Days of Change

The Clinton Mystique

Hillaryis44 had an interesting take on the battle (okay, massacre) going on between President Obama and the Congressional Republicans. What’s worse is that the Senate, made up of the barely capable of filibuster Republican minority, is actually pushing legislation toward the Obama end of the spectrum at the moment. The blogger believes that Bill Clinton was able to get the best of Republicans because he had expert political timing. I don’t know that Obama could have done the terrible things he did even if he had better timing. I think he actually took some of the executive powers George Bush used in the War on Terror along with the media campaign Clinton used against Republicans and extended them to the point of scoring political points while losing the game.

Hillaryis44‘s analysis is that Clinton decided to fight the government shutdown the second time when it would do the most good, the 1996 election season. This was better than fighting a two-year battle against a Congress with both Houses in GOP hands. Still, this was similar to what both sides did this time around. By 2010, Republicans knew that they weren’t getting anywhere with Obama and they simply had to put up a roadblock against the Democrats. This was mostly symbolic, as Democrats moved Heaven (into Hell) and Earth to get the 60 votes they needed in the Senate. They passed a shoddy bill cobbled together in the Senate through both houses without reconciliation because they wanted to pass anything with “Health Care” stamped on it. In 2012, Obama went hard left to satisfy his donors and get the unions to do the work ACORN used to do.

In fact, Bill Clinton had a Democratic Congress for the first two years of his administration when the filibuster was not the default option for Republicans. House scandals, the genius of Newt Gingrich and a dislike for Hillarycare made the Republican Revolution possible. Clinton era spending cuts and revenue took a decided positive direction after government became more evenly divided. Much of the Gingrich agenda failed (balanced budget laws, term limits) because of a decidedly centrist group of Republicans in the Senate. Still, Clinton became more popular in his second election. Obama is less.

I agree with the conclusion of the article. Republicans have to fight. Whether this is the time or not is irrelevant. This has to be the time because some bad stuff is about to go down if they don’t fight. The Tea Party didn’t have the public on their side first. The public took their side when they learned what was going on. The media were certainly not friendly. Even Fox News’ Roger Ailes discouraged his hosts from broadcasting from Tea Party events after a while. Truth is always in style.