Pajamas Media

79 Comments

1. WJ:

So I guess this Taylor Marsh person is Pajama Media’s resident far-left writer? Could you all try and get somebody who puts forth a little bit of an arguement instead of phrases like “Republican smear machine” and “miserable years of the George W. Bush’s presidency” and can actually write?

I mean really, instead of printng Taylor Marsh, just provide a link to Kos or Puffington Host.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:08 am 2. Sarah Rolph:

I am appalled at your statement “After all these miserable years of George W. Bush’s presidency, we are so hungry for a president who actually cares about people…”

If you really believe that Mr. Bush does not care about people, you have not been paying attention.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:11 am 3. John:

I’m a Republican but I don’t hate Bill Clinton. I just think his time has passed.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:13 am 4. Matt:

I’m an Obama supporter, but this is a rubbish piece of writing.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:21 am 5. tim maguire:

Roger, I understand Pajamas is trying hard not to be too partisan and I applaud your efforts to bring liberals onto the writing staff. I also appreciate that the liberal bench is not very deep. But, seriously, you have to be able to do better than this. Is David Corn available? I went off on him recently after he toed the party line about the Obama-Ayers connection, but overall, he would do a much better job. This is unreadable. Pure garbage.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:23 am 6. Steve Rosenbach:

Listen, Taylor – I was a Democrat for 35 years, until last year. I was a real Clintonista, and I still enjoy hearing him speak – he is amazing.

But I don’t anything he says seriously anymore.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:27 am 7. RJ:

Hate? I think you’re way off in characterizing Republicans as “hating” Bill Clinton. Disliked, yes, feared in his day by Republican politicians, and still grudgingly admired for his political skills – but in my opinion, “hate” is far too strong a word to describe how most Republicans feel about Bill Clinton.

It’s also ludicrous to describe Stanley Kurtz’s reporting on the link between Ayers and Obama as part of a “smear machine.” We already know that Obama mischaracterized his relationship with Ayers, in what appears to have been an attempt to distance himself from somebody he worked with over a period of several years. Also, why is it even being left up to Kurtz to look into this documentation, and at this late date? Shouldn’t the news media have done this many months ago? If this had been done, then this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. If there does turn out to be a very strong (and documented) relationship between Obama and Ayers, wouldn’t that have been nice to know *before* the primaries?

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:39 am 8. bryan:

Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Ready to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States. — William Jefferson Clinton

what’s with this? the attribute is hilarious. like you were quoting Shaw or Lincoln or Churchill. what is so special about this quote? what about it separates it from the other drivel we’ve heard the past 6 months? how does this show how amazing clinton is?

here’s a few more

“I’m someone who has a deep emotional attachment to ‘Starsky and Hutch.’ -Wlliam Jefferson Clinton
“It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.” – William Jefferson Clinton
“It depends on how you define alone…” – Wlliam Jefferson Clinton
“When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.” – Wlliam Jefferson Clinton
“Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave badly around women. And I hope I never get into that.” – Wlliam Jefferson Clinton
“I may not have been the greatest president, but I’ve had the most fun eight years.” – Wlliam Jefferson Clinton

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:39 am 9. Letalis Maximus, Esq.:

He is by far the best politician of his generation. He could sell sand to a Saudi. He is so smart he makes guys like me put our hands in our pockets when he is coming our way; so we can keep a good lock on our wallets, that is. He makes women swoon. He is still the best the Democrats have, and maybe the best they have ever had or will ever have. The Republicans have nobody who is even in the same league.

Thank God for the 22nd Amendment.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:44 am 10. Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame:

I’m a conservative. I support and admire George W. Bush (whose main problem, I think, was getting a hostile press to report his policy intent fairly)

But even I could write an Op-Ed from the Democrats better than this.

I’m available for hire, btw…

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:49 am 11. ZEITGEIST:

[...] TAYLOR MARSH: “Bill Clinton’s speech last night reminded us why Democrats love him and Republicans hate him.” [...]

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:50 am 12. Barbara:

Sigh. I took the time to read this, hoping that Taylor Marsh had something to say. How do you get to be a “political analyst, radio personality, and author” when your thinking is limited to cliche-driven, hackneyed pap? My brain clamps shut when I read for the thousandth-millionth time about “the Republican smear machine). I think I’ll save this column as a lesson for my children: “Listen, if this Taylor Marsh can get a national audience I don’t want to hear any excuses from you.”

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:55 am 13. Rachel:

After all these miserable years of George W. Bush’s presidency, we are so hungry for a president who actually cares about people,

WTF???!!!

explain NCLB, assistance to Africa, and Medicare part D. W got ripped by his own party that if he were a Dem, they would have pressed to put his face on Mt. Rushmore.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:59 am 14. Michael:

That was quite a love letter. Also, it was a waste of bandwidth. Myopia combined with bad writing makes for unpersuasive reading.

Mr. Clinton has been identified by members of his own party as an accomplished, unabashed liar. The seeds of our current problems were planted and nurtured by this deeply flawed man. Unfortunately, we will be burdened with his demagogy for many years.

Hate? Naah, more like extreme fatigue.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:08 am 15. W::

I am far to the right, but I am glad to see someone defending Clinton. And I am tired of Sean Hannity’s inability to acknowlege anyting good about him. And forget the policy wonk writing. This writer hit it right on the head.

Despite the pile of bad things about Clinton (Janet Reno, Madeline Albright, the Rich Pardon, Jamie Gorelick) he was special as Bush has never been:

Clinton knew what Nixon knew but couldn’t articulate well, what Reagan clearly knew but what George Bush evidently never has known:

America isn’t great because of its cigar-chomping lobbyists, fat cats and interest groups:

its greatness lays with Dads, Moms, kids, coffee shop waitresses, construction workers, drop outs like Bill Gates, cranks like Henry Ford, dreaming weirdos like Howard Hughes, William Boeing and all the black soldiers who drove the Red Ball express in WWII for a country that wouldn’t let them meld in the regular army but it was their country and they wanted to help.

They are all proud of their country; they believe in the American dream. They want to be united in dream and vision even if not in every day life.

George Bush has forgotten this if he ever knew. He has done well on the war (all wars are riddled with errors and high cost)but elsewhere he has flopped:

he stopped speaking to the people the day he was inagurated; allowed Hastert and his ilk to plunder the Treasury. He evidenced no disgust as Nixon did with the spending of generations to come (yes I know Nixon turned course after 1970, but he tried); the well-being of Iraqi war vets was fobbed off to “officials” who didn’t seem to care much either.

Clinton, yes, the pardoner of Marc Rich, the appointer of Janet Reno (what a disaster), Albright, etc. knew that regular people mattered. We knew he knew.

I wouldn’t vote for him again (too many scandals, too many unqualified appointments, Hilary’s baggage, Markie post jumping on Lincoln’s bed, bizzare court nominees). But I enjoyed hearing him speak too.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:09 am 16. peter jackson:

Clinton and his fans like Marsh love to talk up how great Clinton was for the economy until you ask them exactly what he did to “drive” it. Most don’t have an answer, and the few who know the answer will never utter it: Bill Clinton helped the economy by ushering in the first Republican Congress in forty years. Likewise, Bill and friends also like to forget that the Clinton bubble popped the year BEFORE Clinton left office; by the day G.W. Bush was sworn in, the Dow had shed a full third of it’s value from it’s high the previous March.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:10 am 17. poul:

After all these miserable years of George W. Bush’s presidency, we are still unable to make a coherent argument what is so miserable about them when we’re winning the wars and economy is strong? This is the worst writing I’ve seen since “Pravda” circa 1987.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:12 am 18. Javelin:

I guess all the right wingers, whose discourse is based on incessant smears on their juvenile talk show level, are really going to hate this Taylor.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:13 am 19. Colin:

So, 17 negatives and 1 positive so far. I’m detecting a pattern…

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:20 am 20. Colin:

So, seventeen negatives and one positive? I’m detecting a bit of a pattern here.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:21 am 21. buzz:

Sigh. Javelin, you want to provide some examples? Incessant smears? This is what everyone is talking about. Saying it as if it accepted fact and providing any evidence is worthless writing.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:23 am 22. KingTaco:

There’s a portion of folks out there that are breathtakingly bi-polar over the Clintons.

Does anybody doubt Bill Clinton has charisma to burn, and can give a great speech? No

Did the ‘Bid Dawg’ bring it home for his wife int the primary elections? No. In fact, big groups of democrats themselves displayed outright hostility to the Clintons.

