Newt Gingrich

[TexasDomer]

How can you think Regan was a bad president. I mean come on. Regan basically tore down the USSR by himself. I can understand you thinking the others even though i think they are pretty good except for nixon. And you think Carter was a good trustworthy president?

The biggest issue with Reagan was Iran-Contra, IMO.

 

[NDXUFan]

Lee Atwater would have eaten Clinton alive.

Shark

 

[TexasDomer]

If he had lived. There's no doubt that Bush 1.0's campaign in 1992 was a disaster. How could you squander such a high approval rating from just a year before?

Oh, I guess that gene is linked to the Bush family.

 

[NDXUFan]

Exit polls showed the Perot vote in 1992 split evenly between Dems and Rep's though, so it never changed the outcome. Bush Jr lost the popular vote in 2000...which is worse than not getting a majority in many ways.



And he kept it alive by keeping government spending increases to 3% or less.



Actually it was not that big as a percentage of GDP... Also, it hit only the very top brackets so MOST of the country got a TAX CUT. My taxes only went down during the Clinton years.



Yup...the same evil plan that Republicans just pushed forward these past few years for the elderly. Ironic no?



Actually, the Dems were kicked out for fighting with Clinton. They caused gridlock when they had a friendly President. What morons.



Actually, Clinton never left the middle of the road...



I am sorry but you are just wrong here. The deficit DECREASED EVERY YEAR OF THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY. Until it was ZERO. Not one year did it increase on his watch...not even when Dems were in charge in the House.

CLINTON'S BUDGETS
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.xls
YEAR DEFICIT
1993 -255.1
1994 -203.2
1995 -164.0
1996 -107.4
1997 -21.9
1998 69.3
1999 125.6
2000 236.2




Bush Sr never had a chance...he was stuck with a recession granted to him by the Spend and Spend policies of his predecessor.



I am trying to find what he screwed up that would put him under the others...can't seem to think of anything.

He definitely screwed up a couple things...but they were minor in the grand scheme:
1) Don't Ask - Don't Tell (ambiguity is unbecoming...choose ONE way)
2) He did very little for the environment
3) Possibly too many tax cuts
4) He did not spend capital to fix Social Security
5) In his last two years he let the Repubs begin the spending craze that has yet to end

First, all money bills start in the U.S. House. Second, if you remember, Bill vetoed welfare reform, not once, but, twice. Yet, when Dick Morris came aboard, he told Clinton that if he did not support welfare reform, he would lose in '96. Too many tax cuts? I have always wondered why people believe that the government has the right to keep the money that you have earned? Social Security is funded by the current taxpayers, you and me, not some government trust fund, sorry, the I.O.U. will not work in this arguement. If you look at Social Security and Medicare, 12 percent of the population is consuming 33 percent of resources. Do you think that the United States taxpayer, you and me, can afford a total retirement bill of $34 trillion? Believe it or not, there are many people under 65, who are sick and cannot afford to retire because of all of the taxes taken out of their checks. The average senior citizen has a net worth of $438,000.00, the highest net worth of any age group in America. As explained by a chemist, this means that fifty percent have more than this amount and fifty percent have less than this amount. What ever happened to the rugged individualism of America?

Shark

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

Were you really satisfied w/ our efforts in Bosnia, Serbia & Somalia? You don't think they could have been handled better or not at all?

Somalia sucked. Bosnia and Serbia are unqualified successes.

Clinton could have done something about Osama bin Laden but he was probably too busy doing something else like letting a fat girl blow him in the oval office or bombing aspirin factories to get the press's attn. off the fact that a fat girl was blowing him in the oval office.

Actually Clinton DID do a lot given the circumstances. It's a myth that he did not. I will post the article below.
1) Fired tomahawks at where he was believed to be MORE than once
2) had two subs permanently stationed in the gulf waiting to fire
3) sent the CIA in after him
4) froze assets

Morals aside, if you're the President of the United States, why the hell to you pick a chubby intern to blow you? And for crying out loud, be a man & divorce your wife if you want to bang other chicks. I'd respect that rather than the President of the U.S.A. acting like a teenager (yes, that goes for all Presidents from both parties).

He loves trailer trash women...look at all the chicks he went after. Ewwwwwwww...



