They Drank the Kool Aid...
In other Clinton news, I had a very short, yet insightful, discussion with someone in a chat room today. We both have a passion for history, and so this looked as if it would have been a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas.
Alas, I was to be disappointed. The young man in question (I think it was man) claimed to be a history major. Excellent, I thought. What period of history would you like to discuss? "How about Bill Clinton's legacy?", he replied. I already knew I was in for it, but I was game anyhow.
I'll spare you the deatils, because while they were comic, they were also rather disturbing. Here we have a young person in a University, studying history, and the first thing he wishes to discuss is Bill Clinton? Not ancient Rome, Greece, Byzantium, China, India or the Rennaisance. Not even a rehash of FDR's reign or the Marcher Lords of Norman England. Not a word about the Reformation or Enlightenment or the founding of the Ottoman Empire. No, that is not INTERESTING history. We have to talk about a recent ex-President with a wandering penis. Salaciousness makes it's fun, I guess.
Granted, the topic is current. And that's what they probably teach in College history courses these days; a semi-adult version of the "Current Events" crap you used to get in grammar school social studies classes.
What struck me as incredibly peculiar, however, was not only this person's lack of what history should be about, but his lack of memory for events that occured within his lifetime; i.e., within his/her memory. The first words typed were "Bill Clinton was a master at foreign policy" or words to that effect, and he/she rambled on. I just had to defeat such stupidty by meeting it head on. Logic and truth win again, because the poor child left in a huff. There was not even a pretense of hearing me out.
For those of you who are sentient, I don't have to rehash any Clinton "foreign policy successes". However, the fact that you DO have to refute such nonsense occasionally is disturbing. I fear for the future of this country when our college kids study "history" in terms of less than a decade ago (alhough there's nothing wrong with that, the problem is believing that all the facts are available NOW), and probably to the exclusion of everything that came before it.
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it's mistakes". I'd like to add to that: "Those who have no idea what history IS are doomed, period.".
Friday, June 25, 2004
The Guest That Wouldn't Leave...
For anyone who was stupid enough to watch it, Bill Clinton plugged his book on Larry King last night. I guess he has a right to do so, and let's face it, Larry is safe -- not like he's going to ask any insightful questions between his trademark "West Buttfuck, Idaho! You're on the Air! Gary Coleman next Monday night!" battle cry. Just having a feeling that nothing substantive would be talked about, I gave it all a miss.
Amongst the other marketing ploys was a public chat session on AOL, which must have been comic. It must have been difficult to actually type anything with lawyers standing over your shoulder doing on-the-spot editing. Not to mention all the times Bill had to fight the urge to ask "A/S/L?" whenever he saw a screen name that might belong to a hot chick.
One of my favorite Websites, FreeRepublic, has already dissected the book and found the first lie in the first line on the first page. Of course, that place is full of Clinton-Haters and they're expected to do that sort of thing, but as soon as I began reading the post, I got sick of it.
I'm sick of Clintons. They're everywhere. If they aren't taking temporary residence in my home state, they're on TV hawking books and pointing fingers at other folks trying to hide their own ineptitude. The only Clinton I think I could half-stand is Chelsea, and that's only because I know she had no choice in who her parents were. We saw these people every goddamn day for eight years. They refuse to leave.
Of course, knowing when you've worn out your welcome would require a modicum of class and taste, something which was obviously lacking in the White House between 1992 and 2000. Need examples?
- Porking the hired help (no class)
- Yasser Arafat a frequent visitor (no class or taste)
- Ex-bar bouncer in charge of FBI files
- Al Gore
- Janet Reno (ugliest person since the Elephant Man)
- Vince Foster's "suicide" (more like Arkancide)
- 54 convictions and counting
- Kotowing to Jesse Jackson
- Elian Gonzalez
- Waco
- Groping Kathleen Willey
- Destroying Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Juanita Broadrick,
Linda Tripp, et. al.
