The Clinton Thread II

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It was great to see Clinton back at the White House. :up:
 
I dont have a problem with it at all.

Nobody is going to care about this in 2 weeks, they will care if the tax cuts get passed.


It is not one incident...along with the failures of his overseas visits....its just one incident of many that shows his inexperience.

If I were the Republican candidate, and I were a governor, I would hit his inexperience every chance I got....that way they can stay away from the stupid stuff of his background, church, whatever the far right has tried to throw at him, they can stick to something that is provable, and very obvious.
 
That's because it was a desperate move.

I swear, I don't understand how an Administration can shoot themselves in the foot this many times without learning anything.
 
This has been floating around :woot:

trainingz.jpg
 
I tried not too.....so I just said...oh wow. ouch.



You know how we've seen the billboards with Bush on them and "You miss me"....

I'm surprised we haven't seen billboards with Hillary Clinton on them saying...."I told you not to call him at 3:00 a.m."...
 
I tried not too.....so I just said...oh wow. ouch.



You know how we've seen the billboards with Bush on them and "You miss me"....

I'm surprised we haven't seen billboards with Hillary Clinton on them saying...."I told you not to call him at 3:00 a.m."...

:lmao:
 
I have to say though....I think that had Obama come in when Clinton did...with a surplus etc...pretty much peace time, he could have had some time to learn the job. Unfortunately for him, and Clinton did warn us......both of them. This was not the time to learn....
 
There is a reason why I voted for Hillary Clinton...
 
I did too, but I didn't get a chance to later........
 
I would hit his inexperience every chance I got

Because that worked so well last time :cwink:

At the end of the day, imo, the more bill one president uses, the wiser he is :up:

Thats like saying a tom brady was bad because he had to throw to randy moss to score ;)
 
No, that would be an apples to oranges comparison.

Saying that Obama uses Clinton as a crutch is like saying that Tom Brady could not score in the redzone so they brought in Drew Bledsoe any time they got down there.
 
O can do it alone, just like Brady.

but when you have an elite weapon at your disposal, which increases likelyhood of success...you use them, even if you sacrifice some of the credit.
 
What America are you living in?
 
People were making a big deal out of this? It was mostly meant as a way to pressure House Democrats. It had the desired effect. It cut off Bernie Sanders's eloquent and nuanced opposition to the Tax Cuts Deal (which was going to be the headlines of the weekend) by having Mr. Practicality-Bubba taking all the headlines of arguing pragmatism to House Dems.

It worked because by Sunday House Dems were talking about only fiddling around the edges (most notably being the Estate Tax, which they probably won't touch). Nobody will care in two weeks that Clinton was there, but it applied the necessary pressure to put House Dems in a tough spot.

I'd say this worked out just as the WH planned. Watch the spread play, just not where the ball is.
 
People were making a big deal out of this? It was mostly meant as a way to pressure House Democrats. It had the desired effect. It cut off Bernie Sanders's eloquent and nuanced opposition to the Tax Cuts Deal (which was going to be the headlines of the weekend) by having Mr. Practicality-Bubba taking all the headlines of arguing pragmatism to House Dems.

It worked because by Sunday House Dems were talking about only fiddling around the edges (most notably being the Estate Tax, which they probably won't touch). Nobody will care in two weeks that Clinton was there, but it applied the necessary pressure to put House Dems in a tough spot.

I'd say this worked out just as the WH planned. Watch the spread play, just not where the ball is.

It adds to the perception that Obama isn't a competent, strong leader. This tax cut deal is what Obama should have been using his political capital on for the past 2 years, not on a health insurance mandate. He miscalculated and overreached because health insurance mandate has been his biggest pet project before he reached Washington DC and for that he suffers the political consequence. He should have tried create a coalition on less controversial issues like these tax rates and then attempt bigger pet projects near end of term. As he said himself, he'd rather be a "good 1-term president" than a "bad 2-term". He didn't go to DC for compromise and changing character of Washington, he did to advance an expansionist central government agenda. Now he's in this desperate almost powerless position where he has to bring on Bill to govern his own party. Pathetic.
 
