AlterNet: We Forget What It Was Really Like Under the Clintons

[marmar]

We Forget What It Was Really Like Under the Clintons

By David Morris, AlterNet. Posted January 7, 2008.

NAFTA failures; deregulation of banking and ENRON's rise; "Welfare Reform" that led to more poor people. This and more is what the Clintons gave us.



Twelve days before the Iowa caucuses, the New York Times Magazine cover, in large white letters on a deep black background, carried the single word title of its lead article: Clintonism. In the article Matt Bai, the MTimes reporter on all things Democratic, with a big D, made one undeniable assertion and two highly debatable ones.

Bai's contention that Bill Clinton's "wife's fortunes are bound up with his, and vice versa" is incontestable. The primaries and even more so the general election, if Hillary is the nominee, will be a referendum less on Hillary than on Clintonism, the philosophy and strategy that guided the White House for eight years. Hillary clearly welcomes such a prospect, as demonstrated by her constantly reminding voters that she was "deeply involved in being part of the Clinton team."

Bai's much more problematic assertions involve his evaluation of the nature and impact of Clintonism. Bai begins by mocking "Clinton's critics on the left" for displaying "a stunning lack of historical perspective." Yet it is Bai, who demonstrates a remarkable lack of historical knowledge, a dangerous shortcoming for a reporter with his portfolio.

The most glaring example is Bai's bizarre assertion that Clinton "almost single-handedly pulled the Democratic Party back from its slide into irrelevance." The historical fact is that when Clinton took office, the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress and a majority of state governorships. By the time he left office, the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and two-thirds of the governorships. By the numbers, it was Clintonism that relegated the Democratic Party to the shadows.

Bai's other dubious assertions is that Clintonism was good not only for the Democratic Party but for the nation as well. He applauds Clinton's "courage, at the end of the Reagan era, to argue inside the Democratic Party that the liberal orthodoxies of the New Deal and the Great Society, as well as the culture of the anti-war and civil rights movements, had become excessive and inflexible. Not only were Democratic attitudes toward government electorally problematic, Clinton argued; they were just plain wrong for the time." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/72336/

[Demeter]

1. That's What Newt Gingrich's Congress and Contract On America Gave Us

They forced a lot of poison into the economy, and sabotaged a lot of the Clinton proposals with poison pills that are now taking effect because W took away the anitdotes.

[flordehinojos]

2. thank you for clearing up the fog presented in this thread.

[ihavenobias]

20. Eh, the fact is it's somewhere in between

While Clinton can't be blamed for ALL of these things it's also not really fair to suggest he bears NONE of the blame.

Especially when he supported things like NAFTA.

[yurbud]

8. Clinton's accomplishment was largely slowing the damage of conservative red gaurd

[Demeter]

9. And fighting Impeachment

[terisan]

3. Blaming Clinton for Enron? Does he think we would have been better off if Bush Sr won in 1992?

[Sadie4629]

4. Probably not

but it is true that all of Enron's book-cooking happened during the Clinton years.

[terisan]

6. Deregulation of energy was a mid to late 1990s phenomenon and was province of the states.

When Gore ran in 2000 the energy interests were causing brownouts in California and manipulating the market. California had deregulated its own market as did many other states.

Enron was an energy player in the 1990s but did not run out of cash until 1999 when it then started a massive coverup which finally blew up in its face in late 2001.

[SharonAnn]

13. Enron's book-cooking took place under the GOP Congress deregulation.

[SharonAnn]

12. Enron was the result of Wendy Gram lobbying the Republican Congress

to get deregulation through. She, and her husband Phil Gram, made tons of money on this deal. She was on the Enron payroll, big-time.

[stevenleser]

17. Can you even imagine a Democratic President going to a GOP Congress and...

telling them that they needed to hand him a bill of regulations against the GOPs main buddies and cash cows in the petroleum industry?

Good luck with that.

That is a bill that never gets written. If written by a Democrat, its a bill that never gets out of a GOP congressional committee.

[fasttense]

5. Clinton tried to play fair with the repuke congress

but you can't play fair with a cheater. Even so, Clinton's presidency was 1,000 times better than Rayguns, and the two bushes. Clinton didn't break up Unions, he didn't give away all government functions to inept, overpriced contractors. He didn't sell off the national wealth at pennies on the dollar to his cronies.

[dmallind]

7. More poor people????

I know revisionist slander is the style on DU about the benefits of anything connected to the - shock horror - cue mental Gestapo stock image - DLC, but how the heck do they think they can get away with that outright dogturd of a bald-faced lie?

September 92 - 38,014,000 in poverty (14.8% of population)

December 2000 - 31,581,000 in poverty (11.3% of population)

Numbers from a census bureau administered by people even (albeit slightly it seems) less friendly to the Clintons than DU....

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html

Lemme guess the whine next will be about some change in the calculation (imaginary but hey) so let's nix that one in advance...

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povmeas/papers/orshansky.html

Then it will be that inflation ate away at that poverty and real incomes went down (true though that is in this administration, a total crap lie about the previous one)...


1992 nominal median income - 14847. Adjusted for 2005 dollars (time of data tabulation and equally applied to all examples) - 20245

2000 nominal median income - 22346. Adjusted for 2005 dollars - 25331

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p01ar.html

Note that median data does not get skewed by a few wealthy individuals. Bill Gates counts as 1 person here just like a $650 a month disabled SSI recipient.

[BridgeTheGap]

10. Clinton did sign off on NAFTA / GATT / Media Deregulation / Anti-terrorism bill

Those are FACTS and everyone one of those bills run counter to what the Democratic party SHOULD stand for.
That said, Clinton was far better than any Republican administration of the last 40 years.
The problem is the general political climate, driven by the rightward turn of the media that now places many current Dems to the right of Nixon. No, it's not Bill Clinton's fault, but he was certainly in a position to counter this trend. The media deregulation law to us further to the right and Clinton signed it.
NAFTA & GATT (WTO) did serious damage to the working class in this country. Clinton signed both of those.
The anti-terrorism law passed in 96' was just a tad short of being the Patriot Act and in itself, represensted a serious assault on our Constitutional rights.

The fact that Clinton was better than anyone the Repubs could offer is a sad statement about the political state of country. We are being driven to the right, into fascism, and I don't see that Clinton did anything substantial to stop that trend.

[depakid]

11. Plus financial & SEC deregulation, welfare deform and logging without laws

all of which came back to haunt us in the late 90's and 00's.

[SharonAnn]

14. Financial deregulation was done before Clinton.

[groovedaddy]

15. i.e. the Savings & Loan debacle - thanks to Reagan! n/t

[stevenleser]

16. A lot of Democrats didnt know the damage these bills would do...

... and by "A lot of Democrats" I mean elected and otherwise (like me). I was a supporter of NAFTA, GATT, WTO and several others.

It is possible for well intentioned people to make a mistake.

[Doctor_J]

18. I love it when "our" media parrot the hate radio loons

Yeah, things were REALLY bad when Clinton was prez. Jobs, peace, stock market boom, removal of a dictator with no loss of American life, ALL WHILE UNDER ATTACK FROM THE MEDIA AND CONGRESS.

Keep it up, maybe we'll get to have 8 more years of neocon rule.

[bhikkhu]

19. So there was good and bad.

The piece is an example of why I would not like to have another four years of the same tired old arguments. Clearly the economy is crashing, the military is overextended and "failing to prosper" in various theaters, energy crises are building, global warming is looming; the future is not the bright thing I was brought up to expect.

Regardless, I would rather see some new faces than old to shoulder the mess, and some new ideas. Experience can be a detriment when all the rules of the game have changed.