Well,
1) Molly Ivins (the author of the article) really needs to learn how to use spell check in her article before lambasting anyone, from a bum on the street to the Commander in Chief who went to Yale...
2) Clinton invited sliming - his past actions as Governor or Arkansas and President of the US brought about something that is practically UNIQUE in American Presidential history: Impeachment hearings. These aren't something that's just thrown into session by a few p*ssed-off die-hard right-wing radicals, either.
It takes a 2/3ds vote by the Senate to take effect, which means his OWN party though him trashy enough to start this process.
Also, when the BAR revokes your license to practice law on top of it all, you pretty much know you are swimming in the cesspool...
Dare I bring up the pardon of Marc Rich as the crowning achievement of disgust? Anyway...
3) The author of this article needs to touch up on the concept of the Electoral College before whining about the election that Bush stole. The RULE is that electoral votes are what puts a candidate into office, NOT the popular vote...
...something, I might add, that historically benefits Democratic candidates over Republican ones.
In her case, the only thing stolen here was her education, because if she is missing this HUGE detail in the 2000 election, she needs to sue the living daylights out of her Alma Mater for robbing her BLIND of common sense and basic understanding of US political structure.
4) Actually the middle-class puts more tax dollars per society segment than anyone else. It doesn't matter though, because it's the top 1-5%( a rough estimation) of this country which provides the VAST majority of us with jobs through their investment, entrepeneurship, savings, etc. Try explaining this to a wide-eyed raving lefty to which "capitalism" is a word that you only use in scrabble matches.
5) IIRC, $4 billion is going into the AIDS fund this year. The rest is earmarked for continued payouts after the program has proved itself to be a successful one (This is from memory, so if I'm wrong here, please correct me).
Fiscal responsibility. What an amazing concept...
6) I'm not going to even get into the goat-rodeo on Hussein or Bin Laden again. As for the Middle-Eastern roadmap, it's been the Palistinian radicals who have been blowing it to Hell (pun intended). Right-wing Israeli elements certainly haven't helped, either, but you don't see them strapping bombs to themselves and slaughtering innocents.
7) Economic policy remark - This is unreal. I've rarely seen such blatant stupidity in ONE single article, and I do a LOT of reading.
Any economics professor worth their salt will give you a simple rule in terms of how politics effects the economy (there are a few exceptions, so AGAIN, this is a general rule):
The next administration inheirits the fruits or fallacies of the previous administrations economic policies.
Now, having said that, I don't think Clinton adminstrations policies had much to do with the current state of the economy today, either. Why?
Telecom meltdown/Dot-Com Bust - Both of these have cratered market capitilization of stocks and stymied investment (which ultimately creates TAX dollars for our government). It also killed a number of budding businesses (good and bad ones) and reined venture capitalist spending back like MAD.
9/11 - Self-explainatory. This wrecked the travel industry and most secondary industries supporting it in one fashion or another, which further killed any chances at economic expansion anytime soon, be it in the job or stock market.
There are other factors, but these are the two main ones that even a base idiot should be able to pick up on.
Finally,
WHERE in the HELL did you get this grade-school attempt at an editorial up? I could train a blind, deaf and mute Spider monkey to come up with something with more substance than this piece of garbage. I'd really like to know as I'm sure the National Enquirer would just love to hire someone of her talent and skill, given her misconceptions, fabrications and outright ignorance.
