Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: 12 Year Anniversary
Last week, former President Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiative rasied 7.3 billion dollars over the next 10 years for the fight against global warming, including a pledge from billionaire Richard Branson to donate all the profits from his transportation ventures for the next ten years. Estimates place that pledge at being valued at about 3 to 3.5 billion dollars American. He energized people to give what they could for his organiztion. CGI fights all kinds of terrible things aroung the world: HIV/AIDS, poverty, hunger and childhood diseases. However, he showed which out of all the causes in the world, which is his most hated. He showed to us all what really makes him angry and it turned out to be the vast right wing conspiracy. There's video that couldn't be likned externally which has to be watched.
Not during the fight about a national health care plan, not about Monica, not about Hillary and not about anything else has Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, ever lost his cool. But with Chris Wallace, who is actually one of the fairest interviewers Fox News has, he lost his classic Clinton composure. He accused Wallace of trying to make his bones on Fox news by grilling Clinton about what he did or did not do to capture bin Laden during his time as president. Clinton got very defensive that he did a lot to try and get bin Laden. Gone were any kind of previous statements about trying to bring him back for trial, but he was talking about how close he came to getting bin Laden, but was stopped by internal and external political elements. He really hammered home that he had done more to kill bin Laden than anyone who was coming after him now for this. He made it abundnatly clear the right-wingers who were after him now for not doing enough were the same ones who were after him then for doing too much and not focusing enough on other problems.
This is, of course, not the first time Clinton has gotten hot under the collar about terrorism and his attempts to do something about bin Laden. A few weeks ago when ABC aired their "Path to 9/11" movie that they claimed was based on the 9/11 Commission Report. Clinton and his former ministers, when they read the script, fought very hard against the movie being made since it said that the Cliton administration failed in some specific areas. They didn't just fight a little, they fought a lot. They wanted ABC not to air it all. ABC still aired it, but they had to change all the advertising materials saying it was a documentary, saying instead it was a dramatization. This was, for many, the first they had heard from male Clinton, after years of hearing from Sen. Clinton. It was also, uncharacteristic for Clinton, a very emotional outburst against his enemies.
He's done that before. During the infamous Lewinsky depositions, he got emotional and slipped up when it came to a question about his relationship to Ms. Lewisnky. He got angry, frustrated or whatever and claimed he did nothing with the woman, which was proven wrong. Yes, you can get all into the definition of "is" and all that, but the point remains: if he had been thinking more clearly and less irrationally, he would have come up with a better answer than just depending on verb tenses. Getting him that rattled is a rare thing, or at least it used to be. It seems to be getting easier and easier. The question is how is one of the most charismatic, composed and collected presidents of the 20th century so easily rattled in a short 30 minute interview from the first question?
Simple. Legacy. We all want to be remembered somehow, even if we want to be remembered as a person who didn't want to be remembered. Clinton, well, has mostly overcome the Lewinsky legacy but now faces the bin Laden legacy. No one, NO ONE, wants to be remembed as the guy who let one of the most prolific terrorists in history get away with anything. No one wnats to have the centerpiece of his legacy be a failure. Think of the presidents and you mostly think of the things they did right, even if it was just knowing when to step down for Johnson. Hoover is relly one of the only presidents we think of as a total failure, even if other presidents had ups and down, failures and successes. Every president fails, every president succeeds, it's in which fields he does either that we determine greatness. Clinton wants to be remembered for the economic sucesses, even if a president has little control over that. He wants to be remembed, as we all do, for all the good he did.
Problem is, the good men do is oft interred with their bones, and the evil they do outlives them.
So it is written, so do I see it.
Not during the fight about a national health care plan, not about Monica, not about Hillary and not about anything else has Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, ever lost his cool. But with Chris Wallace, who is actually one of the fairest interviewers Fox News has, he lost his classic Clinton composure. He accused Wallace of trying to make his bones on Fox news by grilling Clinton about what he did or did not do to capture bin Laden during his time as president. Clinton got very defensive that he did a lot to try and get bin Laden. Gone were any kind of previous statements about trying to bring him back for trial, but he was talking about how close he came to getting bin Laden, but was stopped by internal and external political elements. He really hammered home that he had done more to kill bin Laden than anyone who was coming after him now for this. He made it abundnatly clear the right-wingers who were after him now for not doing enough were the same ones who were after him then for doing too much and not focusing enough on other problems.
This is, of course, not the first time Clinton has gotten hot under the collar about terrorism and his attempts to do something about bin Laden. A few weeks ago when ABC aired their "Path to 9/11" movie that they claimed was based on the 9/11 Commission Report. Clinton and his former ministers, when they read the script, fought very hard against the movie being made since it said that the Cliton administration failed in some specific areas. They didn't just fight a little, they fought a lot. They wanted ABC not to air it all. ABC still aired it, but they had to change all the advertising materials saying it was a documentary, saying instead it was a dramatization. This was, for many, the first they had heard from male Clinton, after years of hearing from Sen. Clinton. It was also, uncharacteristic for Clinton, a very emotional outburst against his enemies.
He's done that before. During the infamous Lewinsky depositions, he got emotional and slipped up when it came to a question about his relationship to Ms. Lewisnky. He got angry, frustrated or whatever and claimed he did nothing with the woman, which was proven wrong. Yes, you can get all into the definition of "is" and all that, but the point remains: if he had been thinking more clearly and less irrationally, he would have come up with a better answer than just depending on verb tenses. Getting him that rattled is a rare thing, or at least it used to be. It seems to be getting easier and easier. The question is how is one of the most charismatic, composed and collected presidents of the 20th century so easily rattled in a short 30 minute interview from the first question?
Simple. Legacy. We all want to be remembered somehow, even if we want to be remembered as a person who didn't want to be remembered. Clinton, well, has mostly overcome the Lewinsky legacy but now faces the bin Laden legacy. No one, NO ONE, wants to be remembed as the guy who let one of the most prolific terrorists in history get away with anything. No one wnats to have the centerpiece of his legacy be a failure. Think of the presidents and you mostly think of the things they did right, even if it was just knowing when to step down for Johnson. Hoover is relly one of the only presidents we think of as a total failure, even if other presidents had ups and down, failures and successes. Every president fails, every president succeeds, it's in which fields he does either that we determine greatness. Clinton wants to be remembered for the economic sucesses, even if a president has little control over that. He wants to be remembed, as we all do, for all the good he did.
Problem is, the good men do is oft interred with their bones, and the evil they do outlives them.
So it is written, so do I see it.