2 artciles about CLINTON AND BIN LADEN

BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S LENGTHY REVIEW PROCESS DELAYED U.S. PLAN TO ATTACK
AL QAEDA -- UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE
Sun Aug 04 2002 09:43:33 ET

----
Draft Presidential Directive to Eliminate al Qaeda

Approved By National Security Principals Sept. 4, 2001 —Just One Week
Before 9/11
----
Plan Developed in Last Days of Clinton Administration, Presented to Bush Administration in January 2001
----

Proposals Were "Everything We've Done Since 9/11"

New York ? A bold plan for the U.S. to attack al Qaeda was delayed by a
Bush administration "policy review process" and was approved just a week before September 11, a TIME special report reveals. The plan, developed in the last days of the Clinton administration, was passed along to the Bush administration in January 2001 by Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke, a career bureaucrat who had served in the first Bush administration and risen during the Clinton years to become the White House's point man on terrorism. In the words of a senior Bush administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we've done since 9/11."

TIME's special report offers the fullest account of how ambitious the
plan was, and how the Bush administration delayed the plan.

On Dec. 20, 2000, Clarke presented a strategy paper to Berger and the
other national security "principals." But Berger and the principals
decided to shelve the plan and let the next administration take it up.
With less than a month left in office, they did not think it appropriate
to launch a major initiative against Osama bin Laden. "We would be
handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office on Jan.
20," says a former senior Clinton aide. "That wasn't going to happen."
"If we hadn't had a transition," says a senior Clinton Administration
official, "probably in late October or early November 2000, we would
have had [the plan to go on the offensive] as a presidential directive."
Now it was up to Rice's team to consider what Clarke had put together.

The plan became a victim of the transition process, turf wars and time
spent on the pet policies of new top officials. The Bush administration
chose to institute its own "policy review process" on the terrorist
threat. Clarke told TIME that the review moved "as fast as could be
expected." And Administration officials insist that by the time the
review was endorsed by the Bush principals on Sept. 4, it was more
aggressive than anything contemplated the previous winter. The final
plan, they say, was designed not to "roll back" al-Qaeda but to
"eliminate" it, TIME reports.

By last summer, many of those in the know -- the spooks, the
buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen
countries—were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack
against American interests was imminent. And in a bureaucratic squabble,
nobody in Washington could decide whether a Predator drone—the best
possible source of real intelligence on what was happening in the terror
camps—should be sent to fly over Afghanistan. So the Predator sat idle
from October 2000 until after Sept. 11, TIME reports.

TIME's Special Report also reveals:

* Berger wanted Ground Troops: On Nov. 7, 2000, Berger met with William
Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, in the Pentagon. Berger wanted "boots
on the ground"—U.S. special ops forces deployed inside Afghanistan on a
search-and-destroy mission targeting bin Laden. Cohen said he would look at the idea, but he and General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were dead set against it. They feared a repeat of Desert One, the 1980 fiasco when special ops commandos crashed in Iran during an abortive mission to rescue American hostages.

* Bush official denies being handed a formal plan: A senior Bush
Administration official denies being handed a formal plan to take the
offensive against al-Qaeda, and says Clarke's materials merely dealt
with whether the new Administration should take "a more active approach" to the terrorist group. (Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present.) Other senior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations dispute that account, saying that Clarke had a set of proposals to "rollback" al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the PowerPoint presentation reads, "Response to al Qaeda: Roll back."

* Clinton frustrated: By early 2000, Clinton was becoming infuriated by
the lack of intelligence on bin Laden's movements. "We've got to do
better than this," he scribbled on one memo. "This is unsatisfactory."

* Submarines were ready to attack bin Laden: For all of 2000, Clinton
ordered two U.S. Navy submarines to stay on station in the northern
Arabian sea, ready to attack bin Laden if his coordinates could be
determined, sources tell TIME.

* CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan: The CIA
attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan who might be
persuaded to take on bin Laden; contingency plans had been made for the
CIA to fly one of its planes to a desert landing strip in Afghanistan if
he was ever captured. (Clinton had signed presidential "findings" that
were ambiguous on the question of whether bin Laden could be killed in
such an attack.)

