Bill Clinton: Obama's doing what needs to be done and he is doing it right

[question everything]

at least, this was a sentence aired earlier today on CNN. I think that he will be tomorrow on Larry King. Should be interesting, especially with his "rising" in the best presidents list.

[marshall]

1. Is Bil eating a little crow?

I'm glad he's dishing out the compliments, especially when they are so richly deserved.

As my grandmother would say, next year we'll be in high cotton, and this will all be a distant memory.

[wyldwolf]

4. no, he's supporting the home team

[Beacool]

15. Eating crow over what?????

Obama is surrounded by former Clinton people. Besides, the primaries are over.

:eyes:

[marshall]

17. The implication is that he (Clinton) didn't get it right

It's refreshing to see him take a humble look at it.

[polmaven]

19. From WHERE do you get

THAT "implication"? He is speaking back at all of the GOP critics all over the place trying to rip apart whatever the President is doing. He is not comparing the Obama Administration to his own.

Please!!!! Can we FINALLY get OVER the primaries?

[marshall]

26. Without a context it's anybody's guess

We don't have the context of what else he was saying. What we have (until the full interview is aired) is the context of history as we remember it. The phrasing "Obama's doing what needs to be done and he is doing it right" to me implies an urgency and also a history of things NOT being done right.

I think we're saying the same thing here--that Clinton is being supportive of Obama.

[polmaven]

29. A history of not doing things right, yes..

but by the last administration...not his! When HE left office, there was a projected surplus. That was blown through by Bush...Clinton did what was necessary when he was in office. He is NOT, by ANY means implying that he did not do it right!

[Beacool]

28. Well, I can't add more than what Polmaven has said.

LOL!!

:shrug:

[TheWraith]

41. Over claiming that Obama wasn't capable of doing the job. nt

[Beacool]

44. The man is in office for less than a month.

Only time will tell how well he does his job.

:shrug:

[alsame]

2. I think he will do everything he can to be supportive. I saw a clip

of him yesterday and he was talking about the resistance he had from the GOP in 93 and how wrong they were - he balanced the budget and created a surplus.

I am hoping he and the President play good cop/bad cop - let Clinton criticize the GOP and let Obama take the high ground.

[old mark]

3. Bill the attack dog? I could watch that all day.....

and I hope I will!
There's an old saying in the music business - "Be nice to people you meet on the way up, because you'll meet them again on the way down."

The Publicans will now experience the shit they gave Bill Clinton for 8 years, and they are not ready for it.

mark

[alsame]

5. I agree. I hope he gives them the hell they deserve. eom

[marshall]

7. I just wish he would make it less about himself and ALL about Obama

The initial header--Obama is doing what must be done and doing it right, has the tone of a little humility. I don't want to hear him always following it up with "but I coulda done it too if those Republicans hadn't stopped me". Let that go unsaid but implied, but don't use it to draw the limelight away from our current president.

That being said, Bill is doing a good job of supporting the president, and perhaps it's too much to expect him to stop tooting his own horn in the process.

[Skwmom]

8. Poor Bill, so intent on rewriting history.

Bill Clinton, along with the Republicans, passed the deregulation which gave us this financial collapse. And of course, let's not forget his pushing of "free trade" aka, the outsourcing of American jobs.

[wyldwolf]

12. how is he rewriting history?

:shrug:

[PBS Poll-435]

13. hahaha

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[Beacool]

16. Yeah, poor, poor, Bill.

He's a popular former president who most would have voted for a third term in a heartbeat. He has established a foundation that has done a lot of good for humanity. He has also risen in the presidential ranking list to #15. His wife is the current Secretary of State.

Yeah, poor Bill, he must be such an unhappy man.

:eyes:

[Skwmom]

31. A third term? Sorry but that was what Bill was trying to sell in the last Democratic primary and

it didn't work.

Bill Clinton is paid hundreds of thousands for speeches. Do you think that is really what he's being paid for? He can sell political influence, bank millions, and also get donations to his "foundation" so he can showcase his "humanity." Hmmm... I never knew humanity included trade agreements that lead to worker exploitation, including the exploitation of children. Bush Sr. has done foundation work with Clinton. Does that make everything the Bush family has done okay?

