Not you. Netscape. And the Clinton Presidential Center or some damned site, which just crashed it. My warm feelings for Bill Clinton just dropped a notch. And I have to write my post again.
did Canadians generally like Clinton? I'm sure they like him alot more than Bush, but at the time he was President was he respected up North?Absolutely. He was regarded as normal, and smart (we tend to put a decent bit of weight on smart, or at least to have low tolerance thresholds for stupid), and generally close to Canadian social and political values.
He was perceived as being far closer to Canadian values than something like a Reagan or Bush Sr., of course. Where the despised Brian Mulroney was both as un-Canadian as they come and a suck-up pal of Reagan's, Chrétien and Clinton were genuine friends, golf buddies, I believe. Chrétien is absolutely no slouch in the brains dept., and even decently "liberal" in the politics dept., so this does show relatively good taste on Clinton's part.
Now, us over more on the left than a Liberal up here were far from impressed by crap like his "welfare reform", and his shilly-shallying on gay men & lesbians in the military. But then I've never voted for any of my own PMs, either. You take what you can get. I'd take Chrétien over Mulroney and Clinton over Bush, and by a long shot in both cases.
Clinton would not have "forgotten" to thank us for what we did on 9/11 and the days after, or used some lame mad-cow excuse to punish us for not doing what we were told re Iraq, or thought that killing a few of our soldiers could be shrugged off without a notice. Clinton was respectful of, and knowledgeable about, yr biggest trading partner and best ally. Us. Part of his decent respect for and knowledge of the rest of the world in general, but he did seem to acknowledge and believe in that special relationship.
We wouldn't take quite that "European" approach to his sexual antics in office, which I personally found disgusting and despicable and which affected my regard for him as a leader (but probably not as much as welfare reform did). We're North American feminists up here, and we don't consider such antics to be charming boyish peccadilloes; and we're not jaded about corruption (which is what that behaviour was) on the part of the powerful. But we don't go into a fundie flap about it, either.
Anyhow, I'd found a reference to a speech of Clinton's in Canada, on a site I wanted a better alternative to, but the official site crashed me, so here's the secondary one:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/oct1999/can-o12.shtmlAt the opening of the United States' new Ottawa embassy last Friday, Clinton voiced support for a "strong, united and democratic Canada." Then, in an address to a Canadian government-sponsored symposium on federalism held at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, the US president touted the Canadian federal state as an example to the world: "For two centuries you have shown the world how people of different cultures can live together in peace, prosperity and mutual respect, in a country where human differences are democratically expressed, not forcefully repressed."
Clinton's speech, which closed the International Conference on Federalism, was widely interpreted as a strong rebuff to Quebec's ruling provincial party, the Parti Québécois (PQ), which had sought to use the conference to make the case for Quebec independence. Calling for national minorities thinking of independence to ask “serious questions,” Clinton delivered an unmistakable message to Quebec.
Before pursuing secession, said Clinton, a people should ask, "Is there an abuse of human rights? Is there a way people can get along if they come from different heritages? Are minority rights as well as majority rights respected?... How are we going to cooperate with our neighbors; is it going to be better or worse if we are independent or if we have a federalist system?"
Those are the words of a knowledgeable and interested person. What's not to like? ;) (Mind you, that embassy is a monstrosity and I won't say what a lot of people hereabouts think should be done to it.)
I wanted to read that speech; if you're brave, here's the link:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/oct1999/can-o12.shtmlThis seems to be another one, but I'm going to post first and click later:
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/html/19991008_2.htmlClinton is a founding member of the Club of Madrid, which is also a project of our ex-PM Kim Campbell, and that too speaks well of him:
http://www.clubmadrid.orgMany ex-politicians seem to do better things in their afterlives.
Now, keep in mind that I live with one of Clinton's biggest fans, who regards the "bridge to the 21st century" speech as one of the greatest pieces of oratory of all time.
Trying to find some source for a survey or something of Canadian's opinion of Clinton, to compare to USAmericans' opinions, such as this:
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSClinton/sep13_poll.htmlIs your opinion of Bill Clinton favorable or not favorable? Favorable 39 percent, unfavorable 47 percent -- CBS.
but to no avail. There's really no way that Canadian opinion would have reflected USAmerican opinion at the time, though.
If you haven't read this about Canadians' opinion of Bush --
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/article.jsp?content=20040209_74911_74911http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/article.jsp?content=20040206_094416_5736-- enjoy. (There are some pretty funny poll responses at that second link.)