* Plans to capture bin Laden tied up in politics: After the U.S.S. Cole
was bombed, the secretive Joint Special Operations Command at Fort
Bragg, N.C., drew up plans to have Delta Force members swoop into
Afghanistan and grab bin Laden. But the warriors were never given the
go-ahead; the Clinton Administration did not order an American
retaliation for the attack. In fact, despite strong suspicion that bin
Laden was behind the attack in Yemen, the CIA and FBI had not officially
concluded that he was, and would be unable to do so before Clinton left
office. That made it politically impossible for Clinton to
strike—especially given the upcoming election and his own lack of
credibility on national security. "If we had done anything, say, two
weeks before the election, we'd be accused of helping Al Gore," a former
senior Clinton aide told TIME.

ARTICLE 2

CIA pursued plan to capture terrorist leader
September 30, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The CIA secretly began to send teams of American officers to northern Afghanistan about three years ago in an attempt to persuade the leader of the anti-Taliban Afghan opposition to capture and perhaps kill Osama bin Laden, according to American intelligence officials.

The covert effort, which has not been previously disclosed, was based on an attempt to work with Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was then the military leader of the largest anti-Taliban group in the northern mountains of Afghanistan, and to have his forces go after bin Laden.

Massoud was himself killed, CIA officials say, only two days before the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and the CIA believes he was assassinated by members of bin Laden’s organization.

The CIA’s clandestine efforts to deal with Massoud were among the most sensitive and highly classified elements of a broader long-term campaign, continuing unsuccessfully through the end of the Clinton administration and into the Bush administration, to destroy bin Laden’s terrorist network. The American campaign against bin Laden intensified following the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, which transformed the Saudi-born exile into America’s most wanted terrorist.

Today, the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants in al-Qaeda, the terrorist network he leads from his sanctuary in Afghanistan, has escalated to wartime levels. The Bush administration is considering a full range of overt and covert military and intelligence proposals that Washington policy makers would have considered too risky or unworkable before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But according to current and former intelligence officials and other policy makers, the United States has been trying to kill bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda for years, as the terrorist organization has become more ruthless and ambitious in its efforts to attack American interests around the world.

Clinton administration lawyers determined that the United States could legitimately seek to kill bin Laden and his lieutenants despite the presidential ban on assassinations, according to current and former American officials. The lawyers concluded that efforts to hunt and kill bin Laden were defensible either as acts of war or as national self defense, legitimate under both American and international law. As a result, President Clinton did not waive the executive order banning assassinations.

There have been an array of unsuccessful attempts to capture or kill bin Laden and disrupt or destroy al-Qaeda, American officials say. The Clinton administration even considered mounting a secret effort to steal millions of dollars from the bin Laden terrorist network by siphoning it out of the international financial system, but discarded the scheme because of objections from the U.S. Treasury about the implications for world finance.

The United States launched cruise missiles against a meeting bin Laden was believed to be attending, encouraged Massoud and other Afghan leaders to try to capture him, and received a secret report from one Afghan group last year about its failed attempt to assassinate bin Laden.

The United States also led an international effort to shut down Afghanistan’s airline, which American intelligence officials believed was being used by al-Qaeda to ship money and personnel around the world, while also pressuring other nations to arrest and disrupt al-Qaeda cells.

“This was a top priority for us over the past several years, and not a day went by when we didn’t press as hard as we could,” said Sandy Berger, national security adviser in the Clinton administration. “But this is a tough, tough problem. I think we were pushing it as hard as we could. And I think the Bush administration is handling it in a smart way.”

But until the devastating attacks on New York and Washington, the American-led efforts to hunt bin Laden lacked the sense of urgency that prevails today. American intelligence and law enforcement officials grew complacent about the threat of a domestic attack by al-Qaeda, failed by their own admission to share information adequately or coordinate their efforts, and were caught by surprise on Sept. 11.

Washington did not build a strong international coalition to focus on defeating al-Qaeda, which was seen by other nations largely as an American problem. Banks in Europe and the Middle East repeatedly balked at American pressure to cut off al-Qaeda financing, while wealthy individuals in Persian Gulf states — sometimes in the guise of donating to Islamic charities — continued to provide financial support to al-Qaeda.

