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Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?


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Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

Well if you think a sexual pervert , liar , thief , that exported million's of good paying job out of the Country was close to being good , then Satan was great !
 
He got things done. I am just not a fan of the things he got done. I do have fond memories of his presidency but that is mostly because the economy was good, it was pre-9/11, and I still had a full head of hair.
 
I like that analogy.



No, the dot-com boom was not his doing. In that sense he did get lucky for being in the right place at the right time. But, I give him serious kudos for what he did do with the dot-com boom... he did nothing.

That is not a back-handed compliment. That is a serious and sincere compliment. The man has a huge ego, and like any big-time politician they usually cannot resist putting their own fingerprint on everything so they can take credit for it. He resisted the chance to do so, let it boom on its own, and still got credit for it. That's masterful, IMO.

Sometimes the best governing is when you don't govern.

But where would he be if Al Gore had not invented the internet?
 
Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

I think most good Presidents were part lucky and part good President and most bad Presidents part unlucky and part part bad President. No president can predict the unique challenges his administration will face or the unique opportunities.

Carter and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Was it truly his bad or was he the unfortunate President who reaped the seeds sewn by Dwight Eisenhower?
 
Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

He was a average, but not good/great President. He really screwed up for his part in creating the Housing Bubble, but other than that he did do some good things that I think made up for it which is why, to me, he's an average President.

Bush Jr., Obama, and more than likely our next President (be it Hillary or Trump) however are probably going to go down as being among the worst Presidents in history. Assuming of course History is written objectively and not in a biased way.
 
Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

What did he get lucky on? I guess it was a rather stable and prosperous era, though that had nothing to do with him. He had quite a few scandals, bombed the bejesus out of some poor countries, didn't really do anything remarkable other than standard Republocrat tactics. Was he better than what we've had since? Sadly yes, but he wasn't a good president on the absolute scale.
 
Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

He was actually a pretty destructive President fiscally and economically and was grossly negligent in foreign policy.
 
The exact same thing could objectively be said that it showed what a nation can do when a Democratic President chooses to work with, not just against, a Republican Congress. There was significant compromise made on the part of Clinton during that time, much to his credit, that is far different than what we saw in the aftermath of 2012 here. Nothing on the part of Barack Obama could be pointed to as even approaching the type of compromising cross aisle partisan endeavor that welfare reform was in the 90's. Compromise is a tango that needs two honestly willing participants, and there was neither in this particular case.

When Congress comes to the president and says, "Hey, we'd like to burn someone's home down!" If the president doesn't want to burn that home down, should he compromise and only torch half of it?
 
Wow Clinton cheated on his wife ...wonder how many americans did the same thing and bush killed over 2000 americans in the twin towers Wow
 
Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

If Bill could run, he would be elected today in a heartbeat.
 
Average president that in retrospect became a bad one.

Moved the Democrats from centre left to neoliberalism and the centre right ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way ) which blights the party into the present as it continues to inch ever further from its FDR glory days, laid the foundation for the 2006-7 collapse, and financial system instability in general by gutting Glass Steagall ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Legislation ) and strangling regulation and oversight of derivatives in the cradle ( How the Clinton Team Thwarted Effort to Regulate Derivatives ).

Meanwhile the vast majority of the economic boom during his tenure was a happy accident of emergent technologies that his specific policies did not create or even really facilitate.
 
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He showed what a nation can do when a Republican Congress chooses to work with, not just against, a Democratic president. But the outstanding '90s economy wasn't all him.

You mean when a Democratic President chooses to work with a Republican Congress, right?
 
In my opinion, all the Presidents since JFK have been either too lazy, stupid or dictatorial to be considered anywhere above "average". Most of them have been on "average" fairly bad.

So what do you think of JFK?
 
You mean when a Democratic President chooses to work with a Republican Congress, right?

I already addressed this in post #58.
 
Was Bill Clinton truly a good/great President, or did he just get lucky?

