<p>“So does HRC have any actual experience which would persuade me into giving her the nuclear trigger?”</p>
<p>More than W had (and more brains too), and look the mess he got us in to.</p>
<p>and she can pronounce ‘nucular’</p>
<p>So Hillary was a governor of what state? ;)</p>
<p>One thing is sure, she could eliminate the national debt in a few months were she elected. No one can invest in the the commodities market like Hillary!</p>
<p>Watch out, Simba is quoting the Drudgereport. Gloating is next.</p>
<p>Yeah, but if she does get back to the White House, the taxpayer will get ack soem of it’s money when she brings back all the "W"s her staff “removed” from the keyboards, and all the ash-trays that disappeared when they left.</p>
<p>You’re assuming they would pass the necessary security checks, first.</p>
<p>Including, I suspect, Hillary herself. I recently learned she never had a security clearance during her previous stay in the White House. She was not allowed to enter any area where classified information was kept.</p>
<p>^^–^^</p>
<p>Sounds like a Monica L joke! :)</p>
<p>Funny thing about Monica jokes. I hear they’ll be back in style in no time. ;)</p>
<p>Look, I’ll make a deal with with you - </p>
<p>No more Bushes in the White House in return for no more Clintons anywhere near Executive power.</p>
<p>Any takers? GW is a lame duck. </p>
<p>As a concession, Hillery may keep her day job as long as the senior Senator from NY says its OK. Otherwise, it’s back to Arkansas with the both of them.</p>
<p>I hated what Bill Clinton did to the US economy, as I am sure all of you did.</p>
<p>Yeah - can the country stand another eight year nightmare of peace and prosperity? What will the Chinese do with all that money if we don’t keep pushing the national debt higher and higher? [/sarcasm] </p>
<p>I do find it telling that the right wing has moved into the playground taunts section of their substance-free approach to discussion of politicians so early in the game.</p>
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<p>Why does the term “myopic” come to mind, Kluge? And for that matter, since you mentioned EIGHT year of peace and prosperity, should we look at the January 2000 to December 2000 timeframe and analyze the economic prosperity and precaution for a long lasting peace? Should we further compare the entire year 2000 and 2007? Of course, we all know that the nostalgia of better years does not have to have much factual evidence. </p>
<p>Ever wonder what would have happened if the calendars had been switched and Bush had followed Daddy until 2001 and handle the keys to the White House to the formidable Clinton duo from 2001 to 2008? </p>
<p>You can’t bury the impact of the 9/11 on our country, and you should not ignore that the economic policies of 1997-2000 paid huge “dividends” in 2001-2003. Our country is still paying dearly for our government’s ineptitude in the past 15 years. Deciding in which decade to place most of the blame is a fool’s game. </p>
<p>It could have been worse.</p>
<p>“……It could have been worse……”</p>
<p>A ringing endorsement of the Bush years and a fitting title for his memoirs…. </p>
<p>Personally I preferred the Clinton budget surplus. </p>
<p>Remember not a single, not one, not even a NE liberal Republican, none of them voted for the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act.</p>
<p>It’s not so much the economy, which President Bill Clinton had some impact on, but certainly not all, but rather the failure to connect the dots that led to the attack of 9/11/01.</p>
<p>Most of that responsibility rests with the Clinton administration. It was not all their fault, but they do bear probably the most responsibility of any. The down-building of the intelligence agencies and the so-called “wall” are all part and parcel of the Clinton years.</p>
<p>Nope. No more Clintons. 