- Handing American foreign policy over to Kofi Annan
- Insincere lip biting
- Lying through their teeth
- Withholding evidence and never taking responsibility of a
mistake or a criminal act
- Obvious pandering to certain segments of The Diversity
- Bombing the Chinese embassy
- Denying the people of Sudan aspirin
- Dancing with Kim Il Jong
- Taking 1,000 "essential personnel" on a tax-payer funded
jaunt through Africa to "apologize" for slavery
- Mutliple Firt-Lady only, tax-payer funded, jaunts across the
planet
- Trusting Boris Yeltsin
- Replacing one dictator in Haiti with another
- The obvious marriage of convenience
I can go on and on, but we have limited bandwith here. The point is that Bill Clinton didn't need a book, he doesn't need to be on TV -- we lived through it all, and we're still suffering from his Potempkin version of his reign. if you need to read about it, and relive it all again, you are a glutton for punishment. If you need to see it on television, you need medication.
You know, there used to be a little custom we had in this country where our ex-presidents just went off into the sunset, ne'er to be seen again, until they had to show up at a funeral someplace. It's a great tradition. One that should make a comeback, or maybe be written into Constitutional law. Not like Bill ever heeded anything like the Constitution anyway, but it would be a nice gesture.
For anyone who was stupid enough to watch it, Bill Clinton plugged his book on Larry King last night. I guess he has a right to do so, and let's face it, Larry is safe -- not like he's going to ask any insightful questions between his trademark "West Buttfuck, Idaho! You're on the Air! Gary Coleman next Monday night!" battle cry. Just having a feeling that nothing substantive would be talked about, I gave it all a miss.
Amongst the other marketing ploys was a public chat session on AOL, which must have been comic. It must have been difficult to actually type anything with lawyers standing over your shoulder doing on-the-spot editing. Not to mention all the times Bill had to fight the urge to ask "A/S/L?" whenever he saw a screen name that might belong to a hot chick.
One of my favorite Websites, FreeRepublic, has already dissected the book and found the first lie in the first line on the first page. Of course, that place is full of Clinton-Haters and they're expected to do that sort of thing, but as soon as I began reading the post, I got sick of it.
I'm sick of Clintons. They're everywhere. If they aren't taking temporary residence in my home state, they're on TV hawking books and pointing fingers at other folks trying to hide their own ineptitude. The only Clinton I think I could half-stand is Chelsea, and that's only because I know she had no choice in who her parents were. We saw these people every goddamn day for eight years. They refuse to leave.
Of course, knowing when you've worn out your welcome would require a modicum of class and taste, something which was obviously lacking in the White House between 1992 and 2000. Need examples?
- Porking the hired help (no class)
- Yasser Arafat a frequent visitor (no class or taste)
- Ex-bar bouncer in charge of FBI files
- Al Gore
- Janet Reno (ugliest person since the Elephant Man)
- Vince Foster's "suicide" (more like Arkancide)
- 54 convictions and counting
- Kotowing to Jesse Jackson
- Elian Gonzalez
- Waco
- Groping Kathleen Willey
- Destroying Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Juanita Broadrick,
Linda Tripp, et. al.
- Handing American foreign policy over to Kofi Annan
- Insincere lip biting
- Lying through their teeth
- Withholding evidence and never taking responsibility of a
mistake or a criminal act
- Obvious pandering to certain segments of The Diversity
- Bombing the Chinese embassy
- Denying the people of Sudan aspirin
- Dancing with Kim Il Jong
- Taking 1,000 "essential personnel" on a tax-payer funded
jaunt through Africa to "apologize" for slavery
- Mutliple Firt-Lady only, tax-payer funded, jaunts across the
planet
- Trusting Boris Yeltsin
- Replacing one dictator in Haiti with another
- The obvious marriage of convenience
I can go on and on, but we have limited bandwith here. The point is that Bill Clinton didn't need a book, he doesn't need to be on TV -- we lived through it all, and we're still suffering from his Potempkin version of his reign. if you need to read about it, and relive it all again, you are a glutton for punishment. If you need to see it on television, you need medication.
You know, there used to be a little custom we had in this country where our ex-presidents just went off into the sunset, ne'er to be seen again, until they had to show up at a funeral someplace. It's a great tradition. One that should make a comeback, or maybe be written into Constitutional law. Not like Bill ever heeded anything like the Constitution anyway, but it would be a nice gesture.
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