Don't get me wrong, I still wouldn't want to elect him to national office again (or to the head of the UN!), but since he left the Presidency I've started to like Bill Clinton more and more. Maybe just because he doesn't sound insane, in contrast with most major Democrats of the past four years.
Clinton said it would be "a mistake for our party to sit around and . . . whine about this and that or the other thing."Well uh, many in your party don't believe in those things. Faith and family? C'mon, your strongest supporters are militant atheists and parade homosexuals. Work and freedom? I'll give you credit for mostly purging your party of its most socialist aspects, but I think you've got a long way to go.Clinton attributed Kerry's loss to the Democrats' failure to combat how they were portrayed by Republicans to small-town America.
"If we let people believe that our party doesn't believe in faith and family, doesn't believe in work and freedom, that's our fault," he said.
Democrats "need a clear national message, and they have to do this without one big advantage the Republicans have, which is they won't have a theological message that basically paints the other guy as evil," he said.If the shoe fits....
In his hourlong speech Clinton, who had open-heart surgery in September, gave Bush and the Republicans full credit for the election victory.Not only was the message clear, but a majority of Americans agreed with it. Until the Democrats get that -- and quit worrying just about tactics such as clarity, organization, and so forth -- the Republicans can never lose."The Republicans had a clear message, a good messenger, great organization and great strategy," he said.
Clinton said Bush should use his second term to move toward less dependence on foreign oil.That's impossible without producing more cheap domestic oil. Oil is a global market, and if you cut consumption then people will stop buying from the most expensive sources first. And guess what? Domestic oil is way more expensive than foreign oil, and the Middle East is the cheapest in the world, so they'll be the last ones to stop producing.
Anyway, amidst all that nonsense, Mr. Clinton addresses Israel's difficulties with blunt honesty -- and a message I agree with.
The biggest opportunity he noted was the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace amid the impending demise of Yasser Arafat.I don't think they'd have trouble finding new excuses, but maybe people would quit buying them.Peace in the region would "take enormous steam" out of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism worldwide, Clinton said. "They would have to think of a new excuse to murder people."
