I appreciate all of the work that you put into this post and it's very well-written, but Bill Clinton "triangulated" us into the White House. He challenged a sitting President near the peak of his popularity and with the exception of Jerry Brown and Pat Schroeder, there weren't any liberals in the '92 race because "liberal" had become a bad word.

During the primary process, I leaned toward Jerry Brown, but he really never had much of a chance because most of the country really only knew of him through the Carson show and I'm sure if you asked people what else they knew besides his nickname, the vast majority would've said that he had run before and then they would've brought up his very high-profile affair with Linda Rondstat.

This is not to take anything away from Mr. Brown and I'd have no problem, if he wanted to run for a fourth time, but Bill Clinton won us the White House and he was re-elected. I've heard a lot of talk over the past couple of months about Obama's 50-state strategy and I certainly wish him luck, but he hasn't even won the nomination. Therefore, I really see no reason to rip into the only Democratic President this country has had over the past twenty-eight years, simply because though he was successful, you may not consider him ideal.

I think this is an excellent post, and I don't think that the poster is "ripping" into Bill Clinton just to rip into him. In case you are unaware, Bill Clinton's wife is running for president explicitly on a platform of restoring the good times we had in the '90s.

I think it's fair to look at that decade critically, especially because this poster does not insult us by delving into Bill's failings of a more personal nature, which any fair minded person knows are irrelevant to how well he performed as president. The ensuing impeachment was a horrific attempt at a coup of a democratically elected head of state for which the Republicans have never fully paid the price.

Rather this poster makes an excellent case for the argument that true progressives should not be supportive of a return of Clintonian politics to the White House. The level of support Hillary has received from the blogosphere has always baffled me, and this post makes clear that the Clintons are not progressives.

Hillary, you just couldn't keep your mouth shut.
April 3, 2008, 7:51 pm
Posted by Kozlo in Election2008

It's sad! The only thing the old Hag had to do was keep her big mouth shut while Hussein Osama (I mean Obama) was taking his grilling about his association with the anti-american pig, "THE SO-CALLED REV. WRIGHT". But this feminist BIG MOUTH couldn't. She had to go tell a big lie about her dodging sniper fire in a visit to the Balkans. What a joke. Anyway, she took some of the attention off that idiot Obama and his pastor problems. Bad timing Hillary. Next time the Osama one is in trouble with the press, KEEP YOUR BIG MOUTH SHUT.

Just maybe, we can expose the anti-american Obama for what he is.

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You are right, people completely overlook the fact that he was more Republican than Democrat. Aside from a few social policy differences during Bill's tenure we have had an uninterrupted reign of conservatives since Reagan took office. Many in this party, and perhaps that is the issue in this election, seem to think Democrats are what the Clintons were, so they are fighting for the center-right, while the rest of us want to actually make some progress far beyond the mediocrity of the Clinton years.

I just hope we can get a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and Obama in the White House so we can really make some big changes...we need a Democratic version of Reagan, just what Obama said we needed months ago and subsequently got attacked for by a much of disingenuous opportunistic vultures. He was absolutely right though, we need BIG change, just in the right direction this time.

i just couldn't read and not respond to this--i thoroughly enjoyed your article. i too have been known to get carried away in my other blogs and this article brings it all home. we need to have clean discussions unclouded by fanaticism. to do anything less will prove to be a disservice to either candidates.

i was for obama yesterday and i am for obama today because i truly believe he is our best chance for something other than the same ole same ole.

thanks again for your analysis of the bill c years. a day when we can agree or agree to disagree and still maintain some level of dignity is what i expect from obama. so far, he has not let me down and i have no reason to believe that he will change spots overnight. in the tightest of spots, he remains what he is OBAMA.

What I find this post leaves out is a historical perspective. Look at the years leading up to Bill's election. You had Carter, our most prescient president asking for a much needed sacrifice that the public was unwilling to make. Kennedy fought him for reelection right up to the convention, even to the point of asking that the rule binding pledged delegates to vote as pledged on the first ballot be overturned. Kennedy's bid that year was not nearly as viable as Hillary's and after his loss of that vote he had the rule binding delegates on the first ballot changed.

American had over 50 hostages in Iran for over a year, blowback from the CIA overthrow of Mossedegh, which Carter got blamed for.

Reagan won and the first thing he did was remove Carter's solar panels from the white house. He presided over the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin wall. The result of years of struggle that Reagan got credit for.

Bush went on to fight a successful war over Kuwait and lowered gas prices. To the American public it seemed as if republican policies were working and democratic policies were failing. Republicans seemed like "morning in america" while democrats and Carter's legacy seemed like pessimism, as so often realism does.

It was a miracle that Clinton even beat Bush. I believe a part of that was that Bush promised not tax hikes but because of the deficit he achieved a compromise that included them. The other part was the Perot candidacy. Yet even so I doubt Clinton's nearest competitors, Tsongas and Brown, could have won against Bush.

Clinton ran on greater services to the poor devastated by the Reagan policies and a tax cut to middle Americans. When he got into office he couldn't afford both so he appealed to Americans better nature, asked for sacrifice for the poor and asked the public to forgo the tax cut. Does this sound Republican to you?

He attempted to end discrimination against gays in the military and was fought tooth and nail by Colin Powell. This is a republican? The same Colin Powell that some obama supporters are advocating as a vp for their man. Bipartisanship be damned, I want none of it! I am a liberal, mostly, and proud of it.

He cut military spending to pay for social programs. This is your neocon?

Clinton was rewarded for his liberal stances the same way Carter was rewarded for his prescient understanding of the energy crisis and Bush was rewarded for understanding that the Reagan deficits could not continue. Democrats lost the congress in the mid terms.

Republicans ran on welfare reform and tax cuts. Welfare reform was coming, it was inevitable. Bill had a choice of being part of the solution and mitigating some of the worst parts of the reform or attempting to obstruct it. I remember him vetoing the welfare bill a couple of times before he signed it.

What do you think would have happened if he had successfully stopped welfare reform? Imo he would have lost reelection and the republican congress with a republican president would have given us a much worse bill.

Coming from a disadvantaged family Clinton understood the plight of the poor and constantly fought the republican congress over poverty related issues. Under his leadership headstart funding went from 2.8 to 6.3 billion. Child care assistance went from 4.5 to 12.6 billion. Clinton passed the Earned Income Tax Credit. While at the same time getting control of the totally out of control spending of the Reagan years and finally producing a several billion dollar surplus.

He passed gun control legislation, which I personally disagree with, but it is a core liberal issue. He, with Hillary, attempted to get universal health coverage. I no more fault her for that failure than I fault Carter for the failure of his plan to deal with the energy crisis. The public just wasn't ready for either at the time they were offered. Things have changed on both fronts now. The public finally sees the problem that these more prescient politicians saw so much earlier.

In every war there are times when it just not possible to advance. Sometimes its necessary to retreat on some fronts, make small advances on others, and just hold territory. Clinton's years was that time. He was able to hold the presidency for 8 years and that was a major accomplishment when the public thought the republicans had good ideas and plans. I didn't agree with all his positions but I agreed with many. He compromised when he had to and pushed as far forward as was possible.

Imo Hillary is much more progressive than Bill and more progressive than Obama. At a time when people are beginning to awaken to some realities of the situation we are in, ready to accept more then incremental changes, and with a democratic controlled congress things can be much different now. Its simplistic to judge a person without looking at the context of the time and the history leading up to it.