Safvio: Bill Clinton- His Life

Source:Safvio- from a DVD about President William J. Clinton (Democrat, Arkansas) 42nd President of the United States.

Source:The New Democrat 

"His Life" follows Bill Clinton through his college days as a war protester, his years of purported womanizing as governor of Arkansas, his possible connections to drug trafficking and subsequent murders, "Filegate", the Whitewater scandal and his questionable decisions, campaign financing and practices during his two terms as President of the United States--always in the shadow of wife Hillary.

Interspersed with interviews, "His Life" is a thought-provoking documentary in the narrative style which compels the viewer to take a hard look at the life of one of the most controversial American presidents of all time. Before you see "Fahrenheit 911", make sure you're sitting down and watch this compelling documentary." 

From Safvio 

Source:Amazon- so who do you think this DVD is about?

Just to start off, you should know that I’m a big fan of Bill Clinton and a lot of my politics and own progressivism comes from him. And following his own career and he would’ve been someone I would’ve been more than happy to vote for twice for president if I was eligible. 

At risk of sounding overdramatic: Bill Clinton I believe at least saved the Democratic Party. The country was moving right and moving away from social-democratic, centralized government designed to take care of people. More towards individual freedom especially as it related to the economy and was tired of seeing their taxes going up especially as the debt and deficits were going up as well.

Congressional Republicans at some point probably in the 1990s was going to win back Congress both the House and Senate. Just because of where the country was and Republicans starting to dominate the South and continued to do well in the Midwest. Now, that didn’t have to be 1994 and President Clinton’s first two years probably sped up the Republican takeover of Congress. But that was going to happen in the near future if not 1994. And had it not have been for Bill Clinton the Democratic Party wouldn’t have been in ready with any message to respond to Conservative Republicans who came to power in the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions.

Without Bill Clinton the Democratic Party would’ve still been dominated not by FDR/LBJ Progressives, who are actually pretty practical mainstream center-leftists. But McGovernites (named after Senator George McGovern) from the New-Left who came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s and got organized inside of the Democratic Party, people who are anti-military, anti-law enforcement, anti-establishment in general, people who wanted to essentially tear down the American liberal democratic form of government and private enterprise system and transform America into Scandinavia economically, politically and everything else, going up against Conservative Republicans who thought the current government was already too big with the political backers and resources to support them.

What Bill Clinton did (what was called the Third Way) was give Democrats and Americans an alternative to the Reagan Revolution in the Republican Party that essentially want to tear down everything that was built up from the New Deal and Great Society and the McGovernites the New Left in the Democratic Party that wanted to expanded everything that was built up in the New Deal and Great Society and turn America into a Scandinavian social democracy. And to say there was a third way that center-left New Democrats could take to offer Americans to bring the Democratic Party back to power. That wasn’t about big government or small government, but using government in a responsible, limited way to empower people in need to be able to also live in freedom.

Bill Clinton saved the Democratic Party that has basically been running and governing under his vision of government, or something very close to it since 1993 when he became President of the United States. The days of Henry Wallace and George McGovern are over. And now the Democratic Party at least at the leadership level has been about saving the programs that people need and work well. Empowering people at the bottom and near bottom to be able to move up in life and not have to live on government dependence indefinitely. A party that will defend the country both through law enforcement and with the military. That won’t try to overtax the middle class and respect their incomes and will be responsible with Americans tax dollars. And that to me at least is the legacy of President Bill Clinton.

Remember This: ‘The Real Story- Behind the Clinton Scandals’

Source:Remember This- President William J. Clinton and his wife Hillary R. Clinton, in 1993-94.

Source:The New Democrat 

“David Brock, a conservative-turned-liberal pundit, has said he was once a part of an effort to dredge up a scandal against Clinton. In 1993 Brock, then of the American Spectator, was the first to report Paula Jones’ claims. About the book:Amazon." 

From Remember This 

The real story behind the Bill Clinton scandals was that most of them were bogus. (To be kind) The Lewinsky affair and the China scandal from 1996 were the only real stories and so-called scandals for Bill Clinton as President, which is nothing compared with Ronald Reagan with Iran Contra and Richard Nixon with Watergate. Or go back to Lyndon Johnson lying to the country about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and the progress of the war.

