Every time I feel all forgive-and-forget about Bill Clinton, all Happy Warrior and all that, he says something to recall what a hard-core lout lies just beneath the surface. I forget him rushing back to Arkansas to insure the prompt execution of a retarded black man took place before the New Hampshire primary, the better to boost his “comeback” that eventually got him the presidency by showing how “tough on crime” he was. I even remember the name of the man, Ricky Ray Rector. I hope the two of you meet in hell.
Yes, I’m a liberal and Clinton supported liberal causes but things like that reminded you that there was something uglier underneath, something uglier even than the underside of Willie Stark, Robert Penn Warren’s Southern populist Huey Long type pol in the best American novel about politics, maybe the best American novel, period, All the King’s Men (if you haven’t read it you’re nigh unto politically illiterate).
It came out again with the racial insinuations during the 2008 primary campaign (just “observations” about Obama’s blackness making him a Jesse Jackson-like figure, of course). I blogged about that but thankfully I haven’t had to pay attention to the buffoon for a while.
But here he is, in full shameless, vicious form, in a quote he gave about the Monica Lewinsky affair in a new book previewed by the Politico.
I won’t go into the question the new book raises about whether Clinton would have or should have been formally indicted and tried for lying to a grand jury. I just want to highlight the response Clinton gave to a question about how the affair will affect his place in history:
“Yeah I will always have an asterisk after my name,” he said, “but I hope I’ll have two asterisks: one is ‘They impeached him,’ and the other is, ‘He stood up to them and beat them like a yard dog.’”
That is an incredibly ugly simile.
On the other hand, I nominate this for Jonathan Swift Prize of the day: “The meaning of ‘is’ is, it was all about you.” Perfectly caught.
But it’s cool ’cause he’s Slick Willy– “I feel your pain! Hey, where’s my McDonald’s?”
I’m not sure I understand what the expression is supposed to mean. What is a yard dog, and why would it get beaten? Other things that are beaten are funnier: rented mules and red-headed step-children come to mind. Carpets are less funny.
I also question whose lives ol’Bill “ruined”, as well as the quaint notion that sex ruins anyone. Mrs. Clinton seems to be doing well, and the young woman, when last heard from, also seemed to be bearing up under the disgrace.
Clinton was far from my ideal as president, and his affair may have cost him the ability to have advanced some of the things I wish had been advanced. That was unfortunate, but lashing out at the guy– who has been a pretty good ex-president so far– impresses me as gratuitous.
Why is it that you lefties can’t make a statement about another leftie without showing your BDS? Clinton is the consummate liar/pol and there is nothing unique about that quality. It plagues the right and the left. How exactly did the SCOTUS steal the election from Bozo the clown? Stick to fiction or you will go broke.
Yeah, and how about that Grover Cleveland.
Oh, give it a rest.
Beating a dead horse. Conservs are sexually fixated with Bill Clinton and can’t get enough. Admit it, pervs.
Who cares that he lied? Most politicians do. He set the country up to be hit by terrorists. He had plenty of opportunity to stop al Qaeda and didn’t. He should get a third asterisk for that.
A yard dog isn’t allowed in the house. I’m an Okie, only one step above the Arkies, and I never heard of this yard dog getting beaten. Maybe it’s a white trash thing. But I am aware of what a disgrace the Clintons are. How jealous Bill must be of Tiger. Other than Jennifer Flowers, none of his great conquests were worth showing off. He ranks with Jimmy Swaggert and the skid row hooker he was caught with at the Cockroach Motel. How much of the Tiger the-bad-boy mania is fueled by the hotness of his babes? Poor Bill.
Ron, I try to read your columns so I can step out of the conservative echo chamber now and then. However I noticed you are never, ever happy.
Are you from New York?
Poor old , always nutty Bill.
The Senate trial required Democratic votes, necessary to convict. There were at the time 45 Dems in the Senate and two charges to be voted on, ergo 90 total votes on the part of Bill’ party.
In a rare display of both justice, intelligence, objectivity, and honesty, all 45 Dems voted innocent on both charges.
