Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

national news, political news

Hillary says she’ll ask for Bill’s advice . . . duh?

hillary clinton

This might qualify is a dumb question.

It came Sunday night during the Democratic Party presidential debate and the questioner wondered whether Hillary Rodham Clinton would seek the advice of the 42nd president of the United States.

Wow! Do you think?

Why wouldn’t she? Bill Clinton left office in January 2001 with a 65 percent approval rating, and that was after he’d been impeached by the House of Representatives.

I totally understand that the former president had, um, some issues relating to a certain White House intern. I’m also aware of the official reason for the impeachment, that he committed perjury to a federal grand jury that asked him directly about the relationship.

But let’s get real here. Bill Clinton’s presidency was a rousing success. Was it totally free of tragedy? Of course not.

However, if the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state is elected this November as the nation’s 45th president, she’d be stupid beyond belief not to enlist the advice of her husband.

Bill Clinton presided over eight years of superb economic growth in this country. The president — with support from Congress — managed to balance the federal budget and left office with the budget operating in the black for the first time since seemingly forever.

Is the former president’s advice worth obtaining?

Yeah, I kind of think so.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Yes, impeachment was about sex

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Now that Donald Trump has dredged up the Bill Clinton impeachment travesty, it’s good to take a brief moment to remember someone who arguably had the best sound bite of all regarding that tawdry political episode.

Dale Bumpers was a former governor and U.S. senator from Arkansas, President Clinton’s home state. Bumpers died this week at the age of 90.

He once described himself as the “best lawyer in a one-lawyer town.” His self-deprecating wit would be welcome today in an era when too many politicians take themselves as seriously — if not more so — than their public service calling.

Well, it was Bumpers who offered up a fascinating quote regarding the president’s impeachment. You’ll remember that special counsel Kenneth Starr started looking at a real estate deal involving President and Mrs. Clinton. He expanded his probe to include a wide range of issues.

Lo and behold, he discovered that the president had improper relationship with a White House intern. A federal grand jury questioned Clinton about it; the president was less than truthful. Thus, came the ostensible grounds for impeachment.

Bumpers, though, told the truth about it.

“When they say this impeachment isn’t about sex,” Bumpers said, “it’s about sex.”

He was right.

The impeachment itself turned out to be a political travesty of the first order.

The House did its job by impeaching the president. The Senate — which included Bumpers — did its job as well by acquitting him.

 

local news, national news, political news

Turn the former president loose

Close view of a collection of VOTE badges. 3D render with HDRI lighting and raytraced textures.

Bill Clinton has made his 2016 campaign debut on behalf of his wife.

The reports are that Donald Trump is casting a large shadow over the former president’s initial appearance. Never mind. It will not diminish President Clinton’s drawing power.

The ex-Democratic president is going to start stumping for his wife, the presumptive Democratic frontrunner. Take this to the bank: He’s going to be — to borrow a term from Trump — a “huuuuuge” asset.

How do I know this?

Well, let’s flash back to 2008. Hillary Clinton was in the midst of a heated primary campaign against a fellow U.S. senator, Barack H. Obama. The Texas primary was coming up and the race wasn’t yet decided.

Hillary decided to call on Bill to make a campaign appearance for her, of all places, in Amarillo.

The former president’s advance team did its usual stellar job of preparing for the event. Bill Clinton would speak at the Amarillo Civic Center.

He came here — into the belly of the proverbial beast. This is blood-red Republican territory. We are the reddest part of the reddest state in the country. Look far and wide and you’ll find hardly Democrats holding elective office in any of the 26 counties that comprise the Texas Panhandle.

Bill Clinton came to the Panhandle in the midst of the 2008 campaign and he was met by a standing-room-only crowd. The crowd packed the Civic Center Grand Plaza; it spilled out into the hallway.

People came from all over the region to hear the former president. I have knowledge of a good number of dedicated Republicans who attended the event because they wanted to hear what the former Democratic Leader of the Free World had to say on behalf of his wife.

Will he replicate his astonishing drawing power in the 2016 campaign?

Here’s a word to the wise: Do not bet against him.

 

 

national news, political news

Is a spouse’s conduct really fair game?

clinton

Maybe I’m a bit slow on the uptake, which wouldn’t be much of a shock, truth be told.

I’m having trouble connecting a few dots, though, between the behavior of a former president of the United States to the current campaign for the White House featuring the former president’s wife.

Bill Clinton messed around with a White House intern in the late 1990s and got impeached because of it. His wife, Hillary Clinton, wants the job Bill used to have.

So, what does she do? She challenges a potential Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, for his attitudes toward women. She calls him a sexist.

Trump’s response? He said Clinton’s husband is among the most sexist men in recent history . . . because of his alleged extramarital affairs and, of course, the dalliance with the intern.

I’m finding myself asking: Why is that relevant to the job that Hillary Clinton might do as president? Why does it matter what Bill Clinton was alleged to have done? I used the term “alleged” relating to the previous accusations because I do not believe any of them has ever been proved.

Hillary Clinton’s assertions about Trump relate to the here and now. They speak to Trump’s statements — which are on the record — about women; they speak to the very issues that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly brought up during that first Republican presidential debate and which garnered Trump all that notoriety.