At the same time, al-Qaeda was rapidly evolving into a larger and more complex terrorist threat, making it difficult for the United States to keep up with its scope and capabilities. Bin Laden’s great achievement within the terrorist world has been to forge alliances with other Islamic extremist groups under the umbrella of al-Qaeda, providing them financing, training and a sanctuary in Afghanistan, while encouraging coordinated action.

The United States had only a hazy understanding of bin Laden’s growing significance before 1996, when an al-Qaeda insider, Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, defected to the United States and began to describe the extent of bin Laden’s plans and objectives. Based largely on al-Fadl’s information, a federal grand jury indicted bin Laden on terrorist conspiracy charges in June 1998, just two months before the twin bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The embassy bombings forced Washington to recognize that bin Laden had become a major national security threat. Sometime after the bombings, the CIA began its efforts to work with Massoud against bin Laden, American officials said.

The officials declined to provide many details of the effort. But officials say that CIA officers secretly traveled to Massoud’s mountain stronghold in northern Afghanistan and opened talks in an effort to fashion an anti-bin Laden alliance.

Current and former officials said that Massoud was promised large sums of money if he and his rebel fighters could find a way to get to bin Laden. Short of capturing the terrorist leader, Massoud was asked by the CIA to provide intelligence from inside Afghanistan about bin Laden and his organization, officials said.

It remains unclear whether Massoud — more interested in toppling the Taliban — ever made a serious effort to go after bin Laden. He would have faced enormous obstacles in doing so, considering that bin Laden was based in territory controlled by the Taliban and its military forces.

The effort to work with Massoud followed the most direct and open American effort to kill bin Laden. It came on Aug. 20, 1998, two weeks after the embassy attacks in East Africa. Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on a complex near Khost, Afghanistan, where the CIA had learned that bin Laden was scheduled to be meeting with 200 to 300 other members of al-Qaeda.

The sea-launched cruise missiles slammed into the camp only about an hour or so after bin Laden left the conference, American officials believe. According to former senior Clinton administration officials, some 20 to 30 al-Qaeda members were killed, temporarily disrupting the organization.

But the attack failed in its unstated but clear objective, which was to kill bin Laden.
One consequence was that bin Laden dramatically improved his own security measures. Realizing that the United States had collected solid intelligence about his physical movements, he cut back on his use of electronic communications. American officials say he now tends to talk to subordinates only in person, and they then pass on his messages to others in the organization.

“He has become more sophisticated by becoming less sophisticated,” said one former senior American official.

In addition, he moves frequently, traveling between Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, and the rugged Afghan countryside farther north, American officials say. “He became much more secure in his communications, and the only way to track him was to have people on the ground,” said another former senior American official.

The Clinton administration has been criticized for not following up on its first missile attack with an all-out effort to get bin Laden. But former officials said that they lacked the “actionable intelligence,” or precise information about bin Laden’s whereabouts, to launch another attack.

“The main focus was location, location, location,” said one former administration official. “We had intensive intelligence gathering efforts to track him.”

In addition, the logistics of launching an attack by special forces in one of the most remote regions of the world also presented formidable obstacles. “We had a number of contingency plans, but logistically it was a nightmare,” said a former senior Clinton administration official.

Still, another Afghan group, not connected with Massoud, did report to the CIA last year that it had attempted to assassinate bin Laden, American officials said. The group, which the officials declined to identify, reported that it had attempted to kill bin Laden by assaulting a convoy in which he was thought to be traveling. They reported that it turned out that bin Laden was not in the convoy.

The reported assassination attempt was not approved or planned with CIA assistance, American officials said. But the officials did say that the group had carried out the attack knowing that Washington had a great interest in either capturing bin Laden or having him killed.

Washington has also attempted to target bin Laden’s finances. One idea briefly considered by the Clinton administration called for a clandestine effort to drain money out of bank accounts that could be tied to al-Qaeda. But former Clinton administration officials said that Treasury Department officials opposed the idea, fearing that it might damage the integrity of the financial system.

“Treasury was not enamored of the idea,” noted one former Clinton administration official. Another former administration official said that the idea was flawed because stealing money from a bank account would in most instances leave the bank liable to make up the loss to the individual, thus hurting the bank rather than depriving al-Qaeda of money.

