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Last updated on July 2nd, 2017 at 09:01 am
Remind Bill Clinton of the tech-driven economic boom during his Presidency, and these days he’ll likely bite his lip with remorse:
In a long, and interesting speech, [Bill Clinton] characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ‘cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”
It’ll be interesting listening to Hillary and Obama’s competing plans to reduce wages and cut jobs; a global warming election will play to their strengths. Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan reviews whiplash-like recent events:
In the most exciting and confounding election cycle of my lifetime, Rudy Giuliani, the Prince of the City, is out because he was about to lose New York, John Edwards is out, the Clintons are fighting for their historical reputations, and the stalwart conservative New York Post has come out strong and stinging for Barack Obama. If you had asked me in December if I would write that sentence in February, I would have said: Um, no.
(Via cider insider Rich Stadnik)
UPDATE. The US ABC network’s Jake Tapper, source of the Clinton quote, has badly misrepresented him – as have I by repeating it. Here’s Tapper’s update:
The original headline of this post was too definitive, while the larger blog post tried to express that I wasn’t sure just what Clinton meant by his statement. So I changed the headline to reflect that. I understand after many, many emails that many folks think I misunderstood what the President was saying.
And here is Clinton’s actual unTappered quote:
“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.
“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.”
Now it’s perfectly Clintonian – promising everything (more jobs AND reduced emissions) to everyone – but there’s no way he could fairly be accused of urging an economic slowdown.
(Via lil varmint)
- Posted by dean martin on 2008 02 01 at 11:04 AM • permalink
- Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 02 01 at 11:09 AM • permalink
- With any luck it’ll snow like hell on election day and the Democrats will stay home.
O/T but so refreshing: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers will be playing at the Super Bowl halftime show. Tom was interviewed yesterday and was asked who he favored for president – he declined to answer and said “you don’t want a guitar player’s advice on that.”
Last night I watched Obama’s wife give a speech on C-Span. Oh good lord. A loud mouth liberal black woman with an attitude. A Reverend Al Sharpton in a dress. I just can’t imagine her as The First Lady.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 01 at 12:45 PM • permalink
Great link, paco. The hammer nails it, eh? (nyuck, nyuck).
Regarding the post, seems Clinton, his wife or Obama never get asked to explain inane quips like these.
Obama says our education system is ‘chronically underfunded’ when, in fact, we spend more per pupil than any industrialized nation and get far less in return. No one presses him on this.
Last night, I listened to the two least qualified candidates for high office in my lifetime brush aside the qualification-to-be-president question with snark instead of substance. The Hollywood audience, accustomed to fantasy worlds where a clever bon mot can actually shut people up and change the course of events, drank it up.
Aussie cousins, we have ceased to be a serious people. This is the first ‘American Idol’ election, where a significant portion of the electorate seriously thinks an unknown can be plucked from obscurity to fill the biggest shoes in the world.
“We just have to slow down our economy”
The Dems are offering the same service they provided to the slaves when the Democrats ran the south.
Namely: We control all your economic activities, we “slow down your economy”.
The Democrats want the same thing they’ve always wanted. Slaves that can be controlled, that will do as they’re told, and that have no more than the Democrats think they ought to have.
Think I’ll pass on that one.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 01 at 01:32 PM • permalink
I can’t believe I am about to defend Bubba, but here is the full quote in context:
…maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ‘cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that. But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren.
He was really saying that it would be foolish and pointless to intentionally slow the economy. He had a big “no duh! moment. At least that’s how I read it.
I feel like I coughed up a hairball.
Posted by lil varmint on 2008 02 01 at 01:58 PM • permalink
Ditto #14. There’s enough to criticize Bill about – we don’t need to jump on him because some looney blogger … wait ABC?!? took a quote 180 degrees out of context.
Just checked the blog. The writer has the full quote but admits the original headline led other people to skim the post, miss the full quote and run with the out of context quote.
PJ O’Rourke explains American politics to yurpeens and other heathen furriners…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 02 01 at 03:47 PM • permalink
Re #1, yep, paco, Krauthammer does an excellent job of skewering Billy Jeff there. I knew that he wanted back in the White House something bad, but never why (aside from a shortage of female interns, that is). This is the reason…..and a piss poor one at that.
