JOSHUA FRANK: The Liberals' Ridiculous Defense of President Bill Clinton

[Tace]

by Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

It seems that liberals will go to any lengths in order to protect the sanctity of President Clinton’s legacy, and it is getting downright aggravating. Take Joshua Micah Marshall, the Ivy-league liberal who publishes Talking Points Memo, an enormously popular online political blog. As Marshall recently wrote:

“he president's defenders have fallen back on what has always been their argument of last resort -- cherry-picked quotes from Clinton administration officials arranged to give the misleading impression that the Clintonites said and thought the same thing about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as the Bushies did.”

Yeah, you’re not the only one, it makes my head spin too. I’m not exactly sure how one can cherry-pick President Clinton’s 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which gave the U.S. government the green light to whack Saddam for the slightest annoyance, whether fabricated or not. In fact, it was the former Iraq dictator’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction that were part of the Act’s foundation.

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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=1653

[Teaser]

1. *YAWN*

*scratches self*

[Jim Sagle]

2. Frank is a lefty-left. Fuck'm.

[neuvocat]

3. Clinton isn't President anymore. Get over it.

[damntexdem]

4. Clinton has been out of office for 5 years. Why can't the right. ...

let it go? His legacy will be settled by history, long after minor-league snipers like Frank have been long forgotten.

And the issue is how the Bushistas misused and twisted the intelligence given to them, which had newer information than Clinton saw; and that the Bushistas used their lies to get us into an expensive, endless war. So let's fight over Dubya's "legacy," which historians are likely to evaluate quite negatively.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. Well - because everything was better then

Not perfect, but the tremendous damaged inflicted on the country by Reagan and Bush Sr. was being reversed. The deficit and even the debt were shrinking, crime and other social problems were declining (even abortions rates were dropping), we had good jobs with growing paychecks, we bought homes, we did not have thousands of soldiers dying for Haliburton, we had more respect from countries that mattered... Well I could type all night. The decline of the country since Clinton left office is staggering.

One of the best things about President Clinton is that he drove, and still drives Republicans crazy. He demolished and humiliated them at every turn and the more they sputtered and tried to tear him down, the more popular he became. I don't rate him all that high, but he is proof that even a mediocre Democrat can govern far better than anyone the Republicans can "Appoint".

Ridiculous? I don't think so.

[papau]

6. At least Frank's book LEFT OUT gets good reviews by the far left

He speaks for those than want a "real party on the left" to replace the Democratic Party.

But he lies and spins as fast as a Fox news person - read the whole article and note his statement "576,000 Iraqi youth died as a result of the sanctions" (under Clinton).

Somehow the change in death rate for Iraqi children - which was due to Bush41 insisting on no chlorine shipments to Iraq for water purification - are a Clinton caused problem.

Then he says TPM's complaint about cherry picked quotes/facts is invalid because these are the only facts needed to understand how there is no left (just 2 parties of the right) -and that Clinton really is the evil one as suggested by the president's defenders. And chasing Iraq, but without invasion , somehow equates to invasion. Wanting a WMD accounting is the same as killing folks over data you know is wrong about WMD.

OK this fellow is not a Dem - and also not too good as an analyst as he does not really try to use logic.

[The Magistrate]

7. He Is, Sir, Merely A Pissant Of The Worst Water

A sort of minor league Cockburn....

[LittleClarkie]

12. Oh lovely, a second-stringer

What is your opinion then of Cockburn himself then. My estimation is fairly low, I must say, as I realize he was the man who referred to those who were voting for Kerry in the last election as "Kerry Zombies"?

[The Magistrate]

13. He Is A Waste Of Space, Ma'am

He just has more space to waste than this other little critter....

[LittleClarkie]

9. Counterpunch reminds me of a New Max or American Prospect for the Left

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Much obliged.

I wouldn't care if the guy was a Dem if he wasn't also something of a moonbat. And it concerns me that there are folks around here who think that his site is always right on. Yikes!

[DerekG]

14. Well, Cockburn and co. predicted the failure of the ABB coalition

Few thought it odd that the Democratic braintrust seemed more interested in crippling an inconsequential third-party candidate than, say, exposing BBV.

Few thought it necessary to challenge Kerry when he said such inspiring things as "I'm not a redistributionist."

Few thought it disturbing when anti-war platforms were barred from the Boston convention (despite the fact that some 90 percent of the delegates were, in fact, against the war).

We demanded nothing, and we got nothing.

As a reluctant member of that failure of a coalition, I say we barnstorm next time.

[LittleClarkie]

18. Well, hell, as an ABBer turned Kerry supporter

I agree. That's why I set about turning myself from ABB to supporter in the first place.

We Dole'd our candidate. It didn't work against Clinton, and it didn't work against Bush either. You have to have reasons why someone should vote FOR your candidate, not against the other guy.

Though the fraud folks would likely dispute the "failure" of the ABB Coalition, I reckon.

Even so, their solution, vote for Nader, wasn't gonna get us anywhere either.

[LittleClarkie]

8. At first I thought this was the author of What's the Matter with Kansas

But no, that's Thomas Frank.

This is the guy from CounterPunch, isn't it.

IIRC, he was a Naderite, and the only one of our candidates he even remotely liked was Dennis Kucinich.

I bet if I did a search, I'd find some pretty twisted articles on Dean and Kerry etc over there. Kerry, I'm used to, but not such an attitude toward Dean.

He thought that anyone who voted for Kerry over Nader in the last election was a zombie. Charming fellow.

Counterpunch, the NewsMax of the Left.

[Carolab]

10. Yeah, his digs at Dean pretty much turned me off to him too. n/t

[LittleClarkie]

11. I see that I was wrong about the zombie thing, that was Cockburn

but still. And wandering over there, I see they also had a nasty word or two for Clark.

That's why whenever someone want to use them as a source for info, I'm tempted to take their favorite candidate and do a search for the crapola Counterpunch has said about them. A person can't take them as golden when they talk dirt about someone you don't like, and then disregard the crapola they spew re: someone you do like. They're either a good source or they're not.

And I don't understand how anyone sane can look at Bush and Kerry and see "A Dime's Worth a Difference." Even folks who don't particularly like Kerry can admit that life under Kerry would be much, much better than life under Bush is now.

[depakid]

15. The trouble with this guy

is that he stretchs his logic and plays loose with his facts.

That makes it difficult for the rest of us who are inclined to remind the Dems of Clinton's actual shortcomings on policy matters when they come up- hopefully so as not to elect another person who'll repeat them again.

[rpannier]

16. What he left out was...

The part that said military action was not an option. It comes at the end of the accord.

[johnnydrama]

17. why

do these people equate Clinton wanting regime change in Iraq, with the need to have 10's of thousands of Iraqi's dead, 2000+ American soldiers dead, 250 billion flushed down the toilet, and potential civil war in Iraq.

They aren't the same thing.

Everybody wanted Saddam gone. That's not the point. The point is, he was not doing anybody any harm right where he was, and going in and making the mess out of it that it is now was not right.

Clinton wanted Saddam gone, sure. Doesn't mean he'd have tens of thousands of innocent people killed to do it.