The worst thing that he did was cancel the Texas supercollider project,mostly at the behest of enemies of string theory.Now we have become dependent on foreign supercollider data,a good thing in time of war.
Not one thing in particular, I suppose. But I just got the "ugh" feeling from him and his administration from the get-go...the hollowness, the staged/canned photo-ops and movie star-esque propping up and framing.
Being such a young man (and the first baby boomer, "came of age in the 60's" president), he was hipper than those who came before. Combine that with out lame "reality TV/Sally Jesse/WWF" culture of late, and he just seemed like a guy who was constantly doing or saying just the right exact thing.
I always expected to hear music swell or a golden sunset to fall behind him when he started one of his "heartfelt" speeches.
Nothing seemed off-the-cuff and genuine with President Clinton. It just had this air of tested, focus-grouped, re-tested and tweaked beyond all reason.
In all the speeches I watched him give over 8 years (State of the Union addresses, ceremonies, press conferences, etc.), I never ONCE felt "wow, that is really coming from the heart...".
I think his biggest failing, ultimately, is that he truly tried to be all things to all people.
You simply can't do that. As nice and noble as that sounds, it just doesn't work. You have to have deeply held, heartfelt and intellectual convictions. AND, on top of that, the absolute balls-out courage to STICK TO THEM when it seems like the entire world thinks you're off your rocker.
Clinton had neither of those, in my opinion. He seemed to be able to change and go with whatever seemed the "popular thing to do"...whatever would make him look good to a particular segment of the population he happened to be courting that day or whatever.
I really, really believe that the man doesn't have any firmly held core beliefs or convictions.
And, in that way, I guess he was a perfect president for out times.
By contrast, George W. (and I'm no fan of his either), seems to - for better or for worse - often speak as though he truly means it. Yes, he's rough. Yes, he mangles grammar and syntax and everything else. But in the year and a half he's been president, I've been WAY more struck by feelings of "holy crap, he actually BELIEVES this, what he's saying!" than I ever did in eight years of President Clinton.
Not scientific, of course, but I bet many people feel the same way.
I often wonder how President Clinton would've handled and stepped up to the September 11 attacks. I wonder how different, if at all, things would be right now. Would the "war on terror" be more or less involved or intense? Would people have rallied around him as they did President Bush. People seemed to forgive President Bush's language difficulties (haha) and general "less than rocket scientist" vibe once he stepped up, post September 11.
I'm always curious: how would (or could) President Clinton handle all that? THAT could have been his legacy and may have gone a long way to erase all the scandals and untoward activities and characters that surrounded his presidency.
Compared to what happened on September 11, Monical Lewinsky, Vince Foster and Whitewater would probably not seem as important as they once seemed.
By contrast, George W. (and I'm no fan of his either), seems to - for better or for worse - often speak as though he truly means it. ...
Not scientific, of course, but I bet many people feel the same way.</strong>
Not much science in expressing feelings, too much Heisenberg in it, but it'll be a mistake to make the bet since I'm sure at least half of the voting population would feel otherwise.
Bush seems the stereotypical whore politician we know and hate in today's world: an empty ideological shell, in this case conservative, with pretensions for power and money wrapped in a bowtied choreographed presentation. Those of the opposing ideology would feel the same for Clinton.
From my perspective, the worst thing Clinton did was to not fire NASA admin Dan Goldin and using NASA as a foreign policy tool.
Heck - NAFTA was about the only thing the man did that I agreed with, other than welfare reform. And both of those were jammed down his throat by the Republicans.
It's hard to pick just one worst thing that Clinton did. I think degrading the Office of the President the way he constantly did stands high on my list of worse things. People need to have faith in the various institutions of government to make them work in the long run.
Also ran:
Refusing to admit that what was happening in Rwanda was genocide and using this as grounds not to intervene on some level.
The worst thing Clinton did was deregulate the telecom and energy industries (among other deregulations). It has fostered a competition to see who can take greater advantage of consumers.
He paid back the Chinese Government by helping to block the FBI investigation of the stolen nuke secrets by Wen Lie Ho. He also allowed the U.S. to sell them supercomputers to run the sims of the stolen nuke secrets. And Loral (a big donor to the clinton admin) was allowed to fire off a rocket in China that "happen" to crash and the Chinese were handed a state of the art missle guidence system.