But the United States did mount an international effort to curb bin Laden’s access to the financial system. In 1998, President Clinton invoked emergency economic powers against bin Laden and al-Qaeda, giving the United States the power to freeze assets of any individuals or institutions working with or assisting the terrorist group. In 1999, the Taliban was added to the list, and American officials were surprised to find that the Taliban had actually left large sums of money in banks in the United States, mostly in older Afghan government accounts. Eventually, American and international pressure led to U.N. sanctions, and effectively shut down international flights by Ariana Airlines, the Afghan government’s air carrier, which American intelligence had concluded was being used by al-Qaeda as its conduit to the Persian Gulf and the rest of the world.

In 1999, officials from the White House and the Treasury Department traveled to the Persian Gulf to try to pressure governments to shut down al-Qaeda’s banking relationships. But they achieved only mixed results.

“Where we didn’t have success was when other countries delayed or denied that there was a problem,” said one former official. “Sometimes it was because of a lack of political will, sometimes because those countries didn’t have the legal or regulatory frameworks they needed to really know what was going on in their financial institutions.”

Former Clinton administration officials say they sympathize with their successors in the Bush administration who now confront bin Laden, and defend their own efforts as the best possible in a world that lacked the current sense of urgency about al-Qaeda.

“It was something that we focused on a daily basis, and pursued with vigor, and I think we accomplished quite a lot,” said former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “I think we took it as far as was possible to go at the time, and I think what we did has provided the basis for things the Bush administration is trying to do now.”

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

All due respect, I'd put Lincoln and Washington ahead of either Reagan or FDR.

I agree, I meant the period AFTER FDR held office. I would include JFK in there, but his indescretions cloud his legacy. NOTE: When serving as the president, don't have relations with those who aren't your spouse! It is a sign of weakness to otherworld leaders, and to Americans.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

First, all money bills start in the U.S. House. Second, if you remember, Bill vetoed welfare reform, not once, but, twice.

The money starts there, but a good President negotiates to get what they want.

Remember when Clinton told Congress to go to hell and refused to sign the Budget bill which shut down the government? He ended up getting what he wanted in many cases that day.

Too many tax cuts? I have always wondered why people believe that the government has the right to keep the money that you have earned?

Who said they had a right to keep it? I BELIEVE IN A BALANCED BUDGET...when spending is too high and we rack up debt that is OUR PROBLEM too.

You can't say "the money is mine, but the spending isn't". That's just not the case. If the government is in deficit there are two things that can be done in order to balance the budget.
1) Cut spending
2) Raise taxes (or not cut them and hope for sustained growth)

So, cutting taxes when trying to balance the budget is a mistake. Balance the damn thing, lower the debt, thus cutting interest payments, THEN give a big tax cut.

Social Security is funded by the current taxpayers, you and me, not some government trust fund, sorry, the I.O.U. will not work in this arguement. If you look at Social Security and Medicare, 12 percent of the population is consuming 33 percent of resources. Do you think that the United States taxpayer, you and me, can afford a total retirement bill of $34 trillion? Believe it or not, there are many people under 65, who are sick and cannot afford to retire because of all of the taxes taken out of their checks.

That's precisely why we need to cut spending and lower the debt. The savings alone would be tremendous. But cutting taxes BEFORE you lower your debt is utter madness.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

NOTE: When serving as the president, don't have relations with those who aren't your spouse! It is a sign of weakness to otherworld leaders, and to Americans.

Maybe to Americans, not to other leaders. Most other leaders...especially those whom we want to FEAR the USA...well, they figure getting chicks is part of the deal of being President/King/Dictator/etc.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

The biggest issue with Reagan was Iran-Contra, IMO.

How about driving up the Deficit and Debt to unheard of levels???

The decline of the dollar can be traced directly to the horrendous fiscal policies of the last 6 years. Now, rewind to the 80's...same deal.

 

[Irish52]

Since when has Irish Envy become a political forum....come on, guys, surely there is someplace else to spew your venom at politicians.

 

[Irish52]

Since when has Irish Envy become a political forum....come on, guys, surely there is someplace else to spew your venom at politicians.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

I would agree that Clinton did something about terrorism. The problem is that he didn't do enough. It felt to many that it was lip service and a token response that was "safe". There are very credible reports that Sudan offered up Osama on a silver platter and
Clinton declined. He also said as much (by accident) in public. I don't necessarily fault him for not doing a lot more, as 9-11 hadn't happened yet. Still, we were being attacked at embassies and ships around the world, and the first WTC incident, and it seems that more should have been done.