But suddenly Bill Clinton goes from being talented but with heavy baggage, and bitter after a nasty primary fight, to the true-blue ‘Big Dawg’ because he gave a charismatic speech in which he pimped his own legacy and offered rather vanilla support of Obama? That’s Andrew Sullivan-esque style speed reversal.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:24 am 23. Willys:

I learned in the mid-90’s how to effectively use my remote control. The guy’s hasn’t had a continuous 20 seconds on my tube on any occasion since. I had never seen ‘Some Like It Hot’ so my evening was fulfilling.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:28 am 24. Clyde:

One word…Impeached.

nuf-said?

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:32 am 25. Boris:

Taylor, you sure are making friends here. If you ever want to pander, just talk about how much you hate Muslims and they’ll like you.

Marc Rich? Hadn’t heard that name in a while. Interesting fact: Marc Rich’s lawyer was…Scooter Libby, but his own sentence was commuted because he was a great American or something. Clearly different.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:36 am 26. Tantor:

This was quite a partisan love note to Clinton, who is merely a trash-talking salesman who doesn’t deliver.

As for Obama’s link to Ayers:
What if John McCain had been hobnobbing with an unrepentant Klan bomber on various boards, a bomber who said he hadn’t bombed enough black churches, who launched McCain’s political career in his parlor? Would you claim that any investigation of such a nefarious connection was the work of smear merchants? Of course not. You simply don’t think it’s fair to point out Obama’s cozy relationship with a remorseless terrorist who made war on America, a relationship that lends Obama’s implicit endorsement to America’s enemies. The fact that you don’t think Ayer’s terrorism is an issue demonstrates your own wrongheaded and treasonous values.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:40 am 27. Mike:

Taylor:
You have earned your presidential kneepads! Congratulations.

On a serious note, this “opinion piece” encapsulates much of what irritates me about the thinking on the political Left these days. There is nothing in it that resembles an argument, a line of reasoning, nothing that even supports any the conclusions offered. Heck, there’s not even a single FACT contained in it. It’s really just a lot of ad hominum bluster, and blunt assertion of opinions as though they are somehow self-evident. Republicans are “smear merchants” when they criticize Obama because, well, they are! And the NY Times is not a smear-merchant when it publishes a fact-free, front page story about McCain’s alleged affair 10 years ago because, well, they’re not!

See? It’s simple. Democrats good; Republicans bad. What other “facts” do you need? What is scary is how many people in the Democratic Party are satisfied with these sorts of arguments. What’s even more scary is how these same people walk around with the conviction that they are smarter, more kind, more subtle and morally superior to anyone with a different opinion.

God help us if they ever really get their hands on real power.

Aug 28, 2008 - 11:43 am 28. Jbl:

Clinton’s speech WAS remarkable…he brought us “peace and prosperity” by never responding to the repeated attacks by AlQaeda until they figured they could just as well attack us on our soil. He did not sign the Kyoto treaty.

But he’s a great guy, right?

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:00 pm 29. Boris:

“It’s really just a lot of ad hominum bluster, and blunt assertion of opinions as though they are somehow self-evident.”

You Republicans are not very self aware are you?

“What’s even more scary is how these same people walk around with the conviction that they are smarter, more kind, more subtle and morally superior to anyone with a different opinion.”

Nope.

If you had stopped with your example of the NYT, maybe we could take you seriously. But to pretend that Republicans don’t do this stuff is absurd. The swift boat vets and Corsi have put out books full of documented lies and most of you guys lick it up and ask for me. Color me unimpressed on the right wing’s ability to recognize a fact.

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:04 pm 30. Slocum:

I’m an independent who voted for Clinton twice. And if Obama were running on a return to Clinton’s policies, I’d find it easy to vote for him. But he’s not. Clinton was a strong advocate of free trade and pushed NAFTA through the congress (despite opposition from own party) — Obama panders to protectionists. Clinton declared, “The era of big government is over” — Obama wants to start a new era of bigger government.

Bottom line — I liked and voted for Clinton, but Obama (and the Democratic Party in general) is now well to the left of where Clinton was when he was president.

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:08 pm 31. JKB:

Bill was great, classic Clinton seduction. However, he seemed to be a bit like the guy every girl wants trying to get his buddy hooked up. Sure she’ll hang on the guy to stay around Mr. Wonderful but sooner or later she’s going to be naked and abruptly aware she’s about to get screwed by Mr What Was I Thinking.

We shall see if Obama can close the deal on his own tonight. He’ll bring the enthusiasm and righteous purpose but can he bring the tingle that Clinton can?

Also, let’s not forget that Clinton was floundering until Newt Gingrich brought him direction in ‘94. Most oft complaint about Clinton by Reps in Congress: He keeps stealing our ideas. It is amusing to see all the Dems claiming credit for welfare reform.

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:27 pm 32. P. Ami:

if the Democrats ran a candidate whose politics I agreed with, be they man or woman, Jew or gentile, I would vote for them. I understand why government workers or staffs for politicians. Why anyone, just an average voter, would take personally the criticisms of any party is beyond me. There are plenty of good thinkers who represent both parties and a giga-jumble of idiot thinkers, or hack writers, or plain parrots on both sides. To hear Medved splice “seig heil” recordings between portions of Biden’s speech is classless, artless and intellectually dishonest. To associate McCain with warmongering, murdering dictators as Madonna did is just as idiotic.

I don’t grasp partisanship when neither party is paying your bills or putting food on your table. We are all being used and confused by the hack expressions of various pundits and this article is one example of many. You all will do as you do and frankly I prefer McCain this time around. That said, I’ll try my best to respect and be even handed in my criticism of whoever becomes my next President. Here is to hoping we are way wrong about what Obama represents if he does win.

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:43 pm 33. caperantniquus:

The differences between the “Right” and the “Left” are more related to philosophical differences between modern and post-modern world views. Arguments presented by either side are incomensurate and will never connect to provide any kind of resolution until the philosophical differences underlying them are resolved. It strikes me that the conservatives are generally older and modern in outlook and the liberals are younger and post-modern. Until that divide is recognized and accepted, the political dialogue will continue to generate strident confrontations that continue to divide.

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:46 pm 34. goy:

I missed his speech – did the Big Dawg get to wag his Big…

uhm…

Finger?

From what I’ve read, Bill’s performance was even more riveting than Hillary’s – truly Oscar-worthy, given the jabs, innuendo and threats floating around just days and hours before. Was a contingency SCOTUS appointment involved? One can’t help but wonder.

Not since the Bolshevik Revolution has a more transparently disingenuous collection of political hacks managed to generate so much mass hysteria among such an utterly naive group of lemmings willing to completely overlook the obvious facts – foremost among those being Obama’s rookie ineptitude and a political ideology that is slightly to the left of V.I. Lenin. Please read his CAC associate Bill Ayers’ thoughts on the “social and psychological outcome” goals of their work together:

‘…comrades. … “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.” … Viva Presidente Chavez! Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana!‘

And Jbl – Clinton did in fact sign Kyoto by administrative proxy on 11/12/98. Gore was the proxy, IIRC. Of course this all followed the Senate’s unanimous rejection of that document and anything remotely resembling it. So it amounted to nothing more than one of his childish tantrums that, once again, blatantly ignored the will of the people he pretended to serve.

Aug 28, 2008 - 12:53 pm 35. AliceP:

Well Taylor Marsh,
Looks like you really hit it spot on with this article. Look at all the republican rabid attacks!

Aug 28, 2008 - 1:06 pm 36. Taylor Marsh:

Letalis Maximus, Esq., nail on the head, baby.

I know, AliceP, it makes me smile. Their hatred and ranting proves the point.

Aug 28, 2008 - 1:18 pm 37. S:

I know Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton is a best President of mine, and Barak Obama will never be a Bill Clinton…

…although he will try his best to copy everything Bill (and Hill) ever achieved and run on it and take credit for their ideas…

…love Bill and Hill…

Aug 28, 2008 - 1:24 pm 38. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Taylor Marsh
RE: Hate Clinton?

Bill Clinton’s speech last night reminded us why Democrats love him and Republicans hate him. — Taylor Marsh

I’m a Republican. And I don’t ‘hate’ Clinton. On the one hand, it’s against my religious beliefs to ‘hate’ people.

On the other hand, he makes an excellent example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party.

On the third hand, I am confident he will be remembered as being one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States. Why?