In ten years of so when we these highly accurate missles are raining down powerful nukes upon the U.S., you can thank clinton and all of the useful idiots who voted for him and then put their heads up their a$$'s when his wrongdoing was exposed.
Comments
I take it back. The worst thing he did was cheat on his wife with a fat chick.
The collider that is, not the fat chick.
Being such a young man (and the first baby boomer, "came of age in the 60's" president), he was hipper than those who came before. Combine that with out lame "reality TV/Sally Jesse/WWF" culture of late, and he just seemed like a guy who was constantly doing or saying just the right exact thing.
I always expected to hear music swell or a golden sunset to fall behind him when he started one of his "heartfelt" speeches.
Nothing seemed off-the-cuff and genuine with President Clinton. It just had this air of tested, focus-grouped, re-tested and tweaked beyond all reason.
In all the speeches I watched him give over 8 years (State of the Union addresses, ceremonies, press conferences, etc.), I never ONCE felt "wow, that is really coming from the heart...".
I think his biggest failing, ultimately, is that he truly tried to be all things to all people.
You simply can't do that. As nice and noble as that sounds, it just doesn't work. You have to have deeply held, heartfelt and intellectual convictions. AND, on top of that, the absolute balls-out courage to STICK TO THEM when it seems like the entire world thinks you're off your rocker.
Clinton had neither of those, in my opinion. He seemed to be able to change and go with whatever seemed the "popular thing to do"...whatever would make him look good to a particular segment of the population he happened to be courting that day or whatever.
I really, really believe that the man doesn't have any firmly held core beliefs or convictions.
And, in that way, I guess he was a perfect president for out times.
By contrast, George W. (and I'm no fan of his either), seems to - for better or for worse - often speak as though he truly means it. Yes, he's rough. Yes, he mangles grammar and syntax and everything else. But in the year and a half he's been president, I've been WAY more struck by feelings of "holy crap, he actually BELIEVES this, what he's saying!" than I ever did in eight years of President Clinton.
Not scientific, of course, but I bet many people feel the same way.
I often wonder how President Clinton would've handled and stepped up to the September 11 attacks. I wonder how different, if at all, things would be right now. Would the "war on terror" be more or less involved or intense? Would people have rallied around him as they did President Bush. People seemed to forgive President Bush's language difficulties (haha) and general "less than rocket scientist" vibe once he stepped up, post September 11.
I'm always curious: how would (or could) President Clinton handle all that? THAT could have been his legacy and may have gone a long way to erase all the scandals and untoward activities and characters that surrounded his presidency.
Compared to what happened on September 11, Monical Lewinsky, Vince Foster and Whitewater would probably not seem as important as they once seemed.
The Lewinsky affair is barely random jitter in amongst a set of deafening spikes
By contrast, George W. (and I'm no fan of his either), seems to - for better or for worse - often speak as though he truly means it. ...
Not scientific, of course, but I bet many people feel the same way.</strong>
Not much science in expressing feelings, too much Heisenberg in it, but it'll be a mistake to make the bet since I'm sure at least half of the voting population would feel otherwise.
Bush seems the stereotypical whore politician we know and hate in today's world: an empty ideological shell, in this case conservative, with pretensions for power and money wrapped in a bowtied choreographed presentation. Those of the opposing ideology would feel the same for Clinton.
From my perspective, the worst thing Clinton did was to not fire NASA admin Dan Goldin and using NASA as a foreign policy tool.
<strong>NAFTA?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Heck - NAFTA was about the only thing the man did that I agreed with, other than welfare reform. And both of those were jammed down his throat by the Republicans.
It's hard to pick just one worst thing that Clinton did. I think degrading the Office of the President the way he constantly did stands high on my list of worse things. People need to have faith in the various institutions of government to make them work in the long run.
Also ran:
Refusing to admit that what was happening in Rwanda was genocide and using this as grounds not to intervene on some level.
[ 06-25-2002: Message edited by: gobble gobble ]</p>
In ten years of so when we these highly accurate missles are raining down powerful nukes upon the U.S., you can thank clinton and all of the useful idiots who voted for him and then put their heads up their a$$'s when his wrongdoing was exposed.
[ 06-25-2002: Message edited by: sc_markt ]</p>