 

[Irish52]

Since when has Irish Envy become a political forum....come on, guys, surely there is someplace else to spew your venom at politicians.

 

[Irish52]

Not here, please!

Not here, please!

Since when has Irish Envy become a political forum....come on, guys, surely there is someplace else to spew your venom at politicians.

 

[The Fly]

So, cutting taxes when trying to balance the budget is a mistake. Balance the damn thing, lower the debt, thus cutting interest payments, THEN give a big tax cut.

It can be done. The gov't currently has a spending problem not a revenue problem. If federal gov't just a modicum of restraint the budget could be balanced.

Fed gov't = MC Hammer. Neither one had an income problem both managed to be bankrupt.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

Since when has Irish Envy become a political forum....come on, guys, surely there is someplace else to spew your venom at politicians.

The Lep Lounge allows it...this is an open forum...

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

I would agree that Clinton did something about terrorism. The problem is that he didn't do enough. It felt to many that it was lip service and a token response that was "safe". There are very credible reports that Sudan offered up Osama on a silver platter and
Clinton declined. He also said as much (by accident) in public. I don't necessarily fault him for not doing a lot more, as 9-11 hadn't happened yet. Still, we were being attacked at embassies and ships around the world, and the first WTC incident, and it seems that more should have been done.

What he said about Sudan was:
1) They did not trust them
2) They did not have a clear legal way to do it (we are a country of laws)

So Clinton had the rules changed so that type of exchange could happen...

I agree that EVERY President could have done more about terrorism. It's not like Al Qaeda just popped up during the Clinton years. That whol merry band of Islamic militants was funded and armed by the good ole US of A.

Oops. Mulligan?

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

It can be done. The gov't currently has a spending problem not a revenue problem. If federal gov't just a modicum of restraint the budget could be balanced.

Fed gov't = MC Hammer. Neither one had an income problem both managed to be bankrupt.

We are agreed...especially on the analogy.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

When people are trying to kill Americans, and have declared war on us, I could care less if Osama doesn't fit neatly into a legal definition of incarceration. The constitution was never meant to be a death sentence for Americans.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

When people are trying to kill Americans, and have declared war on us, I could care less if Osama doesn't fit neatly into a legal definition of incarceration. The constitution was never meant to be a death sentence for Americans.

"Declare war" is a fuzzy thing. Bin Laden was NOT a nation, thus he cannot declare war. Firing bombs and missiles into other countries is NOT something anyone should take lightly.

Thus, Clinton fired over 60 Tomahawk missiles to kill just one man... So, he never took him lightly. And that is precisely why Clinton sent the CIA into Afghanistan and stationed subs in the Arabian Sea...

Invading Afghanistan was not a clear or viable option at the time. Clinton did his best to find him and kill him. It's true he did not get him, but then George Bush sent in THOUSANDS of troops and still failed to get him these past 4 years...it's much easier said than done.

 

[cclanofirish]

what did he lie about? a sexual indescretion. Who spearheaded the efforts to make him take the stand over a sexual indescretion? Newt Gingrich. That's ironic.

Also what does sex have to do with how you run a country? just curious.

Umm....Newt Grincich did nopt spearhead him onto the stand; rather, it was the Paula Jones deposition. In 1994, Paula Jones filed a lawsuit against Bill Clinton, claiming that he had sexually harassed her three years earlier. The Paula Jones case led to a deposition in January 1998, in which the Jones lawyers questioned witnesses about possible sexual activity and sexual harassment involving Bill Clinton. Clinton himself testified before the deposition on January 17, 1998. During this deposition, he denied having "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky, as the court defined the term. His answers convinced his enemies that he had committed perjury. Because Vernon Jordan was involved in both the Whitewater scandal and a job search for Ms. Lewinsky, Ken Starr expanded his Whitewater investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair. On April 1, 1998, Judge Susan Webber Wright threw out the Jones case, arguing that even if the charges were true, they did not constitute sexual harassment. However, Ken Starr held a Grand Jury hearing on August 17, 1998, in which Bill Clinton was questioned about alleged perjury in his deposition testimony. Clinton's enemies thought his answers in this second round of testimony produced new examples of perjury, and both his testimonies were presented in the Starr Report as grounds for impeachment.

