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KoKo

(84,711 posts)
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 09:31 PM Apr 2013

Did You Know THIS? "The Pact: "Clinton, Gingrich, Bowles"

(How Many Knew This? ...I was too busy Defending Bill and Hillary against the RW CRAZIES to notice this at the time. I was new to the Internet and Clinton was MY and OTHERS...OBAMA!...I couldn't believe the Crap the RW Threw Against Him! I lost Friends defending him

NOW ....I'm Rethinking what I used to think about Clinton...when I was a Loyalist to him...)

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How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security: Clinton, Gingrich, Bowles and “The Pact”

Please welcome Steven Gillon, author of The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry that Defined a Generation

Gillon writes:


In private conversations with Gingrich and with Texas Republican Bill Archer, powerful head of the House Ways and Means Committee, the president promised to “provide political cover” for Democrats and Republicans by announcing his support for raising the minimum age required for Social Security and for changing the COLA formula. The president was willing to oppose the leadership of his own party and support the Republican demand for private accounts.


According to Gingrich:


“I understood that I would have to fight some of my old guard,” Gingrich recalled. “He understood that he would have to fight his hard left. Together we could shape about a 60 to 65 percent majority. I was happy for him to be a successful president. He was comfortable with us being a successful Republican congress.”


It looked like they had a path to success. Clinton would take the heat from Democrats and work through “centrist” Democrats and Republicans, as he had when he passed NAFTA and welfare reform.

And then Monica Lewinsky broke into the headlines:

Politically, it forced Clinton to seek refuge in the liberal wing of his party, the same group he had agreed to abandon a few months earlier. “All opportunities for accomplishment were killed once the story came out,” reflected a senior White House official. “If we cut a deal with the Republicans on Social Security there was every possibility that the Democrats, who were the only people defending him in Congress against these charges, could easily get angry and abandon him.” With conservatives in an uproar, Gingrich lost his political wiggle room and was forced to appease his right-wing base. If Gingrich did not “feed the conservative beast,” recalled a colleague, he would have been removed from his job as Speaker.

As Erskine Bowles himself said, “Monica changed everything.”


http://firedoglake.com/2010/05/18/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-security-clinton-gingrich-bowles-and-the-pact/
18 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Cleita

(75,480 posts)
1. This is why I've always been lukewarm about Hillary.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 09:35 PM
Apr 2013

Their triangulating with the conservative corporatists, and they were both involved, left a sour taste in my mouth.

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
2. When I joined DU it was back when Bush Stole the Election....
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 09:50 PM
Apr 2013

I learned bits and pieces here...but, I was very blind to Clinton's Triangulation until stuff that was posted here and there here on DU in the EARLY DAYS.

I thought that it was the RW that Brought Down the Clinton Presidency with the hideous STARR Commission...and the stuff with Limbaugh promoting some Senate or House Member STAGING some shooting of a Watermelon as to how Hillary shot Vince Foster or whatever else garbage the RW was throwing up against the Clintons.

I was as Star Struck over Bill and Hillary then...as I fear others are these days about their Successors. Bits and Pieces came forward but there was always some NEW OUTRAGE...so I kept trying to put pieces of a puzzle together. I somehow missed this PIECE... AND...to see that Obama picked the same Clinton People who tried to destroy SS for us in a post that went to DU Archives today, gave a link back to what was going on then and how Clinton colluded with the SAME PEOPLE that OBAMA put on his "Cat FOOD COMMISSION" was an eye-opener that I missed while I was so busy defending Clinton Legacy for so long into around 2003 or 04
that I was blinded.

WHY are the SAME CHARACTERS who tried to Destroy SS in Clinton Administration...still so Prominent in the Obama Administration? In fact one of Obama's first Commission Appointments was the "Bowles-Simpson Commission" to make Recommendations for "Entitlement Programs."

Cleita

(75,480 posts)
3. I know, but they are all beholden to the same masters.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 09:52 PM
Apr 2013

They try to throw us a few bones now and then so that we don't try to eat them.

krawhitham

(4,634 posts)
7. Look I do not like Hillary, but you can not judge her by what Buba did or wanted to do
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 10:27 PM
Apr 2013

I judge her for being a DINO, she suppressed unions while working for Walmart and was a Goldwater girl

Cleita

(75,480 posts)
13. Oh I can judge her because she was very much involved in his Presidency.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 11:19 PM
Apr 2013

Remember he said the country would get two for one when he was elected, so I'm sure she was on the same page as him. She also attended cabinet meetings.

Nite Owl

(11,303 posts)
5. I didn't know all of this either
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 10:09 PM
Apr 2013

There were quite a few issues I had to break ranks with Clinton though like NAFTA and Glass Steigle.
When Obama started his first term I knew we were in trouble with his appointments especially Rahm Emmanuel. Not a liberal in sight.
This whole thing with SShas been in the works for a l o n g time.
Sometimes I get the feeling that it is all planned out and what we see is no more than theatre. The actors all know the script.

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
9. Like you...I finally knew: Welfare Reform, Glass-Steagall, Banking
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 10:53 PM
Apr 2013

De Reg, NAFTA, etc. was my first clue...but then all that other stuff started and like Obama supporters, these days, I tried to "wish away the first sign" with NAFTA and then the stuff started against Hillary,(health care reform) and the crazy stuff with Ken Starr and then Monica. So the whole Administration was FILLED WITH Scandal and RW and it was hard to see the Forest for the Trees!

But, this article revealing that Obama put in so many of the Same People as Clinton did...to Destroy SS by starting with Chained CPI which will penalize Seniors and (first step to "Privatize" which will destroy it) put in another piece of the puzzle that was almost complete about what went on then. And the article listing the SAME FOLKS Obama Put into his Commission really was an incredible piece of "History Repeating Itself."

So...yeah...I'm like you.. This was an eye opener as to "similarities" and I think there are many DU'ers like you and myself...who were upset with a lot of what Clinton did...but to see it come back and have the names and documentation about how Clinton's "Reform" of entitlements is the same as Obama's was frustrating to read in detail the way it's laid out in that book.

Nite Owl

(11,303 posts)
15. Oh yeah welfare
Wed Apr 10, 2013, 12:07 AM
Apr 2013

'reform'. How could I forget that. I was really upset about that one.
Seeing all this and what is happening now is like watching a puzzle all fall into place. There it is and can't deny it. It is painful.

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
8. This was an 2010 "Interview with the Author" on FDL...Look up the Author....
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 10:32 PM
Apr 2013

Be thankful to Jane Hamsher...she was First to Expose the "Cat Food Commission."

Also the "New America Foundation" (Democratic) did a Roundtable Discussion with the Author. It's on You Tube if you want to Google it.

Nevertheless Clinton did do this and there are You Tubes of him going after "Entitlements" (THAT WE AND YOU PAY FOR) in the You Tubes...if you Google those, also.

This article is for REAL...and that's why Rahm and others sent folks after Jane... It's easy to find many articles about this...but, that it didn't get much media exposure... Well think about WHO OWNS the MSM...and how much influence the Petersen Foundation (which Bill Clinton has spoken for and been quoted as Praising) NOW has on Legislation after Supremes gave us "Citizens United" which means Corporations (Conglomerate Business Organizations) can control our Legislative Agenda and FUND our US ELECTIONS.

So take your "Hamster Crap" Elsewhere.

 

rhett o rick

(55,981 posts)
17. Why should she go else where just because she is daring to challenge your
Wed Apr 10, 2013, 12:13 AM
Apr 2013

denial bubble. Why are you even here if you cant stand the truth? Why dont you put her on ignore???

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