[Beacool]

43. That was not his attempt at a third term.

There were polls done on the subject, more than one actually, and quite a few people would have voted for Bill for a third term. As far as the primaries go, Obama won by a hair and mainly thanks to the SD. So let's not pretend that the vast majority of Democrats voted for him, as it was Hillary who won the votes of more registered Democrats. The primaries are over, but if you want to revive them, go ahead.

As far as Bill getting paid for making speeches, so what? I have no problem with the man earning a living.

:shrug:

[karynnj]

45. I never saw a head to head poll pitting Clinton against generic Republican

or Bush or McCain. That is the only way to get to an estimate of that. As it was impossible - I don't think it was polled. The Approval ratings (not the job ratings) were very mixed - which is unusual - and most had him not doing that well in 2000 - though if you look through all the polls on pollingreport.com, you will find some where that was high.

Obama did NOT win "mostly because of the superdelegates" He got more regular delegates - which is what counts in primaries - than Clinton. For Clinton to win, more than half of the superdelegates - about 60% - would have had to go to HRC. That would be changing the will of the people. Then, Clinton, not Obama would win because the superdelegates favored her.

The regular delegates are in proportion to the people who voted Democrat in specific races in the past. The state can then have a primary or caucus. It is intellectually dishonest to sum the raw number of votes - when each state has different processes - especially when a few states are then eliminated because they didn't have raw vote counts. Even in high school, a composite percent would be estimated by summing the (weight for a state) times( percent of the voters for a candidate) over all states. Obama would win this - and this is roughly (very roughly due to quirks in the rules)what the delegate count reflects.

[Beacool]

46. He was ahead by 127 PD.

Mainly obtained through the caucuses. Hillary won the majority of the primaries from March - June, and won them all (except for IN) by 10% or more. It may have been too late to make up for Obama's earlier wins, but she definitely came close to winning the nomination.

[karynnj]

47. Caucuses are a valid means of picking delegates

The rules in each state were known. Given that she got 1639.5, the 127 pledged delegates was 7.7% more. That is, of course, closer than Bradley got to Gore or Edwards got to Kerry, but it isn't all that small. The fact is that HRC's chances of winning fell drastically on SuperTuesday. At that point, given the states left, she had the tougher road to winning. The Potomac primaries where Obama did far better than expected made him the frontrunner.

The states HRC won at the end were ones that were better for her. In PA, for instance, she had the party machine run by Rendell. In KY she was a huge favorite from before the primaries.

[Beacool]

48. Caucuses are disenfranchising.

I always thought that they are an anachronism and shouldn't even exist nowadays. Never liked them, only a handful of peopel have the time to show up to them and some states are just plain nutty with a primary and a caucus (TX comes to mind). I don't see how Hillary could have won DC with its large AA population. After SC, where he won by 76%, every other state with a large AA demographic Obaam won handily. As for PA, Hillary may have benefited from Rendell's machinery, but other than Philly and Harrisburg, Obama was just not as popular there. I campaigned in that state and Hillary won most counties by more than 60% of the vote. Regardless, it's water under the bridge now.

[karynnj]

49. Whether you like them or not, caucuses were the official event

in the states that had them. The Clintons knew and had no problem with the rules as they existed before 2008. The fact is that HRC had the media and the party very much behind her in 2005 - most or 2007. I really think there over reaction to the first Philly debate where she flubbed the immigration question, but did very well otherwise. It demonstrated a thin skin and brittleness, that reappeared at the end of the race too.

[question everything]

21. He was facing a Congress dominated by the Republicans

I don't think that he had that much of a leverage. Plus, he did not pass the deregulation that gave us the financial collapse. If you remember, it started with Allan Greenspan lowering interest rates which started the stampede on increasingly expensive houses. And it was Bush and his regulators who chose not to pursue the greed of Wall Street. Repealing the Glass-Steagall Act allowed banks to expand into other areas, but it was the heads of these banks that started the irresponsible behavior and no one at the Bush administration was there to ask a question.