I thought Bill Clinton was a good president. Not great, but a'ight. :mrgreen: Not sure what you mean by him being "lucky" unless you're referring to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Since he "didn't have sexual relations with that woman," I guess he didn't get so lucky after all. :lol:
 
He showed what a nation can do when a Republican Congress chooses to work with, not just against, a Democratic president. But the outstanding '90s economy wasn't all him.

And reciprocally when a Dem President chooses to work with a republican congress. He was a pretty good president. overall. oddly enough a lot of policies that Bill supported quite a few dems have and are running from ( don't ask don't tell, welfare reform, spending cuts, nafta etc ). Bill was likeable and that was one of his big strong points. Hillary.. not so much.
 
And reciprocally when a Dem President chooses to work with a republican congress. He was a pretty good president. overall. oddly enough a lot of policies that Bill supported quite a few dems have and are running from ( don't ask don't tell, welfare reform, spending cuts, nafta etc ). Bill was likeable and that was one of his big strong points. Hillary.. not so much.

And Hillary is so "unlikable" that she got more votes than any other primary candidate! ;)
 
And Hillary is so "unlikable" that she got more votes than any other primary candidate! ;)

Yep. and when polled on the best words to describe her even dems top 3 choices were untrustworthy, liar and dishonest. yet they still voted for her. Yet... they still voted for her..
There is a guy that works at my work here who says he knows Hillary is a liar, but believes Trump is a hater and said he is voting for Hillary because he "would rather vote for a liar than a hater".
I'm really not sure what to make of people who would vote for someone who lies to them and they know lies to them.
 
And reciprocally when a Dem President chooses to work with a republican congress. He was a pretty good president. overall. oddly enough a lot of policies that Bill supported quite a few dems have and are running from ( don't ask don't tell, welfare reform, spending cuts, nafta etc ). Bill was likeable and that was one of his big strong points. Hillary.. not so much.
To be fair, that was only a compromise. Political change of that magnitude does not happen immediately. It was a way to take a step in the desired direction, knowing that it would happen fully in due time.
 
And Hillary is so "unlikable" that she got more votes than any other primary candidate! ;)

She's so unlikeable she barely won a nomination process at 56% of the vote with the full bias and cooperation of the DNC ( EXPOSED: Leaked Emails Show DNC Colluded with Media to Push Clinton Nomination ), allegations of voter fraud and inconsistency supported by academic analysis, a biased media ( 2016 Presidential Media Blackouts: Not Just Conspiracy – Decision Data | New York Times busted for anti-Bernie bias: The iconic, Clinton-endorsing newspaper slyly edits article to smear Sanders - Salon.com | Bernie Sanders Is Exactly Right: The Media Is an Arm of the Ruling Class of This Country ), a massive advantage going in with Sanders at 3%, huge initial funding advantage, full support of the democrat establishment, and unparalleled name recognition; all advantages she sorely needed given her consistently underwater favourability and trust ratings, both of which managed historic nadirs ( Hillary Clinton Favorable Rating - Polls - HuffPost Pollster | Hillary Clinton Favorable Rating - Polls - HuffPost Pollster ).
 
She's so unlikeable she barely won a nomination process at 56% of the vote with the full bias and cooperation of the DNC ( EXPOSED: Leaked Emails Show DNC Colluded with Media to Push Clinton Nomination ), allegations of voter fraud and inconsistency supported by academic analysis, a biased media ( 2016 Presidential Media Blackouts: Not Just Conspiracy – Decision Data | New York Times busted for anti-Bernie bias: The iconic, Clinton-endorsing newspaper slyly edits article to smear Sanders - Salon.com | Bernie Sanders Is Exactly Right: The Media Is an Arm of the Ruling Class of This Country ), a massive advantage going in with Sanders at 3%, huge initial funding advantage, full support of the democrat establishment, and unparalleled name recognition; all advantages she sorely needed given her consistently underwater favourability and trust ratings, both of which managed historic nadirs ( Hillary Clinton Favorable Rating - Polls - HuffPost Pollster | Hillary Clinton Favorable Rating - Polls - HuffPost Pollster ).

Exposed! Bias! Confirmed! Ruling Class! ELITES!

Oh, we're not in the CT forum. So nothing you said there was worth listening to.
 
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