• The Waco Massacre
• Vince Foster
• Ron Brown
• Travelgate
• Bombing Sudan and Afghanistan
• Monica ‘BJ’ Lewinski
• Kyoto Accord
• Setting Up US Security for 9/11
• The Final Hour Pardons
• Stealing property from the White House as they went out the door.

That the Dimocrats can’t seem to remember all these as being his handy work, and applaud him yet, is proof that they have SERIOUS problems of a mental nature.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Aug 28, 2008 - 1:26 pm 39. submandave:

“The swift boat vets … have put out books full of documented lies”

Boris, provide links to non-partisan sources to support your position that the SBVT’s claims were “of documented lies.” As I recall, the only proven, documented lies in the whole kerfuffle were Sen. Kerry backtracking on Christmas in Cambodia (that was “seered” into his memories) and other similar war stories (the magic hat from the CIA agent, etc.) This, to me, seems to be a perfect illustration of exactly what Mike was talking about. You have obviously bought hook, line and sinker the oft repeated talking point that the SBVT were just a pack of lying liars based simply upon the evidence that everyone knows they were. That Sen. Kerry could produce two or three folks to disagree with some of their accusations (while simultaneously acknowledging the veracity of others) does not “prove” or “document” that it is so.

Look over the following actual facts concerning the SBVT episode and try to objectively consider the conclusion to which they point:
1. The only person in the entire matter to publically back off their statements an dadmit error was Sen. Kerry
2. To this day, the Senator has still failed to release all of his Navy service records, the magic bullet he and others claimed would provide documentation of the supposed lies.

Aug 28, 2008 - 1:29 pm 40. JoeCHI:

The CDS in the media does Obama no good. All it does is serve to remind us all of the unfair media coverage during the primaries, and makes it more difficult to support him in the general.

Aug 28, 2008 - 1:42 pm 41. JF:

Nice column Taylor. Bill’s pro-Obama speech is a big disappointment for Republicans, for obvious reasons and for the MSM, also for an obviuous – if about to expire – reason: the drummed up drama of Clintons vs Obama. The party is very united now and hats off to Hillary and Bill for swallowing the bitter pill of disappointment and womanning/manning up for the more important fight to take back the White House. Four more years of stuck on stupid foreign policy – “hmmm, what can we do to help Iran or China today? Let’s overthorw Iran’s mortal enemy and install a client state for them and perhaps we can figure out how China can get the 1st big 1.2 billion dollar oil deal with Iraq afterwards!” – and four more years of borrowing from China to pay the Saudis without even trying to develop a policy for slowing down our dependency on foreign oil that doesn’t rest primarily on fairy tails like drilling in Alaska (save 3.5 cents gallon in 10 years) or off-shore (3 cents a gallon in 10 yeras)! We could cut out the Saudis and just cut a check directly to Bin Laden. Biull and Hillary both get the importance of ending this nonsense and kudos to them for guts and brains. And oh yeah – how about the orators we’ve got in the party now? Michelle, Hillary, Bill, and getting ready to bat 4th in the clean-up positon …… Just heard McCain get rid of his measly 10,000 tickets for dayton next Thursday.

Aug 28, 2008 - 2:17 pm 42. LD:

Taylor:
I think you hit a couple of major nerves, the Pubbies are frothing at the mouth.
Rachael: George W Bush has never shown the least sign of actually giving a rats rear about any but the top 2% who he calls ‘his base’.

Aug 28, 2008 - 2:35 pm 43. zaladonis:

Bill Clinton delivered for the Democratic Party but nothing he said about Obama was sincere. He’s a good soldier, giving this to people who spent the past several months dismissing his achievements and calling him a racist.

Obamabots don’t care about truth, though. They’d rather the Clintons –and everyone– say the words they want to hear than listen to the truth.

Aug 28, 2008 - 2:43 pm 44. Tim O.:

This is wild stuff. The dark part of reading the comments on various blogs is how the authors’ minds are invariably completely closed. They make their arguments and slick over what doesn’t help and embellish what does help, but there is never any actual attempt to get to a given truth. This is so rightwing and leftwing. And it is sad sad sad. You folks are just about winning. You don’t give a rat’s ass about the constitution and the people. Or, you care primarily about giving the “people” what you think you want. Isn’t a democracy supposed to be about listening to the other side?

I’m not a big Bill Clinton fan. The whole impeachment thing made me sick at heart, though I also think it was stupid of the congress to waste all that time trying to impeach a man for a male peccadillo that most of them had in their backgrounds. But he is a great speaker and he was a decent president. Better than the sad figure who occupies the White House these days. Whoever on this stream who said that the economics of the Clinton presidency were about the republican congress was at least somewhat right. Unfortunately we elected a republican president and they turned out to be an ungoverned mess of big spenders, making all their rich supporters happy. How sad was that? The GOP had the opportunity to really show the body politic they were right and it turned out they weren’t right all.

Taylor Marsh’s blog is often inhabited by people just as crazed as anybody you’d see at Little Green Footballs. OF course they hate Obama; John McCain really doesn’t even exist for them just yet. She may seem to be reasonable now, but it was her site and others like it that allowed the creation of the PUMAs to come into being. It was and is still all about ego in these comment sections. There is no selflessness, no sense of anything bigger than my dire need to be right about the world. Sad, babies. Very sad.

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:02 pm 45. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: As I Was Saying….

I think you hit a couple of major nerves, the Pubbies are frothing at the mouth. — LD

….the Dimocrats are obviously, as Bill Cosby so aptly puts it in his video Bill Cosby: Himself, “Brain damaged.”

Especially if they think rational discourse is evidence of “frothing at the mouth”. And the brain damage is manifesting itself as ‘projection’.

Indeed, I suspect that if you did a comparison of all the posts on PJM you’d find the vast majority of spittle and foam coming from people who like to refer to themselves as “liberal” or “progressive”.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Liberals aren't. Progressives won't.]

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:05 pm 46. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Tim O.
RE: On the Nosey

They make their arguments and slick over what doesn’t help and embellish what does help, but there is never any actual attempt to get to a given truth. This is so rightwing and leftwing. And it is sad sad sad. You folks are just about winning. You don’t give a rat’s ass about the constitution and the people. Or, you care primarily about giving the “people” what you think you want. Isn’t a democracy supposed to be about listening to the other side? — Tim O.

Indeed it is. And it’s cause for grave concern for the Republic. Over on another thread in PJM there are people who openly advocate physical assault on people they disagree with. And I suspect they call themselves ‘progressive’. But, in truth, they come across as hate-filled anarchists.

I think Einstein put it best, when he said….

All of us who are concerned for peace and the triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. — Albert Einstein

I had an encounter with a City Council woman this afternoon and came to realize the truth of that statement. Her mind on an issue is made up and no amount of reason will influence her. She’d rather waste a quarter-million dollars of taxpayers money each year than change ‘business as usual’ in a matter of public works.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts.]

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:11 pm 47. Peg C.:

Roger, “Taylor Marsh” is a nom de plume of Maureen Dowd’s, right? I mean it almost had the trademark ecstatic moaning and screaming for der Schlickmeister of Modo. This is beneath PJ.

Sheesh, I won’t be wasting my time reading Marsh anymore.

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:16 pm 48. george:

Oh please. Bill can speak – so what? Bill will do whatever it takes to help Hill win in 2012. All realistic Dems are betting on an Obama loss this year, or a Carteresque disaster by 2012.

This is very poor commentary.

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:21 pm 49. Ten:

I read Marsh once, Peg C., and only once. Well, aside from the first paragraph of this mangled opinion.

One wonders which came first: The purple prose or the irrationality. Contrast either to, say, a VDH. Yeah, no comparison.

Sorry Marsh, pushback proves no point whatsoever. You simply can’t write.

And I’d guess PJM knew that.

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:24 pm 50. Patterson:

Ditto everything you just said Peg C.

I don’t see how she can call herself an analyst. Are they giving that title away to just anyone now? I had to produce actual analytical products in order to get my analyst title. What a disgrace…

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:25 pm 51. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Tim O.
RE: Off-Target

I also think it was stupid of the congress to waste all that time trying to impeach a man for a male peccadillo that most of them had in their backgrounds. — Tim O.

Tim, what was the indictment passed by the House?

It wasn’t about getting blow-jobs from an over-weight, under-respected intern of the female persuasion, now. Was it?

No. It wasn’t. It was about lying under oath. Legally speaking, ‘perjury’. Something that is a felony; if convicted you are unable to vote in elections, unable to hold public office, unable to possess a gun. LOTS of ‘bad juju’.

