TRUE/FALSE: A lot of liberal policies passed during the Clinton years.

[TeddyKGB]

Poll question: TRUE/FALSE: A lot of liberal policies passed during the Clinton years.

And discuss.

[Lexingtonian]

1. As I see it

Clinton's achievement was in discrediting 'conservative' ideas and policies. Couldn't succeed against them all, though.

[Tinoire]

2. False... Off the top of my head

Not liberal:

NAFTA

GATT

WTO

8 years of bombing Iraq daily. Not to forget the horrible sanctions that France & Germany were threatening to abandon us about and sending Albright, Berger & Cohen out on tour to places such as OSU to bang the drums for resumption of the war against Iraq)

Iraq Liberation Act

War against Yugoslavia- without Congressional approval and like Bush without UN approval this giving himself the unilateral power to attack other countries

Bombing the Chinese Embassy

Plan Colombia

FEMA

trade wars with Europe: Banana and Boeing

Telecommunications Act

Facilitating huge mergers in banking, telecommunications, the media, pharmaceuticals, autos, retail trade, airlines, railroads, oil, farming, food industries

Welfare Reform/1996 Personal Responsibility Act, which ended any federal responsibility to poor people

Anti-terrorism Bill of 1995 w/ destruction of federal habeas corpus

lots of lip service to the Kyoto protocol but no ratification. Sabotaged it by demanding higher US greenhouse gas emissions

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, with massive federal aid to local police and prison construction

promoted health policy based on corporate profits

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, that forced every telephone company in America to retrofit its phone lines and networks so they would be more accessible to police wiretaps

Breaking a sacred campaign promise he made to the Black Caucus and Black Community that he would not continue Bush's barabaric treatment of the Haitian Boat People & signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which expanded the use of secret evidence and virtually ended judicial review of deportation proceedings. http://www.ncpa.org/iss/gov/pd103001b.html

signed the Communications Decency Act (CDA), an Internet-smut law the Supreme Court struck down unanimously http://www.ncpa.org/iss/gov/pd103001b.html

Continuing the "war on Drugs" with the The White House drug control plan http://www.commondreams.org/pressreleases/feb99/020899b.htm

===

Yes Bush is a lot worse but that doesn't make Clinton a Liberal.

On edit: And telling us to get over a "fair and square" Bush election twice.

[salvorhardin]

3. Also the DMCA and more

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998.
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/?f=unintended_consequences.html

CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994)
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA

...and this one didn't get passed, but also indicative of the Clinton years. The Clipper chip.
http://www.epic.org/crypto/clipper

[Hippo_Tron]

4. Clinton = so much wasted talent

It's amazing that a politician so intelligent and so charismatic could've failed to miserably to pass his agenda.

The Clinton healthcare plan didn't start out as a sellout to corporations, although it wasn't universal single-payer either. The problem was that he compromised too much and by the time it was finalized and got to the floor, the bill was not only too hard to understand for most people, it was impossible to afford because there was nothing that required the insurance companies to lower their prices.

I have to give the man credit for the fact that he survived the whole Monica Lewinsky thing but I think his shortcomings were in his first term, especially his first two years when he had congress.