At 09:04 PM 8/29/2001 -0700, Doug wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>John said:
>>Huh? Did I dream about hearing names like "Slick Willy" for the previous 8
>>years?
>> - John
>>Actually, "Slick Willie" was coined by Clinton's _Democratic_ opponents in
>>Arkansas, IIRC. Unsurprisingly, the longer he was in a place, the more he
>>was disliked. I would actually say that Clinton is sort of outside the
>>realm of normal political discourse - when you can say of someone that he's
>>an adulterer, perjurer, debaser of public office, has been credibly accused
>>of rape, quite possibly launched a military strike against innocent
>>civilians for political benefit (the Sudan), and definitely turned a blind
>>eye to genocide in Rwanda because it would have been inconvenient to do
>>something (see this month's Atlantic) - and you're just repeating the
>>conventional wisdom among many people in his own party, for goodness sake,
>>the traditional bounds of civil and uncivil sort of don't apply any more.
>>Bush isn't perfect, but anyone who thinks he's in the same league of
>>contemptible behavior as his predecessor just doesn't see the same world I
>>do, really. There has never been anyone like WJC, and God willing ther
>>e never will be anyone like him again.
>
>
>I could make the argument that there were many worse than he, starting
>with the Republican trio of Grant, Harding and Nixon (whose damage to the
>office he held dwarfs anything Clinton did), but I didn't really want to
>get into a contentious argument about whose most deserving of debasement.
Lumping U.S. Grant in with Harding and Nixon, really does a disservice to
Grant. While he was not a very good President (although not as bad as
conventional wisdom has it), he was personally honest, and was never
implicated in any of the graft that consumed his administration. Harding,
on the other hand, would almost certainly have been impeached had he not
died, as would have Nixon had he not resigned.
john