Look at TIME 25 people to blame

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x57187

and see that Bill's role is small and perhaps would have not mattered had Bush and his "free market" buddies did not come along.

[Skwmom]

32. Not much leverage? The deregulation would NEVER have passed without Bill leading the

charge. Typical Clinton, try to blame someone else for your screw-ups.

The Bush Administration deserves plenty of blame but it was Clinton who pushed for deregulation AFTER the first round of deregulation led to the S&L fiasco.

Clinton is in bed with Bush and his free market buddies. It was the Clinton gang pushing hard for "free trade." Oh, I forgot, Hillary was really against it. :rofl:

Did you read the article?

Phil Gramm: As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from 1995 through 2000, Gramm was Washington's most prominent and outspoken champion of financial deregulation. He played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street.

Clinton was the President at the time. But of course, he was at the mercy of those mean old Republicans. Poor Bill, always the victim.....

[AtomicKitten]

34. It takes nothing short of a Jedi Mind Truck to produce this white-wash of history.

Kinda like Clintonites here at DU completely ignoring (or worse, being fine with) the fact that Bill Clinton is set to cross a picket line AND offend the LGBT community: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5043400

[blm]

36. Bill was behind Greenspan every step of the way - why pretend he was helpless when he could replace

Greenspan? Sorry, but Al Gore's efforts in the 80s had more to do with the boom of the internet economy of the 90s than Bill ever did doing Greenspan's bidding.

If Bush was president in the 90s he would have gotten the credit for the internet economy.

[Skwmom]

9. Delete - duplicate

[Skwmom]

10. Delete - duplicate

[alsame]

11. I think he is going to strike the right balance between

supporting President Obama and reminding us of his own successes in the face of GOP opposition. At least he did in the clip I saw, I thought his tone was perfect.

[question everything]

20. First, this is Larry King, so no hard questions

and, really, it is not about him. If Larry King sought him out - I don't know - then obviously it will be both about him and whatever else Larry is asking.

[phleshdef]

27. He was ASKED about criticisms coming from the right that he was to blame for the current mess...

Therefore he answered what he was asked.

He isn't making shit about himself. It was his interview and they asked him questions about himself.

[Tatiana]

6. On a completely shallow note: Bill was looking very healthy and tan on CNN yesterday.

With all of his health issues and the stress of the Presidential campaign, he had lost a lot of weight and looked pretty fragile.

Now his swagger is back and he's got that vitality he was missing.

I can't wait till he really starts beating up on the Republicans.

[Jennicut]

14. Yeah, I noticed he had looked not too healthy lately

Good to see he looks better. He is not my most favorite Dem in the world but he was a much better President then the Rethugs.

[AtomicKitten]

18. Why is he doing the dog & pony show TV tour during Clinton's first overseas visit?

This should be her moment in the sun, not his.

[Clintonista2]

22. If I made a list entitled "People who can always be counted on to attack Bill in any DU thread"...

How far up the list do you think your name would be?

[wyldwolf]

23. On edit: #3 or #4

[AtomicKitten]

25. Better question: Can you guess which finger I'm holding up? n/t

[SaveOurDemocracy]

33. I see 2 of the Top Ten have already checked in. n/t

[AtomicKitten]

35. checked into your own version of a "hero worship" thread you mean?

oh, the irony!

[question everything]

24. How do you know that it was not Larry King who asked him to come over

precisely to coincide with Hillary's trip?

[Autumn]

30. He looks and sounds great

I love how he is going on the offensive and giving it back to them.

[PBS Poll-435]

37. I love flypaper threads!

:woohoo:

[AtomicKitten]

38. yep - here you all are!

[PBS Poll-435]

39. Touche!

:P

[AtomicKitten]

40. Olé.

:P

[Metric System]

42. Oy vey.

[kwenu]

50. He's telling the truth.

[question everything]

51. And he held his own against Larry King who really was pushing for him to

say something derogative about Obama. He did not.