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Bill of Goods

AP, which recently modified its language to allow that the military may not be entirely full of it when it claims successes in Iraq, manages to produce a story here that unlike the vast majority of what it produces is not dead boring, strait-jacket prose.  Lively read on Bill on the campaign trail cheerfully points out that he is self-obsessed and full of it, without violating any reasonable fairness or objectivity standards, without going partisan, without distorting. More like this, please:   

By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press WriterWed Nov 28, 11:09 AM ET

As only he can do, Bill Clinton packed campaign venues across eastern Iowa and awed Democratic voters with a compelling case for his wife’s candidacy. He was unscripted, in-depth and generous.

He also was long-winded, misleading and self-absorbed.

Now, it may be that the AP is following the lead of its spiritual masters at the New York Times.  It may be that, as is inevitable with Clinton, the charm has worn thin.  I remember watching him on TV a couple of years ago when he emerged on tour after a long time out of the limelight, listening to the homespun snake-oil tones and thinking, “This guy is really good at what he does,” and as the bullshit flowed and memory kicked in, thinking, “If this is what glib and articulate gets you, I’ll take tongue-tied Bush any day.” Anyway, here they are actually parsing the former president on his Iraq war stance, among other issues.

But there’s something else.  Hillary may be anointed, even inevitable.  But even the Dems don’t like her. They’ve just bought the line that she’s unstoppable and electable. They don’t love her like they love Obama, the anti-war purist. So, they are making the Clintons pay for their war support, and Bill walked into it.  The question is, is this kind of coverage enough to remind everyone who plans on voting on that side of the ledger, what an utterly untrustworthy, deceitful, self-absorbed and mercenary family is trying to retake the White House?

Here we go. Obama’s on top of it. He may want to check over his shoulder, though, before he gets too smug.

Welcome, Punditeers, Pajamas, etal. Glad to have you. Come on in. It’s all Syrious business and gap-plugging here.  But we still have time for an eco-bash.

Topics: Clintons

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:00 pm on Wednesday, November 28, 2007

6 Responses to “Bill of Goods”

1. saltydog Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 7:17 am

   Having been partly raised in Oklahoma and Texas, Bill never struck me as anything but a typical pol of a certain stripe in that part of the country. There’s a reason why the people in his own state dubbed him “Slick Willy.” It matters not that most of them used the name admiringly. I never thought he was charming, except in that oily, snake-oil artist kind of way. There was never any substance to the man; his charm is but a thin veneer on an otherwise empty suit.

   And lest anyone think that we’ve all lost our memories, Bill was for going into Iraq several years before he was against it. The difference is that, as usual, he merely talked about it and congress confidently passed what turned out to be a meaningless resolution. Bill could only commit troops to a fight in which American interests played no part. He was a true altruist when it came to spending forces and fortune on a situation in which American interests and defense played no part; he balked at taking action against an enemy which perpetrated multiple acts of war against us. By the time he stood–once again–at a podium and decried the attack on the U.S.S Cole, no one with two brain cells to rub together believed a word he said.

2. tanstaafl Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 9:02 am

   Getting less attention but equally ludicrous as the Iraq war claim, were Bill’s remarks tying tax cuts to troop support and the notion that “people like me” (I guess that alludes to “rich people”) were not sufficiently taxed to support the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

   This is the most oblique and absurd backhanded support for Hillary’s taxation agenda that a chimpanzee could imagine (no insult to chimpanzees).

   This is how Bill put it 2 days ago.

   “That’ll require people like me, who got five tax cuts that I should not have gotten, in my income group, when we had soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers.”

3. tanstaafl Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 9:19 am

   I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers

   I guess Bill never heard of writing a check, making a donation or any of a myriad of ways single American citizens support the troops.

   And the only answer to any and all of humanity’s sundry situations and dilemmas must be ipso facto federal government taxation.

   “Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

   ~Hillary Clinton in a speech in San Francisco on 6/28/04

   (this nation’s founders and the authors of our Constitution would roll over in their graves at that last sentence, that notion of the role of federal government in our lives)

4. Clintons: Things have not changed (in reality anyway) and if she is elected they will get worse at DPGI v.3 Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 10:00 am

   [...] Crittenden asks, “The question is, is this kind of coverage enough to remind everyone who plans on voting on [...]

5. RebeccaH Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 10:27 am

   If I had no other reason for not voting for Hillary Clinton, her husband would be sufficient. I am thoroughly sick of the man.

6. saltydog Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

   I hear you, Rebecca. I was sick of that whole bunch a long time ago.

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