Trump’s retort is to dredge up a relationship that resulted in a presidential impeachment that occurred more than 17 years ago; let us remember, too, that the U.S. Senate acquitted President Clinton of the charges brought by the House of Representatives.

Oh, my. This is going to be some kind of presidential campaign year.

Here we are on the third day of 2016 and I’m already wishing this year would be over.

 

national news, political news

Trump channels late Texas congressman … more or less

1 Comment

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Donald Trump said recently that he intends to respond to negative attacks and added — somewhat incredulously, in my view — that he’s not one to initiate a negative campaign.

Interesting, yes? Well, I think so.

He’s been pretty darn negative ever since he announced his Republican presidential candidacy.

He took it to a new level when he said that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, has demonstrated a worse record regarding women that Trump has.

Hillary Clinton had accused Trump of being hyper-sexist in his outlook toward women. So, Trump decided to bring up President Clinton’s relationship with a young White House intern.  He vows to make an example of the former president.

Well, my thoughts turned to a former Texas congressman I used to know quite well. The late Democratic U.S. Rep. Charles Wilson used to say much the same thing about negative campaigning. He once told me he’d never start a negative campaign, but would be always be prepared to respond if an opponent decided to get nasty.

A candidate once did get quite nasty during the 1992 campaign, criticizing Wilson’s lifestyle — including his self-acknowledged affection for attractive women. She aired TV ads while running against Wilson for the East Texas congressional district he’d represented since 1973. The ads were highly critical of Wilson’s “Good Time Charlie” reputation.

What happened next remains a bit of a mystery. An audiotape showed up at the newspaper where I worked at the time; it contained a heated — and profanity-laced — conversation between the Republican challenger and her married campaign treasurer. The two of them discussed their own extramarital affair, with the candidate demanding that her lover leave his wife for her.

I suppose I should mention that Wilson’s opponent had portrayed herself as a deeply religious candidate who ran on what used to be called “family values.”

Wilson, who at the time served on the House Select Intelligence Committee, denied having anything to do with the tape. I couldn’t prove otherwise.

The difference between that example and the one that Trump is threatening to use is that the candidate who challenged Wilson was an active politician, while the former president that Trump threatens to drag into the campaign hasn’t been a full-time politician since his presidency ended in January 2001.

Somehow, I believe Charlie Wilson would laugh at what Trump is pledging to do to a potential political rival.

national news, political news

Is Bill Clinton on the ’16 ballot?

hillary clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton says Donald Trump reveals a sexist attitude toward women.

Trump responds by saying that Clinton’s husband, the 42nd president of the United States, has demonstrated an equally horrible attitude toward women.

So …

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump might be facing each other in the 2016 general election, which makes Trump’s view of women relevant.

Trump’s retort about Bill Clinton? Well, is that relevant? It would be if the former president was on the ballot. He’s not.

And that begs the question. Why is Trump bringing up the former president’s well-chronicled, heavily reported, much-discussed and debated inappropriate relationship with that young White House intern?

In my view, it’s an attempt at political diversion from the issue at hand, which is whether the current leading Republican presidential candidate really holds sexist views.

I am fully aware of former President Clinton’s history. Yes, I also know of the allegations of other extramarital relationships.

However, the man ain’t on the ballot.

His wife wants to be the next president.

Furthermore, his wife has raised the issue of a potential opponent’s fitness for the job they both want.

 

national news, political news

Sen. Graham shows what’s wrong with GOP

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Don’t get me wrong.

Sen. Lindsey Graham — himself — is not what is wrong with today’s Republican Party. The South Carolinian’s departure this week from the 2016 presidential race illustrates what’s so troubling about others within the GOP.

Graham represents what — for the time being — appears to be a dying breed of Republican. He’s one of those individuals who works with Democrats, not against ’em.

His reputation, thus, has become of one what hardcore Republicans call RINO, a Republican In Name Only.

Graham isn’t a RINO. The label is undeserved, except for the fact that he has many friends on the other side of the Senate chamber, which I guess has become something of a kiss of death these days among the Republican Party “base.”

He became quite critical during his presidential campaign of much of the rhetoric coming from his fellow candidates. Remember when he called Donald Trump a “jackass”? He became one of the first targets that Trump singled out, reciting Graham’s cell phone number aloud at a public event.

Graham, though, had the bad form — in the eyes of his GOP base — to work with Democrats on such issues as climate change, immigration reform and tax reform. It didn’t matter that the former Air Force lawyer has been a staunch advocate for a strong defense and that he has been at the forefront of calling for more — and pardon my use of the euphemism that I detest — “boots on the ground” in the fight against Islamic terrorists.

Perhaps it was Graham’s vote against articles of impeachment against President Clinton in 1998 — as a member of the House Judiciary Committee — that sealed the deal for the GOP base.

Whatever, this faithful Republican is now out of the presidential race because he isn’t hardcore enough to suit the red-meat Republicans who still see Democrats as “enemies” and not more “opponents.”

That’s too bad.

For Graham and for his Republican Party.

 

 

 

environmental news

Why is cutting carbon emissions so bad?