So, crazy Bill didn’t beat anybody or anything, though I’m sure he recognizes a family resemblance when he sees a dog. He could count on lock step blindness and moral corruption from his own party, signal identifiers for a party of dogs.
Included in the evidence presented, though not as a specific charge, was the rape details of one Juanita Broderick, done when Bill was AG of his backwards state, including the part where he bit, chewed, on part of her face while raping her.
It was available to any MC who cared to read it along with the other evidence being presented. It was also commented on at least twice in the NY Times before the trial, which is where I first heard about it.
No Democratic Member of Congress would read it, none, nada.
What scum.
Maybe Ron might wish to comment on that one, or the famed and eloquent Vivo, so quick with his brainy insights.
And up to the ’08 primaries you could still observe the party faithful, the deranged, masochistic loons, yelling out when they saw him, “we love you Bill”.
As above, what scum.
You don’t debate creatures like this, now supporting the fool collectivist Obama, intent on screwing normal Americans and his own idiot supporters,[anybody read that Health Care bill yet, one example], you say what you say and try and rid yourself of the revulsion of having to share the country with them.
One stupid liberal (Rosenbaum) beating on another (Clinton). Someone should be selling tickets.
The Iraq war was justified, the Afghan war is justified. Obama using drones from Centcom in Tampa to kill Al Qaeda in Yemen is justified. Why the number one explicator of Hitler, anti-semitism and fascism feels the need to pander to the anti-war left, in a battle against the ideological heirs to Nazism is beyond me.
3. Anonymous:
“But it’s cool ’cause he’s Slick Willy– “I feel your pain! Hey, where’s my McDonald’s?”
THANK YOU! You truly do represent the height of conservative discourse . . . so insightful, so economical in your analysis and stinging wit . . . judicious in your application of values born in higher realms – justice, fairness, the inevitable ascendency of knowledge over frailty . . . if only we had more commentators like you . . . if only the world saw the world the way the world is seen by you . . . fight on, wondrous anonymous . . lead us out of the darkness . . . take us behind the veil . . . share with us the truth to which you have divine access . . . and if you won’t do that, would you mind grabbing me another piece of pizza?
Ah, this piece brings back fond memories of the Clinton trial for perjury in the Senate. All Senators signed an oath to be impartial during the trial. Every single Dem Senator voted not guilty, including the otherwise seemingly honorable Jewish Senator from Connecticut.
Prior to signing, Schumer opined that perjury was not a significant enough crime to merit impeachment, didn’t “rise to that level” as he said ten thousand times. But the House, which has the responsibility and authority to determine what an impeachable offense is determined that it was. The Senate is only responsible to determine whether he did it or not. The Dems voted that he did not, clearly a lie.
It was a true low point for the Senate, one as bad as their outrageous handling of the so-called health care reform bill today. There is a rumor such a bill still exists in Reid’s safe. I haven’t seen it, have you?
16. Fred Beloit:
Apparently perjury doesn’t merit imprisonment, either. Know what I mean, Scooter?
Scooter, NAT??? You refer to Scooter? Are you talking about the poor guy who was railroaded by that Chicago legal thug, Fitzgerald? Why not discuss Judas? Judas was a librul you know. He was a follower of Jesus, whom you guys often describe as a librul, right?
Better still, why not talk sense by refuting what I wrote if there is something untrue about it? Too busy are you?
Scooter, he’s in jail for having an insufficiently accurate memory. I hope that doesn’t happen to you, NAT, or to anyone else in the U.S.