So please don’t be a brain-damaged Dimocrat and TRY to remember reality.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Ignorance is when you don't know something. Stupidity is ignorance with pride.]

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:34 pm 52. Instalawyer:

(By way of disclaimer, I am a middle of the road Democrat, who at this point will not be voting for either presidential candidate, for policy reasons speciic to each one of them.)

I’m amazed at the number of comments here, which I think is representative of the vitriol of the right toward Pres. Clinton. Taylor Marsh has captured the impact of Clinton’s speech (note the sudden 3-6% Obama bump; it wasn’t Biden that caused that!), as well as his significance to the Democrats and the country.

History will portray him as the most effective substantive president since FDR, and will view the right wing smear efforts (Whitewater, Lewinsky/impeachment) for exactly what they were. Get the man, no matter what. How DARE he beat a Republican!

The commenter who says that Republicans don’t hate Pres. Clinton is being disingenuous; from the moment he was elected in 1992, the Republicans despised him with a passion that has shaped electoral politics ever since (remember: “Don’t blame me, I voted for Bush”?). The attack campaigning ever since stems directly from the Republicans’ attitude of “get Clinton at any cost.” Now, both parties engage in this internecine warfare. As a result, our government is in vapor lock.

Despite roadblocks during his campaigns and during his administrations that would have felled lesser people, Pres. Clinton prevailed, and he did it with a 65% approval rating, by handling foreign affairs adroitly and by setting in motion the biggest boom economy of our lifetime. His success as president was enormous. THAT’S why Republicans hate him; they did everything possible to derail him, and he simply would not be swayed from his task.

The political leader that learns from the successes — especially economic — of the Clinton administrations will do very well indeed. Unfortunately, neither of the two current presidential hopefuls seems likely to do so.

Aug 28, 2008 - 3:58 pm 53. Ten:

That’s a really nice screed, Instalawyer.

Aug 28, 2008 - 4:22 pm 54. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Instalawyer
RE: Facts & Law & the Third Option

History will portray him as the most effective substantive president since FDR, and will view the right wing smear efforts (Whitewater, Lewinsky/impeachment) for exactly what they were. — Instalawyer

So….

• The Waco Massacre — Never happened
• Vince Foster — Didn’t die mysteriously, never checking out of WH security to be found dead in a park miles away.
• Ron Brown — Plane didn’t crash shortly after the FBI started investigating him
• Travelgate — Never happened
• Bombing Sudan and Afghanistan — Never happened
• Monica ‘BJ’ Lewinski — Didn’t give blow jobs in the Oval Office and Bill didn’t lie under oath about it
• Kyoto Accord — Was never supported by Clinton
• Setting Up US Security for 9/11 — Wasn’t deterioriated
• The Final Hour Pardons — Never happened
• Stealing property from the White House as they went out the door — Never happened

In truth all of those happened. And much, much more.

So the facts are against you counselor.

Care to argue the Law? None of those things are against the law? Or at least stupid beyond belief?

Your comments, especially the ’smear efforts’, remind me of the Third Option of the Lawyers Rule:

[1] If the Law is against you, argue the facts.
[2] If the facts are against you, argue the Law.
[3] If the facts and the Law are against you, call the other side names.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Lawyer, n., One skilled at circumventing the Law. -- Ambrose Beirce, The Devil's Dictionary, written in the 19th Century]

P.S. I had an encounter with one of your ilk the other night as I sat on the city Zoning Board of Appeals. It was remarkable the ways this guy could twist the English language into so many pretzel shapes, like things buskers do with balloons for easily pleased children at a street fair.

Aug 28, 2008 - 4:26 pm 55. Chuck Pelto:

P.P.S. Fortunately I’m a judge of high school forensics, e.g., debate, and I could follow his ‘logic’ to its illogical conclusion, i.e., ending in thin air.

Aug 28, 2008 - 5:14 pm 56. JF:

To: Instalawyer & Chuck Pelto

Hard to say whose worse – a guy smart enough to get through law school who somehow can’t figure out the issue differences between Mccain and Obama and the signifigance of the choice, or Chuckee P and his list of irrelevancies. Clinton was vey good president who pushed through the congress a tax increase on the wealthiest (without 1 single repub vote in either the house or senate, all of whom predicted dire consequences for the nation), thereby correcting the growing deficits from 12 years of “conservative” rule and beginning the march to budget surpluses and an ecstatic stock market, and surprise, more money for even those wealthy guys. Of course he’s not running this year, Instalawyer, so it’s academic, except to note the similarities in the conditions and the candidates compared to 1992.

Aug 28, 2008 - 5:16 pm 57. jw:

I do not hate Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. I just think that he (with her) was a terrible president, though not as bad as Jimmy Carter. He was dishonest, not only weakening the U.S. by cutting the military back by half, but in allowing China (over the objections of those supervising sales of strategic supplies to foreign countries) to buy top electronic equipment for missiles in exchange for money. He sold out his country for his political ambitions. His final pardons were unconscionable – to terrorists, from Puerto Rican terrorists who have been unable in free elections to get Puerto Rico to follow their policies, to the Weatherman (connected to Bill Ayers, associate of Barack Obama), also unwilling to persuade people in free elections. (But he did not pardon Jonathan Pollard, sentenced to life imprisonment as a spy for an ally, Israel, unlike any such other cases) as he had promised Prime Minister of Israel Netanyahu he would do if Israel signed the Wye agreement.)
He undermined the security of the U.S. by requiring the CIA and the FBI not to exchange information (so as to protect himself), refused to find out any connections to foreign countries in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, made a cowardly retreat from Mogadishu in Somalia; made an agreement with Cuba to use the Coast Guard to send back any Cubans fleeing Castor’s Cuba, kidnapped 5-year old Elian Gonzalez from his relatives in Florida to return him to Cuba. The list of these deeds, plus those mentioned above, can go on.

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:18 pm 58. Mary B.:

Nobody lights up the stage like Bill Clinton. I saw him last October in Minneapolis with my 18-year-old son who was so amazed to hear a speaker with so much to say that he wanted to write everything down but couldn’t write fast enough. This was his first experience hearing a speech by such a great mind.

Bill and Hillary have done more than their part in expressing their support for Obama. Now it is up to Obama to close the deal, and he has some work to do to earn my vote. If he is elected, he had better not screw up. I still think he is a very weak candidate compared to Hillary and a real amateur compared to Bill.

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:21 pm 59. Betsy:

Taylor, a great article. And to all you republicans (I was a republican until after the primary), just remember who put our nation into this black hole. Remember who took us into a phony war where over 4000 of our young people have been killed and many more permanently maimed. You can yak all you want to but it was WJC who put this country back on the economic path of success. And Barack Obama will do the same.
Obama/Biden 08

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:23 pm 60. Boris:

“1. The only person in the entire matter to publically back off their statements an dadmit error was Sen. Kerry”

The swiftboaters were contradicted by official navy records and in many cases by their OWN previous testimony and records. One swiftboater admitted to signing an affidavit saying that he witnessed certain events when he never witnessed them.

“2. To this day, the Senator has still failed to release all of his Navy service records, the magic bullet he and others claimed would provide documentation of the supposed lies.”

Kerry released his records in 2005. This is how we know that many of the swift boaters who condemned him during the campaign commended him during his service.

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:25 pm 61. Boris:

Cool, a Vince Foster conspiracy theorist on this thread. Haven’t seen somebody admit to being one of those for a while now.

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:26 pm 62. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: Case In Point….

…Chuckee P and his list of irrelevancies — JF

….of Dimocratic brain-damage.

Bombing other countries without warning is ‘irrelevant’.
Lying under oath, i.e., perjury [a felony] is ‘irrelevant’.

I suppose that in due time murder will be ‘irrelevant’ too.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[The ends justify the means. -- typical 'liberal' mentality]

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:29 pm 63. Chuck Pelto:

P.S. Regarding my comment about the future idea that ‘murder’ will be ‘irrelevant’ in JF’s world, I point out that at this time, the Dimocrats are pushing the idea that criticizing The One should be….

…a CRIMINAL OFFENSE.

Admittedly, it’s not ‘irrelevant’—being a crime—but obviously the Truth is become irrelevant.

Aug 28, 2008 - 6:48 pm 64. goy:

- …all of whom predicted dire consequences for the nation…

Predictions which were 100% accurate.

Clinton’s policy of fake-surplus-by-hypertaxation is precisely what sent the economy into a nosedive throughout 2000, and into a free-falling recession by mid-2001 – long before 9/11. If Gore had stolen the election and continued Clinton’s hypertaxation policy, we’d be in the Second Great Depression right now.

