It just occurred to me that the Obama presidency is like what would have happened if Boromir had succeeded in taking the Ring to Gondor.
I’m thinking that he didn’t have the wherewithal to handle the power of the ring and therefore, didn’t really pose a threat to Sauron and the screaming hordes of Mordor.
He gave into temptation and is now also not accountable to the rest of us. The power of the ring is degeneracy. That’s what would have made Gondor vulnerable, even with the ring.
Gah! I’m going into Tolkien mode. Help! Help!
But Boromir redeemed himself in the end. I doubt Obama will.
I don’t think we’d be reading headlines & stories like this under any Clinton presidency:
Are Obama and Congress Set To Screw American Counties, Homeowners and Give Wall Street Mortgage Banksters a Retroactive Immunity Bailout?
It’s a short, sad story….
Who says Obama doesn’t take care of his base?
Ha! One of the several reasons I didn’t vote for him was a fear that he WOULD take care of his base! My only surprise was how many Democrats shared his allegiance to it.
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton allegedly replied “That’s where the money is.”
Ugh…What a crappy world we live in…
“Life is like a shit sandwich – the more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.” – Captain Spaulding
I used to feel that way about my mom’s tuna sandwiches… Years later she told us that she accidentally bought cat food a couple of times.
I hope she was just kidding.
Accidentally?
Every store I’ve been in keeps the Star-kist in a different aisle from the Nine Lives.
Maybe it was different 50 years ago or so? The grocery stores were a lot smaller then. She can be pretty spacey though. And in those days she was dragging 3 or 4 babies with her everywhere. Unless I was around to watch them in the car.
Well, as I said — I hope she was joking! How does someone make a bad tuna sandwich though? They’re delicious.
I don’t remember kitty tuna 50 years ago–just Puss ‘N Boots and Red Heart, neither of them remotey mistakeable for tuna. I think your mom was kidding.
I am still a Bill and Hillary fan. However we need to be a bit more carefull. I just went to see the documentary “Inside Job” which is about the financial crisis. The seeds for the crisis clearly are in the Clinton Administration with Robert Rubin and Larry Sommers. However it is just as clear that Obama simply carried on the policies of George Bush.
However Obama is a empty suit. The Clintons can speak intelligently off the cuff at any time. Obama starts stumbling as soon as he is away from the teleprompters or well established talking points. He never left the campaign trail and did not grow intellectualy.
One of the reasons we have a full-time Congress and regulatory agencies is so that when existing laws aren’t cutting it they can make necessary changes.
Bill Clinton was out of office for nearly eight years before the financial crisis hit.
The Democrats controlled Congress for nearly two of those years. What were they doing?
They were servicing their “base” of financial support.
[…] There is another CDS Fest going on over at Ian Welsh's place: Gosh , all the partisan BS about Clinton, Hillary and Obama. and ever wonder why the right wing wins ALL the time? One of my earliest memories was the assassination of JFK – I was only three years old but I remember my mom telling me that our President was dead. Growin … Read More […]
What were they doing? Drinking koolaide, what else?
Let me add:
Isn’t it funny that the people that Bill Clinton supposedly “betrayed” (blue collar workers like Joe and Jane Bagodonuts) are the people who voted for Hillary.
WTF?:
I’m not even gonna dignify that shit with a reply.
Well he either wants to go back to Russia before Stalin or he’s got some other fantasy world that does not exist in mind. People like that will always find a reason to be angry.
not a Bill Clinton admirer at all. read what he said about Bill long AFTER the campaign. Jan 2010
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0110/Berry_Obama_said_big_difference_between_10_and_94_is_me.html