So, sorry, he lied under oath. Nothing you say erases that particular event, and you may try justifying it, but the reality is, he did it and it was wrong.

 

[cclanofirish]

That was definitely the crux of the argument.



The last Presidents I can think of that did NOT demean the oval office:
Carter, Ford, Ike, Truman...

whereas

Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr are all a bunch of whores...each one has done something to chip away at the office itself.

It's a mistake for anyone to just point the finger solely at Clinton when it comes to demeaning the oval office.

he demeaned the office of the President by commiting a crime.....none of those other Presidents mentioned, with the exception of Nixon, did anything close to the damage he did.

 

[cclanofirish]

The best one since Ike.



The list is infinitely longer than that...hahahahahaha

They took the Dems problems of the late 80's and upped the ante about 10x. I honestly did not think one party could be so corrupt so quick. It took the Dems 40 years in power to send a few guys to the clink for all the crap they did... The Repubs beat them hands down in only 6 years.

I guess that proves conclusively the Repubs DO get more done. Unfortunately my ass hurts from all the pounding they have been giving it.

All that really means is that Democrats are better at getting away with their indescretions and crimes. Glad your proud to be associated with those kind of people.

 

[cclanofirish]

Reagan created Osama Bin Laden... -1,000,000 points for style

(I am referring to the millions he gave to "General Bin Laden" of course)

So, your perfect ehh...

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

All that really means is that Democrats are better at getting away with their indescretions and crimes. Glad your proud to be associated with those kind of people.

Never said they were good...just said it never got better when government changed hands.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

So, your perfect ehh...

Nope...but I would not sell Stinger missiles to sworn enemies of the United States. I am funny that way.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

So, sorry, he lied under oath. Nothing you say erases that particular event, and you may try justifying it, but the reality is, he did it and it was wrong.

Yup, that's the key to why this all started. Then the question became did it fall under the definition of "High Crime...etc."?

 

[lattedatte]

Umm....Newt Grincich did nopt spearhead him onto the stand; rather, it was the Paula Jones deposition. In 1994, Paula Jones filed a lawsuit against Bill Clinton, claiming that he had sexually harassed her three years earlier. The Paula Jones case led to a deposition in January 1998, in which the Jones lawyers questioned witnesses about possible sexual activity and sexual harassment involving Bill Clinton. Clinton himself testified before the deposition on January 17, 1998. During this deposition, he denied having "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky, as the court defined the term. His answers convinced his enemies that he had committed perjury. Because Vernon Jordan was involved in both the Whitewater scandal and a job search for Ms. Lewinsky, Ken Starr expanded his Whitewater investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair. On April 1, 1998, Judge Susan Webber Wright threw out the Jones case, arguing that even if the charges were true, they did not constitute sexual harassment. However, Ken Starr held a Grand Jury hearing on August 17, 1998, in which Bill Clinton was questioned about alleged perjury in his deposition testimony. Clinton's enemies thought his answers in this second round of testimony produced new examples of perjury, and both his testimonies were presented in the Starr Report as grounds for impeachment.

So, sorry, he lied under oath. Nothing you say erases that particular event, and you may try justifying it, but the reality is, he did it and it was wrong.

the point of my post isn't to try and defend Clinton, rather show the hypocrasy of the right. See post 8 in this thread. I do think he was a good president and I think the last 6 years shows what happens when you don't have a competent guy as the leader of the free world. Im an independent and other than Lovemyirish, nobody ever seems to take the other side on this board.

 

[TexasDomer]

Yup, that's the key to why this all started. Then the question became did it fall under the definition of "High Crime...etc."?

...and misdemeanors. The stuff on the other side of that elipsis is pretty important in this particular case.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

...and misdemeanors. The stuff on the other side of that elipsis is pretty important in this particular case.

It is, but the phrase has some historical context to it. However, it's not really clear what SHOULD drive an impeachment.

Even Ford said that back in 1970.

There simply is no bar for which someone can be impeached.

For instance, littering is a misdemeanor and could be an impeachable offense...

Grounds for impeachment are truly what the Congress WANTS them to be at that very moment.