But thankfully, Gore’s home state recognized that he wasn’t fit to be President, and the Clinton Recession ended in November 2001 thanks to quick thinking on the part of Bush and the Republican Congress (but of course then that Congress just got stupid). We’ve had seven straight years of economic growth since, record federal tax revenues and unemployment rates that haven’t peaked anywhere near as high as they did under the Big Dawg – despite the overwhelming influx of illegal aliens we’re somehow absorbing.

As for similarities of conditions and candidates, we’re much closer to the 1984 situation than 1992. We’ve had 8 years of relentless vilification of the Republicans and the President by the (dying) MSM and the (dying) Anti-Bush Party throughout stellar economic performance and national security under the enlightened stewardship of same. Both the MSM and Dem-controlled Congress have since lost ALL credibility with the American People. The Dem-controlled Congress now has the lowest approval rating of ANY U.S. institution in history.

Meanwhile, we have a Democrat candidate who’s not just an order of magnitude further left than Mondale would ever have dared admit. No. Before even being officially nominated, he started down a path of self-destruction by using his government power as a sitting Senator to threaten a private citizen with DOJ action (bypassing the FEC) to abrogate that citizen’s First Amendment Rights. The country is already getting a taste of what “freedom” will be like under the Obama regime.

As for Clinton, once the events of our time are viewed from a point where historians can actually see them as history instead of simply parroting leftist partisan hype and MSM lies, Clinton will be remembered only for his Oval Office Oral Orgies, his serial prevarication, his Impeachment, losing bin Laden, Waco, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, an embarrassing public-debt-to-GDP ratio, wagging the dog, a squandered “peace dividend”, the Road to 9/11, a faked “surplus” and one of the Largest Tax Increases in U.S. History which, by the end of his administration, had effectively destroyed the economic gains for which he took credit, but which were made possible by the policies of his predecessors.

Bush, OTOH, will be recognized as the Father of Democracy in the Middle East, a more-than-capable steward of the economy who restored prosperity and the President who saw America safely through the start of the New Millennium and its most trying period since WWII. All this, despite the fact that he was given less than half the transition time normally afforded other Presidents-elect, was attacked relentlessly by an openly treasonous media almost from the day he took office, and was handed – by Clinton – what was arguably one of the worst situations in U.S. history.

Aug 28, 2008 - 7:08 pm 65. peter jackson:

I’ve never been a Republican (although I did vote for Reagan in ‘84) and I’ve never hated Clinton, but I lost respect for him when not once but on two occasions he used foreign military adventurism against the Sudan and (gasp!) Hussein’s Baghdad to distract from his domestic political woes, on the day Monica Lewinski testified before a grand jury and the day the Congress voted to impeach him. Seriously, imagine if GWB had done something like that. I’m sorry Democrats, but there are some things that just can’t be spun.

Aug 28, 2008 - 8:57 pm 66. anthony:

Barack Hussein Obama’s speech was truly dissapointing. Once again it was a big rally light on specifics. This guy has no real experience. He is a good orator–but light on specifics. Hillary would have been a much better choice–I am switching my vote tonight to McCain.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:07 pm 67. Anonymous Patriot:

Recession? What recession?

I pose these questions to all of you who keep hammering on the “bad” economy issue- Do any of you actually know anyone personally that:

a) Has lost their house?
b) Has lost their job?
c) Can’t afford to buy gas?
d) Can’t afford to buy groceries?

Me neither. I rest my case.

Aug 28, 2008 - 10:28 pm 68. JF:

To: Goy and Anon Pat

Goy: Wow! So the crash of 2001 was due to a rise in the marginal tax rate in 1993 (back to pre-Reagan numbers and still way lower than the “golden years” of the 1950’s under Eisenhower) that ended the deficits and put us into surpluses that went to paying down the debt, and also reassured investors, among other things, and business boomed! Most Keynesians are Democrats, but even they don’t believe you should run deficits EVERY year (and Groucho likes his cigar but takes it out of his mouth everyonce in a while!). I’m speechless. As to the great Bush economy you site, to quote Lloyd Benson:

“”You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you the illusion of prosperity too.”

By Jan of 2009 (will it ever get here?) Bush will have almost doubled the national debt and left a likelihood of 1/2 trillion dollar deficits for years to come. The dollar will soon have as much prestige as the Uryguan peso, and our dependence on oil (geez, who could have seen that coming?) has skyrocketed and promises to put is an even weaker position. The president’s response? Drill in 2 places that combined will, in ten years, lower the price of a gallon of gas by 7 cents. Good plan! Yeah, since we’re leaving our grandkids with the check for the last 8 years, why not use up all the oil as well so we can keep driving Hummers, NOW! They’ll be so screwed then, they won’t notice another kind of deficit.

Anon Pat:

Not yet on a), yes to b), c), and d). They still have credit cards – for now. I also have 2 relatives without jobs, though their spouses work, and none of us even lives in a rust belt state.

Aug 29, 2008 - 4:21 am 69. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: [OT] Silly People, Anyone?

Cool, a FILL IN THE BLANK conspiracy theorist on this thread. Haven’t seen somebody admit to being one of those for a while now.
— Boris

It’s continually amusing how so many people think they’re so ’smart’ about ‘conspiracy’. As if by mentioning the term they can automatically declaim that there is no such thing.

Their naiveté is as bald-faced as Putin in South Ossetia.

Here they claim there are no such things as conspiracies, when they know for a fact that criminals conspire against society, lawyers conspire to circumvent the Law, corporations conspire against their competition and nations conspire against each other.

And yet they think that politicians can’t do such? That politicians are so pure of heart that they couldn’t possibly do ANYTHING wrong?

It’s either naiveté or shear stupidity or much, much worse….

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -- Albert Einstein]

Aug 29, 2008 - 5:16 am 70. Fi you out:

Cucky P

High school debate coach HA! why not say Golf club pro or semi pro ballplayer. You get no points. You can blame Bill for the sun setting if you choose. But the bottom line is the country and world was better off.

Debate this Chucko
http://freedocumentaries.org/theatre.php?filmid=184&id=1066&wh=1000×720

Aug 29, 2008 - 9:01 am 71. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: See what I mean?

High school debate coach HA! — Fi you out

These people can’t even read English.

This one apparently came out of high school, either graduation or drop-out, in the last five years, based on his skills with English and comprehension.

That they can even type is interesting. And I’ll attribute THAT to playing more advanced computer games, i.e., something that requires a tad more than a joystick.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[It's too bad stupidity isn't painful.]

Aug 29, 2008 - 9:46 am 72. goy:

- … the crash of 2001 was due to a rise in the marginal tax rate in 1993 …
The Clinton Recession (not a crash) began in early 2000, not 2001, with the precipitous drop in GDP that spanned that entire year and continued on into the next. This means that the tax increase – not implemented until fiscal ‘94, IIRC – was actually being felt as early as Q4 ‘99. That was as long as the burgeoning economy – left as a gift from his predecessors – could withstand the effects of Clinton’s surplus-via-hypertaxation policy.

The actual crash of 2001 was precipitated by 9/11 and Enron. 9/11 was a gift from Clinton’s national security “policies” of blinkered intelligence, false military bravado and treating global terrorism as tantamount to a hate crime. The Enron fiasco was a fraud that went on unabated throughout Clinton’s administration and which was finally halted and prosecuted under Bush’s.

Aside from that, congratulations: you can read.

- … that ended the deficits and put us into surpluses that went to paying down the debt …
Oh, do give it a rest. BOTH the average gross- and publicly-held debt-to-GDP ratios were higher while Clinton was supposedly “paying down the debt” with the surplus he faked than they have been over the past 7 years.

- … and also reassured investors, among other things, …
Right – things like, oh, the tech stock bust, which occurred when “reassured” investors saw the effects Clinton’s tax policies had on the economy and decided it wasn’t wise to invest in businesses that might fail under the load.

- I’m speechless.
All evidence to the contrary.

- ”You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you the illusion of prosperity too.”
Hmmm… sounds vaguely similar to, “You know, if you let me raise taxes high enough, for long enough, I could give you the illusion of a surplus too.”

Either way, we of course don’t have the “illusion of prosperity” today, do we Zippy? Instead, we have a wholly fantastical alternate reality, cooked up by the fear-mongering, leg-tingling Obamaedia – “Financial crisis, greatest since the Depression” – when in truth the ONLY really negative aspect of the economy right now outside the suicidal behavior of the credit banking sector is the inflation being cause by Congress’ utterly moronic energy (non-)policies.

