You’ve probably heard that joke concerning what’s actually happening when Bill Clinton’s lips are moving, but sometimes the truth does manage to negotiate his tongue. And his recent trip to Minnesota to campaign for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton might just be one of these instances — well, sort of.
While speaking at a fund-raising event for Dayton, Clinton played the tired old leftist game of trying to paint his opposition as radical, saying that the Republicans are placing ideology over evidence (as opposed, I guess, to placing ideology over the good of your country). Most interestingly, though, he also invoked the name of that terrible bogeyman, George W. Bush, saying, “A lot of their [the Republicans’] candidates today, they make him look like a liberal.”
In a way this is true. “Conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms, meaning different things in different times and places; a conservative in the old Soviet Union was a communist while a liberal was someone who was anti-communist. And the only consistent definitions of the terms are, respectively, “favoring maintenance of the status quo” and “advocating the overthrow of it”; thus, in this respect, the ideologies only make sense relative to one another. So, like anyone else, Bush couldn’t be understood as a liberal or a conservative without a frame of reference. And if this is to be Tea Party candidates — good candidates — he does look liberal. He pales in comparison.
But the truth is that Bush was never a true rightist, even when judged with the yardstick that should be used: our current political spectrum (which comprises the whole population). And the only reason many people believed he was so was because of that tired old leftist game — played to perfection by Slick Willie — of casting him as a “far-right” politician.
In reality, Bush was a true statist. His veto pen seemed perennially out of ink as he never saw a spending increase he didn’t like. He gave us a prescription drug plan that, at the time, was the most expensive federal entitlement in decades; the “No Child Left Behind” act, which expanded the central government’s unconstitutional role in education; and billion-dollar bailouts of investment houses. He also did little to secure the borders and instead tried to ram amnesty down America’s throat.
But what Bush did wrong is perhaps dwarfed by what he failed to do. He did nothing to uproot liberalism and change the political culture. Unlike Reagan, he never talked boldly about eliminating federal bureaucracies. He didn’t consistently try to defund the National Endowment for the Arts or public broadcasting. And while the Black Panther case fiasco has made many of us aware of the anti-white, politically correct climate at the Department of Justice (DOJ), what most don’t know is that it predated Eric Holder. For example, a town in my area named Port Chester was sued by the Bush DOJ because no Hispanic candidate had ever held office there. And it didn’t matter that only 20 percent of the locality’s voting population was Hispanic; it had to change its one-man-one-vote system, anyway. I guess waiting for the town’s illegals to be granted amnesty wasn’t good enough. Then, in a similar vein, Bush’s feds investigated my county, Westchester, because there wasn’t enough low-income housing in primarily white neighborhoods.
So I guess that in a most shameful sense Bush was conservative: He was quite content to maintain the very liberal status quo. He really was a terrible president in many ways, although not at all for the reasons the left would have you believe.
This places the comments of the supposedly politically savvy Slick Willie in perspective. He means for voters to get the following message: “The current anti-establishment Republicans are so radical they make even Big Bad Bush look reasonable.” But the message they just may get is: “Hey, don’t vote for these Tea Party folks — they’re not at all like Bush!” Well, that’s sort of the point. Many Americans are sick of the status quo. They want statesmen who are not like Bush or Obama — or you, Slick Willie.
So if the Democrats parrot Clinton’s message, it just may be a winning tactic — for the Republicans, that is.
This article first appeared at American Thinker
© 2010 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved
Well of course some truth does navigate his tongue. Any good lie has a degree of truth to it.
Id be wary of any advice Slick Willy gives, its about as valuable Hitler giving tactical advice to the allies. The Clintons are the ultimate opportunists and power grabbers. The word "triangulation" is proof of this. He doesn't actually stand for anything, all he does is adjust to the way the political winds are blowing. All the Clintons care about is power.
Posted by: Dan | September 20, 2010 at 02:42 AM
George W. Bush was a moral conservative: pro-family, against Roe v. Wade, pro-DOMA; against the federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research and so-on. He even made an attempt at tort reform (since-abolished by the current Marxist-in-Chief). In all other ways he was a liberal and fiscal Socialist. Contrary to the current occupant of the White House, there is no doubt of his love for his country. Furthermore, he was a necessary antidote to the reign of criminal terror that was the Clinton White House. Let us never forget the two candidates that opposed him in his presidential elections: one, a pathological liar and a clearly unstable Al Gore. Two, a treasonous and traitorous über-liberal elitist John Kerry.
I am presently reading “The Seduction of Hillary Rodham”. It is a sympathetic portrait of the former first lady by David Brock, who is now a radical homosexual “reporting” for Media Matters for America. In it, it is sickening to see the collective amnesia of Americans and media malfeasance regarding the scandalous crimes of the Clintons, dating back to their days in Little Rock.
An even better exposé of the Clinton crimes, even violent crimes – including murder (does anyone REALLY believe that Vince Foster’s death was a suicide?) is recorded for posterity in a great book entitled “The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories by Ambrose Evans-Pritchett.
The Presidency of George W. Bush was a bigger disappointment to traditional Americans who value smaller government and individual liberty. His election and Presidency was necessary because of the severe moral deficits of Bill and Hillary Clinton and because of the moral and civil bankruptcy of his opponents.
Posted by: Philip France | September 20, 2010 at 10:10 PM
Correction: "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories" was authored by Ambrose Evans-PritCHARD.
More recommended reading:
"Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security" by Lt. Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson, USAF (Ret.) - Carrier of the "nuclear football".
"The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President" by Edward Klein.
"Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House" by Gary Aldrich.
On deck in my reading circle is "Conduct Unbecoming: How Barack Obama is Destroying the Military and Endangering Our Security", also by Lt. Col. Patterson.
Posted by: Philip France | September 20, 2010 at 10:23 PM
no comment
Posted by: charles | October 21, 2010 at 06:28 AM