Because that worked so well last time :cwink:

At the end of the day, imo, the more bill one president uses, the wiser he is :up:

Thats like saying a tom brady was bad because he had to throw to randy moss to score ;)

Excel, good grief.......

Of course it would work now, there are actual examples to show, over and over again. He has PROVEN IT.... people were enamered with the shine of Obama, not the substance. Now people can see the substance not the shine. So, YES, that should be used.
 
It adds to the perception that Obama isn't a competent, strong leader. This tax cut deal is what Obama should have been using his political capital on for the past 2 years, not on a health insurance mandate. He miscalculated and overreached because health insurance mandate has been his biggest pet project before he reached Washington DC and for that he suffers the political consequence. He should have tried create a coalition on less controversial issues like these tax rates and then attempt bigger pet projects near end of term. As he said himself, he'd rather be a "good 1-term president" than a "bad 2-term". He didn't go to DC for compromise and changing character of Washington, he did to advance an expansionist central government agenda. Now he's in this desperate almost powerless position where he has to bring on Bill to govern his own party. Pathetic.

Pathetic? I just fail to see that. It only comes off pathetic to those (like yourself) who are already predisposed to hate Obama and complain about him.

The tactic was used for two reasons:

1) To apply pressure to House Dmes
2) To steal the thunder of those against the bill going into the weekend (like Bernie Sanders) by putting a positive spin on the deal with Clinton for the media to talk about.

It accomplished those two objectives as the media started putting all the pressure on House Dems and analysts basically saying, "Well if Obama can get Bill to support it, I don't see what Pelosi can do." By the time the Sunday Morning talk shows rolled around, the House Dems were backpedaling.

It may have been an ugly move, but people don't remember the tactics...they remember results. What did he do or not do. In two years they won't be talking about Clinton, they'll be talking about this bipartisan compromise (that makes Obama look good) or that he couldn't get his own party in line and taxes went up in January (making him look bad).

The only people this matters to besides analysts and House members are anti-Obama junkies who love to ***** about Obama....and ***** they are doing.

I actually thought it was pretty impressive move for the president the last few weeks. From a position of weakness--after losing a historic midterm election--he negotiated a second mini-stimulus, a year-long extension of unemployment benefits, and a payroll tax freeze for the middle class. And he did this with Mitch McConnell, a man who has said numerous times the main goal of Republican senators is to make sure Obama is not reelected. It was such a positive take for those millionaire tax cuts gives, that the Tea Party is already booing and hissing at DC Republicans, causing Palin and Romney to smell blood in the water and to come out in phony opposition. Best of all Pelosi and the House Dems turned on him on it, so he looks like an adult and distances himself from the person that independents universally hate (Pelosi).

He gets his buddy Harry Reid in line, the Senate then passes it by a wide margin. And to break the House, he brings in Bubba. An ugly jump shot at the buzzer. But if it goes in, people will remember he won this particular game, not that he had an assist from old longhorn. In two years these will be the "Obama Tax Cuts" and the "Obama Extensions" not the Obama-Clinton ones.

In short, this is a non-issue because you guys need another reason to criticize.

P.S. If giving 32 million Americans health care insurance and ending pre-existing conditions is a "pet project" to the right, I'm even more disgusted by them. Obama's "pet project" is to save millions of lives and improve the quality of life in this country. The Republicans' "pet project" is to make sure millionaires and billionaires don't see their taxes go up 3 percent to where they were ten years ago. Now that is pathetic.
 
Pathetic? I just fail to see that. It only comes off pathetic to those (like yourself) who are already predisposed to hate Obama and complain about him.

The tactic was used for two reasons:

1) To apply pressure to House Dmes
2) To steal the thunder of those against the bill going into the weekend (like Bernie Sanders) by putting a positive spin on the deal with Clinton for the media to talk about.