So right about Broaddrick,and Kathleen Willey (see Christopher Hitchens’ brilliant “No One Left to Lie To”.) Clinton should have resigned and let Gore (a troll) take over. As much as I enjoyed the impeachment trial, the fact that Clinton was impeached by a lame duck Congress was a huge flaw. One thing the whole case demonstrated is the idiocy of attorneys on both sides who are more interested in the onanistic joys of legal niceties than in any kind of justice. Hence we have Ray “almost indicting”, Judge Wright fiddling with her contempt citation, Greg Craig and David Kendall’s sophistries, Bob Bennett’s mishandling of the Jones deposition, Starr’s ridiculous courtside manner all resulting in inertia (and huge legal fees and time wasting), in the lame tradition of the Warren Commission and the Watergate Hearings. Kennedy was shot from the front, Nixon (as culpable as he was) was set up by Jim McCord and Clinton was rapist and abuser of women. Lawyers exist to attenuate and obfuscate these truths, something the Gormley book underscores. Where have you gone, Vince Foster?
And to your first example: signing off on that retarded guy so Clinton could be cool with the ‘tough on crime’ folks. The poor schlub saved the pie from his ‘last meal’ for AFTER he had visited the death chamber. I agree, Ron, Bill Clinton is evil.
As to Ron’s general attitude to the world: he is apparently finishing a book on nuclear weaponry… no wonder he is depressed.
Like that mythological figure of Americana “The Arkansas Traveller”
18. Fred Beloit:
“Scooter, he’s in jail for having an insufficiently accurate memory.”
You can’t possibly be that misinformed. Wait, you can. Is there a compassionate conservative around here who is willing to to tease him down slowly? Or shall I drop him from a dizzying height onto the cold hard pavement?
My high school classmate Jeff Rosenzweig represented Rickey Ray Rector (just wanted to give Jeff a shoutout)
Amazingly, you can hear Grover Cleveland’s second inaugural address on YouTube
speaking of depressing pursuits: being a Presbyterian, I thought I should actually READ the Quran, you know, so I could quote it (in English).
but a very good friend told me that I could spend my time much more cheerfully by reading PG Wodehouse. So I did! Wonderful.
Hey, everybody, I just learned that Scooter Libby is in prison! What gives?
Although I asked, Ron apparently has no intention of telling us how many times he voted for the guy.
Among assorted misrepresentations here, Rector was not retarded. He sustained self-inflicted brain injuries in the wake of brutally murdering an innocent police officer.
Fact: Rector slaughtered one man in cold blood and shot two others.
Fact: Rector then entrapped an innocent police officer who agreed to come to Rector’s mother’s house to help him turn himself in: the officer was a childhood acquaintance who put himself in danger to assist Rector.
Fact: Rector blew the back off the police officer’s head as the officer chatted with Rector’s mother in her kitchen.
Fact: Rector then shot himself in the head, causing brain injuries.
Fact: After appropriate legal representation and due process, a judge ruled that Rector was not, in fact, incompetent. It is typical for defendants to feign mental incompetence to avoid consequences for their crimes. That is why we have a process for evaluating such claims. Rector was not denied due process.
And what, precisely, is wrong with being tough on crime? In a country where there have been millions of rapes and hundreds of thousands of murders since the escalation of chaos that may be laid at the feet of the liberal-policy-driven dismantling of the justice system in the 1960′s, being tough on crime is humane.
It also saves many, many more lives than stuttering, naive outrage on behalf of a cold-blooded cop killer. R.I.P. Officer Robert Martin.
#18
Well, NAT, even you can be right. That is very encouraging. Libby was sentenced but let off by Bush. The absolutely right thing to do.
Like the MSM I will ammend my comment as little as possible to admit my mistake:
UPDATE
Scooter, NAT??? You refer to Scooter? Are you talking about the poor guy who was railroaded by that Chicago legal thug, Fitzgerald? Why not discuss Judas? Judas was a librul you know. He was a follower of Jesus, whom you guys often describe as a librul, right?
Better still, why not talk sense by refuting what I wrote if there is something untrue about it? Too busy are you?
Scooter, he WAS CONVICTED for having an insufficiently accurate memory. I hope that doesn’t happen to you, NAT, or to anyone else in the U.S.
