Thoughts from
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A book for Clinton haters to hate
By Tom Smith

I just don't understand why some people hate Bill Clinton. It is a paradox, a mind-exploding puzzle. He was a flawed man, yes, and aren't we all, yet, in his complex combination of subtle intelligence and almost byzantine appreciation for the many sides of every argument, he was, if anything, the moderates' moderate, the blah blah blah blahblahblah . . .

I think they might have a computer at the New York Times to write this stuff. Anyway, here is the review in the Times of John Harris's book on the slick one. It must take a special kind of mental discipline, Zen like in its elusiveness, to maintain the state of not understanding why a lot of people hate Bill. It is not thinking, little grasshopper. It is not-thinking. I mean, puh-leeeese.

How about a little trip down memory lane? First, we get scared witless that mom and dad, and then us, and maybe our kids are going to be stuck in some nightmare of Hillary care. Remember the fear that it might actually happen? Those were happy days. Anybody who's had a close encounter with state health care (I lived in the UK for two years and learned in a big hurry not to get sick) was good and scared. Thank God for the big drug companies. Then, remember gays in the military? That was fun, and a great way to start the term. Soon after, Blackhawk down. Incompetence, betrayal, and indifference, all packed into a few weeks. Got to love the big guy. Yes, yes, we got welfare reform. And we owe that to Bill? I seem to recall something about the Republicans shoving it down his throat. But he raised taxes! And that's what set off the recovery, because it lowered interest rates you see, and that led to investment, which led to all that wonderful growth . . . ! I hate taxes. Middle East? A total, compromised, unprincipled mess. Terror on the rise. And then the wonderful second term. (With a few loose ends, like Vince Foster, left over from the first.) I just loved the "Daddy, what's a blow job?" questions. Why, son, it's something our Presidents get from misguided college girls in the house of Lincoln and Roosevelt and the Gipper, that's what! I really miss those days. Wall to wall coverage. Democrat party hacks swarming all over the cable channels to lecture us that lying is not lying, and Ken Starr, whose idea of a wild time is a coke and a ball game on TV (and no cigar), is the real pervert. All the time wondering, am I crazy, or has the country gone insane? In the background, all kinds of stuff to make your hair stand on end. Would you really fire all U.S. attorneys just to get rid of the troublesome one in Arkansas? Serious people actually frightened of the Clintons, like they're the Corleones. And maybe they're right. That girl from Oxford sure isn't talking. People who know people telling you downright troubling things about what's going on in the White House. Pretty in pink and the vast right wing conspiracy. And the press. Remember the press? The good, old, pre-blogosphere press? And it just went on, and on, and on. Juanita Broderick. Dude, he raped her. But never mind. It's Chinatown. The impeachment, now airbrushed out of the official Times history. You just don't see that word a lot. And then the pardons, to all appearances simply bought, and practically stealing the silverware and rugs when they left. How very amusing. Those darn Clintons. Why do I hate Clinton? I don't know; just one of those mysterious, incomprehensible, idiosyncratic quirks, I guess. The man wasn't a president. He was a disease.

And now there's 2008. Well, sufficient unto the day are the catastrophes thereof.
posted by thomas at 6/10/2005 05:52:00 PM