The hatred towards Bill Clinton from the Far-Right and other hyper partisans in this country, except for the race factor, is not that much different from the hatred that Barack Obama has received as President. What they hate about Bill Clinton is what they hate about Barack Obama. Which is what they both represent, two New Democrats on the Center-Left who represent the changing of America that we’ve gone through as a country since the 1960s. With all sorts of new Americans having their freedom in this country. No longer restricted to living a traditional way of life.

The Far-Right in America lives in the 1950s. The rest of the country lives in the 21st Century as far as how Americans live in this multi-culture and lifestyle country where all Americans are free to be themselves. And no longer having to feel the need to hide who they are or try to be someone else. And when someone from this part of the country rises to power and becomes not just powerful and not just the most powerful person in the country, but in the world, the Far-Right goes nuts and accuses that person of trying to destroy their way of life and seeks out to destroy them.

C-SPAN: Bill Clinton & Bill Maher 1995 Political Correspondents Dinner

Source:The New Democrat

To write a blog about 1995 or even a satire about it I really have to go deep into my memory bank to remember what I think about that year. I was only nineteen at the time for most of that year. President Bill Clinton and Bill Maher touched on Vice President Al Gore's reinventing government program that looked to save money in the Federal budget by making programs work better and consolidation. The OJ Simpson murder trial of course was big and if you watched anything on cable news that year, you would think that was the only story that year.

House Republicans wanted to gut PBS which the President touched on by saying that "PBS could only afford to send Jim Leher and not Robert McNeil because of the budget cuts". They were the co-hosts of the PBS NewsHour in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The 1996 presidential campaign was already going on with Bob Dole the Leader of the Senate already the GOP frontrunner for president. And the Leader proposing to move Congress's Senate sessions up to New Hampshire and Iowa so Leader Dole wouldn't have to fly back to Washington as much.

I could go into the government shutdown that happened in the fall of 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing that happened in April 1995, but those things happened after this dinner and the people who performed that night performed before those events happened, so I'm not going to go into that. But just the first few months of 1995 with a brand new Republican Congress the first one since 1953 and House Republicans donating their lives to passing their Contract For America, you knew this was going to be a fascinating year.

ODN: 'Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky Scandal: Former US President's Denial, Grand Jury, and Admittance'

Source:ODN- President Bill Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky"

"Bill Clinton's presidency was rocked by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. We revisit the affair that dogged his terms in office. Monica Lewinsky, the onetime White House intern whose 1990s affair with Bill Clinton nearly brought down his presidency, broke a long silence on Tuesday, saying she regretted what happened. Writing in Vanity Fair magazine, the 40-year-old said she was made a "scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position." Ms Lewinsky added, "I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened." Report by Ashley Fudge."

From ODN

The person I blame most for the Monica Lewinsky White House intern scandal and perhaps the only person I blame, is President Bill Clinton for acting as irresponsible as he did, for getting involved romantically at all with an intern. Doesn't mean I believe he should've been impeached for it and definitely not convicted which the Senate didn't do. Independent Prosecutor Ken Starr and the House Republicans if anything acted more irresponsible than President Clinton. But the fact is this scandal doesn't happen without Bill Clinton.

And Clinton, gave the meat to the Confederate Republicans (that I now call them, not all Republicans, but the far-right in the party) who've been looking to kick Bill Clinton out of office since he became President back in 1993. And if anything were looking to kick Clinton out of the Governorship in Arkansas when he was Governor there in the 1980s. Clinton was a Baby Boom Liberal Democrat from the 1960s, who believed in things like civil rights, equal opportunity, reducing poverty. But who also believed in things like fiscal responsibility. And not someone they could label as a tax and spend Socialist and beat in an election. So the path for them to defeat Bill Clinton was much harder.