I’d sooner see Bill Richardson or even Obama over another dose from the Clintonistas.</p>
<p>Xiggi - you are a young man who vigorously supports the conservative agenda. Read this chart: <a href=“http://zfacts.com/p/318.html[/url]”>http://zfacts.com/p/318.html</a> That is the result of your guys’ policies - not just the bobbleheads in Washington, but the entire social/economic/philosophical underpinning of current economic conservatism. Your generation will spend your entire lives paying the price of today’s greed-based economic philosophy pushing the new golden rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.”</p>
<p>“It’s not so much the economy, which President Bill Clinton had some impact on, but certainly not all, but rather the failure to connect the dots that led to the attack of 9/11/01.”</p>
<p>Your information is wrong……the Clinton Administration told the Bush administration that OBL was the biggest international threat. The Bush people ignored the advice and information the Clinton people gave them.</p>
<p>It was Bush’s Administration that failed to keep an eye on OBL. </p>
<p>I suggest you get a copy of Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (ISBN 0-743-26823-7) and read it. There are many other sources on the subject if you wish to become knowledgeable on the subject matter. </p>
<p>As for your comment “…It’s not so much the economy, which President Bill Clinton had some impact on…” it vastly underestimates the economic plans and efforts of the Clinton Administration. Clinton got us to a surplus and that is the fact of the matter. </p>
<p>I’ll wait for the fool who is going to write that it was Regan and Bush 1’s efforts that got us to the surplus before I write more….……</p>
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<p>Kluge, I believe that you’ll find many of my positions to be supportive of policies that are not exactly on the conservative agenda. I also believe you might be guilty of confusing my lack of support for amoral and hypocritical politicians who only idolize their own ego with a support for the conservative agenda. I realize that this leaves me with a pretty short list of candidates. And, for the record, I happen to have more of “your guys” on my list. However, I am probably guilty of not having the same list as you do as mine is not as popular and probably does not appeal that much to people who predict the Super Bowl winner in August. </p>
<p>In the meantime, please forgive me for sticking to my overall tone of amused disbelief when people love to paint the good ol’ days of 1993 to 2000 through thick strokes of myopia. Of course, for some, the days of the dot.com boom were really real and the evaporation of the ethereal profits were caused by the Prez who was sworn in the … following year.</p>
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<p>Thanks for that chart, Kluge. By the way, could you comment on the state of our economy at the end of the two BLUE lines. Were things really swell at the end of 1980? Since I was not around, I can’t tell!</p>
<p>No president has that great of an impact, and policies often take years to effect change. There can be a synergy of various policies, but Bill doesn’t get the lion’s share of credit. Regardless of that rather pointless historical discussion, his wife gets no pass from me.</p>
<p>She’s run nothing. She has no workable experience and like the ads say, the presidency is not an internship. I don’t give two hoots if Bill is right there, because I frankly am tired of dynastic presidencies or any that approach such a prospect in practice.</p>
<p>Not to mention the fact we’ll have to relive all the facets of Bill’s time in office; including what did Hillary know and when did she know it. She hasn’t seen anything yet in terms of negative attacks.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I’m actually not talking about individual politicians, except to the extent that they carry out the philosophy which has driven our nation into a state of increasing debt and wealth stratification. You could argue that I have a bigger beef with Richard Posner and the rest of the Chicago school than with GW Bush who is, as far as I can tell, little more than a sock-puppet.</p>
<p>As for the economy in a given day, month, or year, it will fluctuate. And P2N is right, a given sitting president has only an indirect ability to affect the direction the economy will take at any given time. But he has a direct effect on the growth or shrinkage of the national debt over the course of his administration; that’s why the chart is, in fact, significant. (And you’ll note that the debt curve changed during the Clinton Administration long before the dot-com boom.) I read many years ago (and I apologize for not having the reference) that the economic right wing strategists deliberately encouraged the growth of the national debt for two reasons: (1) it increased the wealth of the wealthy right now, by setting tax rates below the break even level, and (2) it crippled the government’s ability to safeguard the rights of the weak in the future, by starving the government of assets with which to do anything more than maintain the armed forces. So far, it looks like they’re two for two - at your expense.</p>
<p>One bit of advice: don’t get caught up in the circus-act mentality of judging politicians by the slime-spin spewed by the propagandists. I don’t care about Hillary Clinton’s hair, clothes, accent, or figure - any more than I care about those aspects of other politicians. I also don’t care who any of them do or don’t have sex with. Personality issues are BS. Your list isn’t “short” - it’s nonexistent. But so what? What is the policy that person will actually pursue? That is what actually matters.</p>
<p>“I apologize for not having the reference…the economic right wing strategists deliberately encouraged the growth of the national debt for two reasons: (1) …(2) it crippled the government’s ability to safeguard the rights of the weak in the future, by starving the government of assets with which to do anything more than maintain the armed forces…” </p>
<p>See David Stockman’s memoirs of his years as OBM Dic. under Reagan….</p>
<p>Ill bet you that the 4000 families that have lost a loved one and the 25000 families that have someone injured in Iraq would give ANYTHING for Clinton to have been in charge on 9/11/01 and thereafter.</p>