Those policies are propping up inflated energy prices by preventing new refineries, blocking attempts to move from oil to perfectly viable, already proven nuclear energy, telling the rest of the world that there will be NO new supply of oil any time soon and telling Americans that we’ll just have to hoof it and adjust our thermostats until someone figures out how to generate even a tiny fraction of our energy requirements from pie-in-the-sky “alternative” energy technologies. Brilliant.

– blah, blah, blah… Bush [singlehandedly, of course. -ed.] will have almost doubled the national debt…
…and successfully implemented policies that have wildly improved American productivity, since the average debt-to-GDP ratio of the last seven years is SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER than that of comparable years under the so-called “leadership” of his predecessor. We can add to that the trend toward a balanced budget that was reversed soon after the Democrats took over Congress in 2006 and turned it into their private Anti-Bush Forum.

– The dollar will soon have as much prestige as the Uryguan peso, …
Your hyperbole. Not supported by reality.

- …and our dependence on oil (geez, who could have seen that coming?) has skyrocketed and promises to put is an even weaker position.
Uhm, no. You’re living in 1995. Our demand for oil is currently on the decline, not “skyrocketing” – especially as compared to certain other countries.

But let’s think for a minute… Whenever the oil companies search for, locate, drill, maintain, pump, transport, store, refine, market, distribute and sell gasoline for “obscene” profits of nine cents per gallon – gainfully employing hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process and, collectively, earning say $250B solely due to CONSUMER DEMAND – the State and federal governments rake in OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS in taxes – FOR DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Congress has NO interest in killing that pure windfall profit. Although it certainly requires a smarter person than I to understand how they can then justify demanding accountability from the oil companies after that trillion dollars simply disappears into the pork these idiots use to purchase their votes.

- The president’s response? Drill in 2 places that combined will, in ten years, lower the price of a gallon of gas by 7 cents. Good plan!
You haven’t been paying attention. You’re confusing Pelosi’s and Reid’s ignorance with the President’s response. His response – the only thing he had direct control over – was to reverse the executive ban on domestic drilling. Starting the very next day, oil prices promptly dropped OVER 20% and today oil is still some $30 less per bbl than the day he took that action. And gas has dropped by a lot more than a mere 7 cents – without drilling a single new well. So much for the “conventional wisdom” you’re applying to commodity economics.

- …since we’re leaving our grandkids with the check for the last 8 years…
Oh please, that “argument” no longer fools anyone who’s paying attention. Do grow up and study a little more. Here’s a very good place to start. Just like your ability to afford a nicer car or a bigger home, the size of the deficit and the debt are only meaningful relative to the nation’s ability to support them. Fear-mongering over the “size” of the debt – when it’s a meaningless number unless taken in context with the size of the economy on which it sits – is the disingenuous argument of someone who thinks they’re addressing an innumerate, illiterate audience. This is – thanks to the utter failure of public education over the last 30 years (led by “reformers” like Marxist Bill Ayers) – why it works so well in America.

Aug 29, 2008 - 9:54 am 73. BC:

Umm, the economy under Bill Clinton, by any measure — and this is well documented by economists — did better than under any other President, and this was after he was handed over a crummy, busted economy by Bush Sr., courtesy mostly of the insane borrowing that happened during the Reagan/Bush Sr., crazy, greed-is-good 80’s yrs.

The recession officially began under Bush’s watch, although it did get its start with a bubble pop of the late 90’s dot com businesses. This should have been a minor correction, though — the economy was sterling and with a strong dollar (it was actually worth more than a euro then, now it takes almost a $1.50 to get a euro) — but Bush and his people played Three Stooges with the economy, including that massive, bloody clusterf*ck “preemptive” invasion of Iraq, and well, we are where we are. Also Clinton had the respect of world leaders, whereas Bush only made them wonder about how stupid the American public is and how weak the US military.

Aug 29, 2008 - 1:34 pm 74. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: BC Economics

Umm, the economy under Bill Clinton, by any measure — and this is well documented by economists — did better than under any other President…. — BC

Maybe we need more AD Economics, as in Anno Domini. Obviously the BC form is so archaic that it can’t identify exactly WHEN in the Clinton administration the upturn occurred.

For those of US with better recollection and/or better understanding of economics, it started after the Republicans took over control of BOTH houses of Congress in the 1994 election, i.e., after they were sworn in in January 1995.

But a BC Economist wouldn’t tell you THAT, too revealing of their methods and practices; which are ANYTHING BUT Generally Accepted Accounting Practices.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[What they are telling you can be important. What they are NOT telling you can be vital. -- CBPelto]

P.S. I prefer MY BC to have more Hart…..at least the laughter is not at gross stupidity.

Aug 29, 2008 - 2:46 pm 75. JF:

To: goy

You’ve successfully rewritten history to your liking – congratulations! Like the works of Nostrodamus, I don’t feel compelled to counter in detail every bit of nonsense thrown out there. A few will do:

1. You claim it took 7 (6 3/4?) years for investors and the economy to sour after Clinton’s tax increase (again back to rates lower than Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon years) and the resultant budget surpluses and investment and employment booms of the 90’s. Sorry, Dude, but the statue of limitations ran out on that one. As to 9/11 being Clinton’s fault, read some Richard Clark – he was there.

2. Yeah, I’ve heard the national debt to gdp argumant from you liberal Keynesian economists before. It’s all meaningless I guess and the interest payments aren’t really due or growing. Lunch is free all the time and it’s a beautiful world.

3. Oil – I guess that’s all mental too, since the psychology of drilling off-shore alone saved so much money. Speculators affect short term prices but there are rocks (peak oil production) and hard places (China and India) out there as well. I don’t believe we can replace oil with anything on the horizon and that’s why conservation (the idea that there are no free lunches and we better take care of what we got) is our best bet. Of course demand is shrinking because gas is between $3.50 and 4.00 a gallon and geez, how could Ford and GM have seen this coming. Good thing those Michiganders all have family money. We didn’t need stricter cafe standards because this boom and shrink economy based on short term corporate thinking makes life more exciting. I don’t remember demonizing oil companies in my post so I don’t need to respond to that argument. Oil companies are like all corporations – single minded and amoral. Here’s some analysis of the “benefits” of drilling in Anwar:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/introduction.html

4. On that “harmless” debt (your part of it is about $31,000.00 x you plus dependents):

A. Not counting WWII, Republican administrations have increased the national debt (ND) by a ratio of 3 to 1 compared to Democrats.
B. The ratio of ND to GDP went up 10% during the Bush years (approx 60% to 70%). During Clinton that ratio declined.
C. As of 2002, the “debt tax” (amount of each dollar raised that goes to interest on the debt) was $.18 and is now $.20.
D. Foreignors hold a greater amount of our debt obligations than at anytime in history (about 1/3).
E. The Concord Coalition predicts deficits in the 6 trillion dollar range by 2015 if Bush’s tax cuts are extended.
E. The productivity touted in your link has outpaced real wages, meaning less people to pay those interest bils.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/learn/debt-facts

Aug 29, 2008 - 3:33 pm 76. kay:

Here’s a simpler math equation: It takes roughly 8 years for economic policy changes to show in the general economic condition of this nation. It’s very simple-just type in your year of choice, subtract 8, point fingers.

Aug 29, 2008 - 4:01 pm 77. goy:

kay – that depends on what ELSE happens during those 8 years. See below.

JF, if you please…

- You’ve successfully rewritten history to your liking …
Not at all. The facts are out there for anyone who has a connection to the Internet.

- I don’t feel compelled to counter in detail every bit of nonsense …
Translation: “I can’t hope to successfully argue all of my original position, so I’ll pretend that my fallacies of ridicule and composition will suffice… as long as no one notices”.

- You claim it took 7 (6 3/4?) years for investors and the economy to sour…
No. That was your ill-informed straw man. Mid-’94 to late ‘99 is about 5-1/2 years – less depending which of the changes you’re referring to, since the implementation was phased and things changed slightly in 1997. And on that point, you’re not quite clear on the nature of the tax increase we’re discussing here. It wasn’t just “a rise in the marginal tax rate”, as you claimed. The 1993 bill included the following onerous tax changes:

* An individual income tax rate increase to 36 percent
* A 10 percent surcharge for the highest earners, creating a top rate of 39.6 percent.
* Repeal of the income cap on Medicare taxes.
* A 4.3 cent per gallon increase in fuel taxes.
* An increase in the Social Security benefits tax.
* A permanent extension of the phase-out of personal exemptions and the phase-down of the deduction for itemized expenses.
* An increase in the corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.