Dec 19, 2009 – 12:25 pm
“
29. Fred Beloit:
Relax, Fred, everybody knows you were clueless on Scooter. He was a bald-faced liar. He was arrogant and thought he could get away with it. He didn’t. Bush let him off the hook. Typical. I’m surprised you could even THINK it would turn out differently. (Interesting how nobody here deemed it necessary or proper to gently nudge you toward the truth, given their relentless pursuit of facts, logic, transparency, and just plain old good-time American patriotism. It’s almost as if they choose to ignore the raging ignorance or intentional fallacies of their own kind in favor of dissembling to advance a misguided and selfish agenda. But no, that can’t be the case. I know better than that.
Take a deep breath. Try again, maybe something a little less complicated . . . here, try this on for size . . . “Sarah Palin is the smartest woman who ever wore a pair of glasses.” I think you can work with that.
johnt — Included in the evidence presented, though not as a specific charge, was the rape details of one Juanita Broderick, done when Bill was AG of his backwards state, including the part where he bit, chewed, on part of her face while raping her.
Are you sure that you are not confusing this with the horrific Robert DeNiro/Iliana Douglas rape scene from the movie “Cape Fear”?
I am certainly no fan of Bill Clinton and I can buy the rape charge, but face chewing seems a bit much.
He chewed her face, all right: after Clinton raped Broaddrick, he put on his sunglasses, and, while leaving the motel room, said “you’d better put some ice on that lip”
Clinton is the quintessential post-60′s liberal – nauseatingly narcissistic, pompously self-righteous, stuporous in ignorance, lacking in any resemblance of integrity and morality. Any liberal like Rosenbaum who doesn’t like what he sees in Clinton should either stop looking into the mirror that is BIll Clinton or reconsider his values and worldview.
#30 NAT say: “Try again, maybe something a little less complicated…”
OK, NAT, I will. Libby’s case has absolutely nothing to do with Clinton’s perjury and impeachment. I cannot fathom what you were trying to say at #17. Could you explain it to me? Surely you weren’t trying to connect the two cases as somehow comparable. Or were you? If so, that would be quite comical.
34. Fred Beloit:
Quit scrambling to undo your ignorance. It’s unseemly. (I called Scooter. He agrees with me.)
I’m not clear from the snippet ‘beat them like a yard dog’ if Clinton is comparing himself to a dog who wins food by his loyalty even though just a ‘yard dog’ or ‘he beat the opposition like you would beat a yard dog.’ Your take on the subject clearly infers the latter, and you are outraged to the point of neglecting that the person of ‘dog’ is singular and of ‘them’ is plural.
The analogy to the dog is interesting. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has it that ‘I hate ingratitude more in a man
than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness
Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood’ whereas Stalin is quoted as saying, ‘Gratitude is for dogs’ or perhaps the better translation is that ‘Gratitude is a disease if dogs.’ So on the one hand it’s normative to see ingratitude as a vile trait, and your basic criticism of Clinton might be seen to be that he was not loyal to the people and his ideals that brought him to his high station; and, on the other, we criticize as ‘dog like’ someone who doesn’t hunt for themselves but emphasizes loyalty in surviving.
I suppose That Clinton is inferring that he beat Star and the Republicans by being loyal to strongly held liberal positions, e.g. abortion rights. In this he would be winning like a ‘yard dog’ might win food in his loyalty. But also, in relation to the negative consequences of his actions for the Democratic party and liberalism, he is adopting Stalin’s position that he is going to hunt for what he wants and is not going to be a ‘dog’ and be restricted by gratitude.
I love your writing, Ron. I have since I discovered it in the New York Observer years ago. But every once in a while, I find you hopped up on malice, of an unwarranted kind.
Now, I’m a conservative and not at all crazy about Bill Clinton, but I think you’re way off base here. In no particular order, you blame Clinton for the failure to get ground-breaking liberal legislation passed. Isn’t it clear that Americans don’t want government take-over, or over-lordship, of health care? As for the Nuclear Test Ban treaty, what would such a treaty have done to stymie North Korea, Iran, and that traveling nuclear salesman, Abdel Qader Khan?
As for the 2000 election, isn’t it clear parties often don’t win the White House three terms running- and that Al Gore was not all that attractive to many Americans.