Bill Clinton, I believed scared the hell out of the Far-Right in America, because he reminded most of the country of John F. Kennedy. And someone who was part of the New Democratic Liberal coalition in the party. That had moved past the Roosevelt-LBJ Progressive Era. And someone who could communicate to a wide ray of Americans and had moved past the 1950s culturally. And understood that it was no longer the 1950s and that the country was becoming more diverse. Ethnically, racially, culturally, regionally. And Confederate Republicans hadn't moved past the 1950s yet. And we're still in that little box and weren't ready to see Americans that most of the country wasn't familiar with in the 1950s.

The Far-Right, or New-Right, isn't ready for a country that was becoming more liberal and libertarian culturally and socially. As well as economically and they saw Bill Clinton as a threat to their way of life and what they saw as Traditional America. And someone who had to be stopped. 

Without President Clinton's irresponsible behavior, this scandal and grand jury testimony never happens. President Clinton's behavior was the red meat that Confederate Republicans thought they needed to kick him out of office. Since the rest of the country wouldn't do it for them and they betted that the country with fall inline with them. To oust President Clinton from office, which of course didn't happen.  

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The Criterion Collection: Chris Hegedus & D. A. Pennebaker- The War Room (1993) Documentary

Source:Roger Ebert- the cover of The War Room film.

“The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a savvy, youthful spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning. Fleet-footed and entertaining, The War Room is a vivid document of a political moment whose truths (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) still ring in our ears.” 

From The Criterion Collection 

“The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a savvy, youthful spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning. Fleet-footed and entertaining, The War Room is a vivid document of a political moment whose truths (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) still ring in our ears.” 

Source:Pennebaker Hegedus- James Carville was Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign manager.

From Pennebacker Hegedus 

In 1991-92 I guess was the time that I started getting into politics to the point that I was actually following the news about it. I was 16 and a sophomore in high school and I saw a speech I believe on C-SPAN. I became a political junky pretty early in life and I was actually watching C-SPAN and saw a speech from then Governor Bill Clinton from Arkansas and he was talking about how we could make college more affordable in America, an issue we are still talking about twenty-years later.

And Governor Clinton was talking about an idea called AMERI-CORE, where people would get tax credits, or be able to go to college at no financial cost to them, if they serve their country. They work in community service, join the military, become a teacher, work in law enforcement, become a doctor etc. In other words, be able to go to college if they give back and serve their country. And this program that was enacted shortly after he became President in 1993 and he was able to inspire thousands if not millions of Americans to volunteer for their country and in return would be able to go to college. And when I heard this speech, it gave me the sense that Bill Clinton was a winner, a Democrat who could actually get elected President of the United States.

Listening to Bill Clinton’s speech and following his presidential campaign, gave me the idea that Bill Clinton was a different Democrat. Someone whose called a New Democrat, someone who doesn’t just believe in growing the Federal Government and raising new taxes to pay for it and by doing this, that would automatically solve whatever problem the program was intended to solve. But that you had to make the Federal Government work and be able to reform or eliminate things in the Federal Government that wasn’t working.

That Clinton’s presidential campaign was about the people not government. How do you make government work for the people, so it empowers the people who need to be empowered. Not growing government to take care of people but using it in a way so the people who need it can take care of themselves instead, which are two different concepts. Americans were looking for a change in 1992, that’s clear with a bad economy, lack of economic and gob growth.

Americans saw President Bush as out of touch and not up to the job of turning the country around and were looking for a change. But weren’t sure they were ready to turn it over to the Democrats. People who have been stereotyped as big government tax and spenders and weren’t interested in seeing new tax hikes, but wanted to go back to work and take care of themselves. And what they got from Bill Clinton was a new Democratic voice, someone who could talk about progressivism and communicate it in a way that made it about people and not government.

Bill Clinton had this saying that people who collected public assistance will no longer be able to get it for free in a Clinton Administration. That people on public assistance were going to be expected to use that time to prepare themselves to go to work and serve their communities.

Bill Clinton’s political hero is Jack Kennedy, same as mind along with Bill Clinton and a few other people. And of course one of President Kennedy’s famous lines is, ask not what government can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And I believe Bill Clinton took that to heart and made that a big part of his presidential campaign and a bigger part of his presidency and it worked very well.  

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