Talk about an economy killer.

This situation didn’t last long, however. The economy was already recovering from the ‘90-’91 recession, so high growth was to be expected no matter what. But Clinton’s tax increase (actually Gore’s, if you want to be picky) slowed that recovery to a painful crawl, and real income increased only about .8% during the years ‘93-’97, so the Congress decided to take action.

What created the “boom” in the economy that Clinton hypocritically takes credit for was actually the effect on the post-recession economy of the tax relief act that was pushed through over Clinton’s objections by the Republicans in Congress in 1997. After the passage of that relief bill – until 2000 or so – real income grew by 6.5% (about 8x higher than the preceding comparable period) and the market cap of the S&P 500 increased by an amazing 95%. This was largely due to the significant decrease in the capital gains tax.

Unfortunately, that bill was too little, too late, too slowly (only about .11% of GDP in Year One) and its only effect was to stave off the damage done by the 1993 changes for a few years, leading to the recessional trend that began in late 1999. Pretty much the only net effect, historically, was to give Clinton one more lie to tell.

- As to 9/11 being Clinton’s fault, read some Richard Clark [sic] – he was there.
So were many others. 9/11 wasn’t Clinton’s fault, it was the Islamist Terrorists’ fault. The fact that it was allowed to happen, however, was a gift from his policies. There’s a difference. And I’ve read Clarke’s, as well as others’ accounts of the events leading up to the attack. My favorite Clarke quote is the following:

“…there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.”

To this day one can only wonder why, since the 9/11 terrorists spent most of Clinton’s second term planning their attack.

- Yeah, I’ve heard the national debt to gdp argumant from you liberal Keynesian economists before. It’s all meaningless I guess and the interest payments aren’t really due or growing. Lunch is free all the time and it’s a beautiful world.
Uhm… you forgot the part where you offer an argument that actually disputes – in any way whatsoever – the rationale of measuring debt and deficit in relation to SOME other benchmark, the most reasonable being the one indicator that determines the base upon which the government can draw funds: the GDP.

– Oil – I guess that’s all mental too, since the psychology of drilling off-shore alone saved so much money.
No. The economics are much, much simpler. There’s supply. There’s demand. When demand increases, price increases unless there’s also an increase in supply. When there’s no increase in supply in sight as far as the eye can see, then speculation says that oil FUTURES (i.e., prices) are going to be high. As soon as the promise of ANY new supply emerges – as it did when Bush repealed the executive ban on domestic drilling – that speculation subsides and the price goes back to the supply/demand equilibrium. Currently, speculators are apparently waiting to see who’s going to be in charge after 1/20/09, as the outcome of the election will likely determine whether this promise holds true.

– Here’s some analysis of the “benefits” of drilling in Anwar: …
Thanks. I’ve read it, actually. Not only is it an assessment of the supply/demand-in-equilibrium scenario (so it’s irrelevant in the context Pelosi, et al., originally cited it, i.e., when speculation pushed the price above equilibrium levels), but its conclusions have also been somewhat disproved over the last two months, as oil prices have dropped significantly more than one would have expected.

Ever been to ANWR, by the way? I have. It’s a barren wasteland. We should have drilled there immediately following Prudhoe Bay. But I’ve been reading a proposal that would enable us to get past this whole energy shortage thing without “drilling”, and create a permanent US trade surplus by turning us into permanent net exporters of gasoline. It’s a very simple solution that doesn’t have to wait for unproven “alternate” energy or “conservation” to yield any benefits. Wanna hear it? Sure you do:

Build three or four new nuclear power generators to replace several existing coal-fired plants which are due for retirement anyway. Be sure to position these plants in proximity to the trillions (yes, that’s trillions, multiple, conservatively) of barrels of oil shale out west that’s just waiting for an economical technology to extract it. Oh, wait! Oil is currently about $110/bbl, so it’s ALREADY economical!

Instead of wasting the reactors’ heat and dumping it into the atmosphere, use it to heat the shale (which is how you get the oil) and then refine the oil using power generated by the excess reactor capacity as well as the hydrogen that’s released from the extraction process. Run the refinery off of the same power and you do this all with ZERO EMISSIONS. With the income from the gasoline sold around the world to countries like China and India, you build more nuclear plants and slowly replace all the fossil fuel power generation while also slowly converting transportation to electricity-based motors (e.g., Tesla Roadster and descendants or Chevy Volt).

But here’s the catch: you’d have to get over the brain-dead Congress’ objections to (1) new nuclear power plants and (2) new oil refineries. We haven’t built a new one of either in decades. Again, this is just more evidence that the government, independent of party, wants to keep us addicted to a product that provides them with pure windfall profits in the hundreds of billion$, year after year.

- On that “harmless” debt (your part of it is about $31,000.00 x you plus dependents):
Sorry, sarcasm and irrelevant comparisons won’t help you here. Neither I nor my dependents will ever have to “pay” any of the “debt” – the structure and mechanics of which you obviously don’t understand. And this will remain so – forever, basically – as long as the government does its job and keeps the economy growing as it has been. Go read the stuff at the link I posted (which you obviously haven’t, or you’d be trying to figure out a counter-argument, which you didn’t present).

Aug 29, 2008 - 5:40 pm 78. JF:

To goy:

On your “onerous” tax increases of ‘93, except for the top corporate tax rate which remains the same to this day, they were all aimed at the higher tax brackets. The top bracket at which the “onerous” top rate applied was redefined from $86,500 during GHWB’s last year up to $250,000. For almost all of the “golden years” of Reagan, the top rate was 50% for income over anywhere from $85,000 to $175,000. For added perspective, during Kennedy and Eisenhower, the top rate was 91% for income over $400,000, admittedly a much wealthier individual in those days.

On timing, funny how Bill’s increase took years to take affect while the Reublican congresses bill was instantaneous. How does that work?

On 9/11, we agree that AQ did not recieve adequate attention from either Clinton or Bush. However, despite your out of context cherry picked quote, Clark has been clear about the much more serious attention played by Bill to the threat and Bush and Rice’s total disengagement from that threat until after 9/11. He worked for both of them, as well as GHWB.

On measuring the debt and deficits against some other benchmark, I sited the ratio of debt to GDP and it’s gone up dramatically under Bush. Your rosy scenarios assumes upward growth steadily and indefinitely – a hoped for but not assured condition – and I am rather shocked that a republican would be arguing that budgets and debt don’t matter. Our competitive position in the world is not what it was and the trends are not good. We can steady or reverse them, but sticking our heads in the sand is not the best formula for success. With a lot of the world doing better on education than us – see articles on Chinese and other scholars staying at home universities – and beginning to catch-up on technology, our advantages in productivity (which one of your links rightly highlighted) may not hold. In an earlier exchange you put the blame for our educational system on liberals. OK, plenty of blame to go around and situational standards are part of that. You may want to consider some other factors:

1. State legislatures cutting Univ. funding because of tax cut agendas.
2. Anti-intellectual attitudes on the right, from W to Rush. Where else in the world does a guy with no family money get mocked for graduating Magna Cum laude form Harvard Law?
3. Situational science – uncomfortable with facts? Teach creationism as an alternative reality.

I’ll own touch-feely teaching, republicans need to own those.

Your discussion of oil futures is based on interpreting the minds of thousands of investors all over the world. The amount of future reserves to be found off-shore US in no way relate realistically to the price decreases you site. You do correctly note however, that the speculative prices are fickle. Short term they are ususally meaningless.

I could care less about ANWR as a vacation spot, amd if it was of strategic importance to get that oil now, I’d be sending the bull dozers. It isn’t of strategic importance now, but it probably will be in the future – leave it until then, it’s money in the bank for our heirs, who will need it. I’m in favor of nuclear plants but I don’t have the faith you exhibit in a star wars future where we will be selling oil to the Chinese (they may already own Russia by then). Nice to think about such things of course and maybe it will happen – maybe a lot of things will.

PS Glad to here about your dependents and you skating over the national debt. I’m sure those credit card payments and payments to “the man” will keep coming as well. No point dying with any money in the bank, right?

Aug 30, 2008 - 6:22 am 79. goy:

JF:

- On your “onerous” tax increases of ‘93, except for the top corporate tax rate which remains the same to this day, they were all aimed at the higher tax brackets.
Don’t think I asserted otherwise. Nope… just checked. I didn’t.