It accomplished those two objectives as the media started putting all the pressure on House Dems and analysts basically saying, "Well if Obama can get Bill to support it, I don't see what Pelosi can do." By the time the Sunday Morning talk shows rolled around, the House Dems were backpedaling.

It may have been an ugly move, but people don't remember the tactics...they remember results. What did he do or not do. In two years they won't be talking about Clinton, they'll be talking about this bipartisan compromise (that makes Obama look good) or that he couldn't get his own party in line and taxes went up in January (making him look bad).

The problem is that the issue of whether to raise high income taxes again will come up in 2012 during a Presidential election season. He's already promised (unless he backs down again and looks weak) to fight for those tax raises hard. This time he'll have a Republican Congress to fight. He's only delayed an inevitable discussion to a Presidential year where the odds are slowly slipping away from him.

The point I'm making is that he should have settled less controversial issues like this early on and built his momentum of appearing pragmatic and reconciliatory.

If he had settled this issue early in 2009 or early 2010, (made the tax cuts an issue included in a wide economic package),...he probably could have gotten more of what he wanted, (raising taxes on the wealthy, which liberals enjoy thinking about) , and still maintained that momentum to his other big pet projects. But instead he focused on health insurance reform and kept his right eye on cap and trade and amnesty. By gambling on those issues head on, he lost political capital on this issue. Now he looks like he's conceding reluctantly for political reasons (which voters will remember) as opposed to proactively pushing for a genuine long-term solution. They'll keep that mind when the issue comes up again in 2012.
 
You see you're arguing politics with him not policy. It goes back to your quote about being "a one good term president" as opposed to a mediocre two termer. Now, you probably are deftly against HCR, but this along with ending the Iraq War and energy/environmental reform was his biggest priority when running for president before the floor fell out in September 2008. The first thing he did as president was spend half his political capital on a stimulus that was bigger than any in US history (if you dn't adjust for inflation). Then he saw a window to pass HCR. If he didn't do it now, he most likely would face economic resentment by midterms and lose support in Congress to do something that monumental and sweeping.

That is why he chose the politically unwise move (if you view Clinton's policy in 1993/4) to push it through at the start. It probably amplified economic resentment in 2010 that he spent a year on HCR. Mind you, 3-4 months of that was Republicans dragging their feet and obstructing the bill in various stages....but it was politically harmful to be seen as focusing more on health care than the economy (even though he did pass the stimulus, has fought tooth and nail for every unemployment extension, has added tax credits to small businesses, and saved out the auto industry).

As for why he didn't end the Bush tax cuts in 2009? It really is quite simple....the economy. I think he even explained this to progressives. Obama may be quite liberal, but he is also quite pragmatic. It's basic ECON 101 that you don't raise taxes in a recession. 4-5 million jobs were lost in the first year of the recession before Obama took office. He would see another 4 million jobs disappear in those first 9 or 10 months. Raising taxes would have been economic suicide. So, let them expire in 2011 when the economy would be better. Or so they thought. Unfortunately, while the combined aggressive measures of both the Bush and Obama Administrations stopped the initial excessive bleeding, they also failed to substantially grow the economy (other than on Wall Street). So, there goes that leverage to end the tax cuts and then the Republicans win by historic margins. So, now he is in a position of weakness. Surprisingly, he has played his hand better here than he ever did from strength over the last two years, IMO.


****

Now...why did Congressional Democrats of both chambers choose to not end the Bush tax cuts in September/October and make it a campaign issue (that they would have had popular support on) instead of waiting until after their historic ass-kicking? I don't know. But that is why I say I may not like Republicans, but the Democrats are full of fail and seem most comfortable without power. For example, if they stall this compromise...it will just get worse in January but they can say to their ideologues they tried....as millions of people see their taxes go up and lose unemployment benefits in time for Christmas, that is.
 
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