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President Barack Obama is singing high praise for the worldwide climate deal brokered in Paris this past week.

No surprise there, right? The president believes, as many of us out here do — me included — that human activity has contributed to the worsening of our worldwide environment.

However, you know what? I’m not going to debate that point. Skeptics of the climate change crisis have their minds made up; those of us on the other side have made up our minds, too.

So, we’ll go on with the rest of the discussion.

The agreement calls for reducing carbon emissions, those pollutants that come from fossil fuels. They increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and create a gradual warming of the atmosphere.

Beyond that, though, why is it a bad thing — as some interested parties contend — to cut those fossil fuel emissions.

This deal, they say, is “no better” than the Kyoto Protocol worked out during the Clinton administration in 1997. It never was ratified by Congress. President George W. Bush, Bill Clinton’s successor, said the agreement would cost American jobs and would give emerging powers — such as China and India — a free pass.

I keep coming back to the notion, though, that reductions in these emissions — which are indisputably harmful to Earth’s ecosystem — will produce a net positive impact on the future of the planet.

We can conserve those fossil fuels, which are a finite resource. We can invest in alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar and — yes! — nuclear power.

As Politico reports as well, there was some water down of the language in the agreement, which initially stipulated that developed nations “shall” cut those greenhouse gases; Secretary of State John Kerry got the conferees to change that language to “should” with the hope it would stand a better chance of being ratified by the Republican-controlled Congress.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/paris-climate-talks-tic-toc-216721

Shall or should? Whatever.

The goal remains the same: to reduce greenhouse gases that harm the only planet we have.

How can that be a bad thing?

 

State news

Starr speaks sanely about campus-carry law

campus carry

There once was a time when I wasn’t much of a fan of Kenneth Starr.

That was when he served as a special counsel who was given the task of investigating a real estate matter involving Bill and Hillary Clinton. Then he came upon another matter, the relationship that President Clinton had with a young White House intern.

He’s gone on, though, to become president and chancellor of Baylor University. And this week he told the Texas Tribune that there’s almost no chance that Baylor is going to allow licensed gun owners to pack heat on the Waco campus. What’s more, Starr also opposes the campus carry law.

Who knew that Kenneth Starr had such a reasonable streak?

Baylor joins other private universities in Texas that likely will opt out of the concealed carry law. Starr’s take? He told the Tribune: “My own view is that it is a very unwise public policy, with all due respect to those who feel strongly (and) very, very rooted in constitutional values as they see them. We’re here as seats of learning, and I do not think this is helpful.”

The bill, enacted by the 2015 Legislature, seeks to bring more guns into places where they previously had been banned. I saw nothing wrong with banning firearms on college and university campuses.

I’m glad to be on the same page as Kenneth Starr. For the life of me I never thought I’d see it happen.

 

national news, political news

Gov. Kasich bombs again

TAMPA, FL - AUGUST 28: Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks during the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on August 28, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. Today is the first full session of the RNC after the start was delayed due to Tropical Storm Isaac. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The man who has emerged as my favorite Republican presidential candidate continues to struggle.

He cannot get traction among a GOP primary electorate that favors bloody, red meat over cool collegiality.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich reportedly was the biggest loser at the fourth Republican debate, according to Politico. This hurts my heart. Honestly, it does.

Kasich is the one Republican candidate who can stake a unique claim to fame among the current crop of GOP candidates. He is the only one of the bunch who has demonstrated an ability to work with Democrats to craft a policy that is good for the nation.

When did he do that? He did when he chaired the U.S. House Budget Committee in the late 1990s and worked hand in hand with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Bill Clinton to balance the federal budget.

Gingrich, of course, is a fellow Republican. Clinton was that dreaded Democrat in the White House. Kasich showed an ability to hammer together a budget that met everyone’s expectations by providing a balance that eventually worked its way into a substantial surplus by the time President Clinton left office in January 2001.

That doesn’t sell, though, in today’s political climate. GOP primary voters aren’t interested in working with the other side. They have been infiltrated by the TEA Party faction, the folks who think government is evil and who see any effort to use government as a tool to push policy forward as an ideological capitulation.

Kasich won’t buy into the Donald Trump notion of deporting every one of the 11 million illegal immigrants. That, too, has produced scorn among the right wing of his party.

Good grief! The man knows how government works. He has executive experience now as well, running a state government in a large and diverse state such as Ohio.

Is it too late for my favorite Republican to catch fire? Technically, probably not. However, the pundits are saying that the game might be up for the likes of Kasich and other so-called “establishment Republicans” seeking to make a dent in the armor that’s protecting the outsiders — Trump and Ben Carson, to be specific.

Trump keeps pounding on that insane idea of rounding up every illegal immigrant and sending them back to their home countries. How he intends to do that, well … that’s to be determined later — if ever!

And Carson? Someone will have to explain to me how his training as a brain surgeon has prepared him in any way for the complexities of becoming head of state and government of the world’s most powerful nation.

For that matter, Trump’s career as a real estate mogul and reality TV star leaves him equally unprepared.

Meanwhile, candidates like Kasich — with actual government experience — continue to languish, flail and flounder.

Oh … my.