- On timing, funny how Bill’s increase took years to take affect while the Reublican congresses bill was instantaneous. How does that work?
It’s not funny at all, actually. On the contrary, it’s pretty simple. Simple, that is, if you know how investment works.

Say you have liquid cash you want to invest. You look at the market and decide whether things are looking good or bad 3, 5 or 10 years down the road, depending. Based on your assessment you either buy CDs or invest in stocks. Same deal if you’re an entrepreneur or a venture capitalist – you either sit on your dough or you invest in a business (or several – and these are the people we’re mostly really talking about in this scenario). Once you’ve rolled the dice though, you’re committed, and you’re going to do whatever you can – for as long as you can justify it – to get your investment to pay off.

Now let’s marry that up with tax law changes.

When tax relief bills are passed, the general rule is that the government isn’t going to turn right around and raise taxes again. In a case like ‘97, where the cap. gains tax was significantly reduced, you see a rush of investment almost immediately because (a) it’s a safe bet there’ll be economic growth (rising stocks, flourishing business) and (b) more importantly, you won’t get quite so raped by the IRS if/when you make your profit. This in turn stimulates the economy almost immediately – not unlike what we just saw with the very modest economic stimulus plan. No one wants their money just sitting in a savings account when they could be buying Microsoft stock that’s likely to soar at any moment. The effects of certain tax relief are thus almost immediate.

On the other side, when taxes are increased and the economy slowly takes a nose-dive, you can’t always just take your investment and go home, especially if it’s funding a business with 30 employees who are depending on your good judgment to keep them employed. If we’re talking stock investments, most investors are loathe to change their long-term strategy unless it’s obvious things need to change. So in the tax-increase/foundering-economy case you see people typically sticking with the commitment they’ve made until it’s clearly no longer feasible to do so. There are varying points along the spectrum that signal “time’s up”, and it’s different for every investor. So when taxes are increased, slowly killing the economy, reaction times are much longer.

You can see exactly how this worked in 2000, where – as investors looked at the ominous trend of the previous year – investments in tech stocks (erroneously referred to as the “tech bubble” because of a few Internet equivalents of boiler room operations) petered out first, as these were naturally the most risky. Unhappily, I had a direct, personal taste of this, experiencing my one and only layoff ever that year (I immediately went back to contracting). Other markets soon followed in a snowball effect, leading to the very real recession in mid-’01. If not for 9/11 and Enron, the trough would certainly not have been nearly so deep, but luckily we were back on track by early 2002, and we’ve had positive economic growth in every single quarter since.

… despite your out of context cherry picked quote, Clark has been clear about the much more serious attention played [payed?] by Bill to the threat …
It was neither out-of-context, nor cherry-picked. And if you were actually familiar with the full statement from which it was taken, you would know that Clarke himself stated that this sentence was “the overall point” of what he had to say that day. That’s the antithesis of “cherry-picking”. Again, I quote:

“I’ve got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.”

Clarke goes on to further contradict your new assertion with the following:

“… the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we’ve now made public to some extent. … The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

Clearly in Clarke’s view, the Bush admin. vigorously pursued the issue every bit as diligently as Clinton’s had – more so, since he also states that the Bush admin. worked to resolve issues that Clinton had left up in the air for years.

In sum, even Clarke never claims what you say he claims. He may have changed this tune later, but then of course that is why I tend to look at his overall credibility as less than rock-solid. Your observation that he was present throughout provides every reason for him to say whatever is necessary to avoid any real personal accountability.

- … I am rather shocked that a republican would be arguing that budgets and debt don’t matter.
Huh? Did I label myself a “Republican” somewhere? I support full and equal rights for the full spectrum of gender variants and expressions: LGBTTSQI, etc. I have no real qualms about abortion – but of course “choice” works both ways, which is why they call it “choice”. What’s more, if you choose it, you bought it: don’t expect me or my taxes to pay for it. I think the ERA is just as stupid as the DMA. I don’t think the death penalty has any effect on crime, and neither does so-called “hate crime” legislation. I think both political parties are guilty of gross misfeasance and malfeasance these past twenty years or so. In short, I don’t think I hold the identity politics you’re projecting.

And I’m sorry to further disappoint you, but this claim is your straw man. Budgets and debts indeed matter (I never asserted otherwise), but productivity and a growing economy matter much, much more. My assertion is that we are not headed for “Debt Doomsday” or any other disastrous situation related to the debt, as our media, 99% of economics “pundits”, and most politicians / critics of economic growth would have us believe when they use scare tactics like “our debt has never been higher!!!”. Duh. Our economy has never been larger, nor has our population. Without a context it’s just a number.

So it’s utterly disingenuous of anyone to use fear-mongering tactics about the “size” of the deficit or the debt without providing some context – as politicians and the media do constantly. The GDP is the best context available.

And speaking of relative measures, the average debt-to-GDP ratios during comparable years of their administrations (i.e., the first seven) were much lower in ‘01 through ‘07 than in ‘94 through ‘00 (inclusive). So far we have yet to hit Clinton’s gross debt-to-GDP peak of 67.3% (in 1996) under the Bush admin. And we’ve never even come close to Clinton’s publicly-held debt-to-GDP peak of 49.3%. Although the current (you-know-who-controlled) Congress is working hard on out-spending both those numbers.

- With a lot of the world doing better on education than us …
With people like 60s-fixated Marxist Bill Ayers running curriculum development, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Constructivist (i.e., collectivist) education theory has been slowly destroying public – and now private – education for decades. Increased “funding” is not the answer. Only two things will fix the broken education system: student discipline and teacher/administrator accountability (which of course includes going back to actually teaching). Presently, the NEA and the teachers’ unions studiously avoid both of these. And their “justification” is found in the “outcome-based” ed. theory going all the way back to John Dewey. The Chinese and Russians tried and then abandoned this approach to education which is a big part of why their systems, as well as their graduates, are generally far superior.

– Your discussion of oil futures is based on interpreting the minds of thousands of investors all over the world.
That’s why they call it a global market – something that was obviously way over the heads of Pelosi & Reid when they proposed (U.S.-only) legislation aimed at the nasty speculators (after Bush’s action had already reversed the price trend, of course). This was almost as stupid as when Obama demonstrated his keen grasp of foreign policy issues by suggesting a UNSC resolution against Russia (which has veto power over any UNSC resolution). Both cases clearly illustrate the utterly naïve and completely delusional “true masters of the universe” self-image held by the far-left Dems.

- The amount of future reserves to be found off-shore US in no way relate realistically to the price decreases you site.
Not sure where you’re getting this. The only price decrease I cited was the recent 20%+ decrease that started the very day President Bush – a former oil man who, if anyone, should thoroughly understand how commodity oil speculation works – repealed the executive ban and told Congress they should do the same. Maybe the part you’re missing is that the total of the estimated reserves offshore AND in ANWR doesn’t matter. What matters is the availability of a new supply, which will flow as long as those reserves last and affect the price for that same time period. That directly affects speculation, as we’ve already just seen and which is what I was discussing.

- I’m in favor of nuclear plants but I don’t have the faith you exhibit in a star wars future …
None of the technology I referred to is “star wars”. Nuclear reactors are being built all over the world – except in the U.S. where we need them most, of course thanks, again, to you-know-who. Shale oil extraction is 100-year-old technology, you just need a cheap, emissions-free way to generate the heat required, which up until recently made that prospect not economically or environmentally feasible.

- Glad to here about your dependents and you skating over the national debt.
You won’t be paying any of it either. Neither will your dependents. Tax cuts produced the highest federal tax revenues the U.S. Treasury has ever seen. If you’re concerned about the debt, then cut taxes even more and get Congress to stop spending money like drunken sailors on a weekend bender in Saigon. That’d be a start. Alternatively, you could get all the people together who seem to think it’s a problem and start a fund drive to pay it down. Either way, just stop lying about it (or listening to cranks like the Concord Coalition, who do).

– I’m sure those credit card payments and payments to “the man” will keep coming as well.
Nope. I don’t keep a CC balance, so I don’t make CC payments. I use Amex instead of cash because I get a discount off of everything I purchase with it (including, especially, gas) in the form of an annual rebate. Never pay an annual fee. Never pay a service charge. Never pay interest.

Speaking of which… it’s time to go enjoy the weekend. The sun’s finally out.

Have a great (long) weekend JF, if you’re so inclined.

Aug 30, 2008 - 12:47 pm

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