#14, thanks for the clarification. Nice job!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 02 01 at 04:16 PM • permalink
- Last year I was saying that hoped someone stopped Shrilary, the Witch of Chicago. Now I only want the one to win who can more easily be beaten and that looks like her. Better her, with Bill Albatross around her neck, than the Racist Christian/Moslem Naive Black, who it seems would do well to keep his wife very silent..
If the US overlooks the fact that Obama, a 20-year member, has a pastor that loves Louis Farrakhan and preaches racial division himself, I too will believe it isn’t a serious democracy any more..Who would have believed in 2002 that now the US might accept an isolationist leader named Barak Hussein Obama??
The revisionists have been working hard to make sure that the Clinton’s dynastic legacy is a shining one. They have unlimited places to relocate all detractors.
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 02 01 at 05:24 PM • permalink
… Shrilary, the Witch of Chicago … Racist Christian/Moslem Naive Black … Barak Hussein Obama
Life’s too short to be stinking yourself up throwing shit like that around Barrie.
Posted by Jefferson Skates on 2008 02 01 at 07:33 PM • permalink
“I can’t believe I am about to defend Bubba, but here is the full quote in context:”
The words I quoted is what liberal Democrats ALWAYS do.
What they say means dick.
100 years ago, before people like Woody Wilson, and FDR started winning elections, the per capita GDP of the United States was TWICE that of the next richest country in the world. It ain’t anymore.
The American south STILL hasn’t recovered from decade after decade of Democrat Party rule. It’s the pooresat region in the U.S.
I don’t care what they say, they’re socialists, they’re going to try for an economy where they control everything and everybody (latest effort…socialized medicine), and they ARE going to slow down the economy…just like they always have…just like statists/socialists always do.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 01 at 07:57 PM • permalink
100 years ago, before people like Woody Wilson, and FDR started winning elections, the per capita GDP of the United States was TWICE that of the next richest country in the world.
Not an easy thing to estimate (here’s an attempt) but TWICE just isn’t right.
Posted by Jefferson Skates on 2008 02 01 at 08:11 PM • permalink
but there’s no way he could fairly be accused of urging an economic slowdown
True, he didn’t actually urge it, but he clearly does imply it’s desirable, which is still noteworthy even if it’s not the sentiment originally implied.
If you read it, his argument is that slowing the U.S. economy just doesn’t do enough.
And then of course we get the broken windows fallacy. But it’s nice they at least acknowledge much of what has been proposed will in fact slow down the economy, both for the West and emerging countries.
“Not an easy thing to estimate (here’s an attempt) but TWICE just isn’t right.”
It is indeed hard to estimate. It’s especially hard to estimate the GDP of nations like Pakistan and South Korea in 1900, because they didn’t exist in 1900. On that basis, I’m a little skeptical of that graph.
If I can find the article where I pulled that twice as high number from, I’ll link to it.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 01 at 10:18 PM • permalink
“The US ABC network’s Jake Tapper, source of the Clinton quote, has badly misrepresented him – as have I by repeating it.”
You guys are missing the point. What Bill Clinton says is totally irrelevant because Bill Clinton doesn’t tell the truth. He’s already demonstrated that he’ll lie, even when under oath, in order to protect the interests of Bill Clinton, so screw what he says.
It’s what Bill Clinton and guys like him are going to do that matters.
“We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ‘cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”
It doesn’t matter what the context of that remark is, because that’s obviously what Bill Clinton (and the other Demagogues) is/are going to do, no matter what lies they’re telling this week. That’s the whole point of the Kyoto Accords, and he signed his name to it, so obviously that phrase reflects what he thinks (unless he thought he was signing a contract for sexual services from Monica and inked Kyoto by mistake).
If I was you, I wouldn’t lose a whole lot of sleep worrying about what guys like Bill Clinton say, or if you accidently take what a proven liar says out of context.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 01 at 11:24 PM • permalink
If its a Lada, its because the gearbox just dissasembled itself.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 02 01 at 11:36 PM • permalink
“100 years ago, WWI was still 6 years ahead. I find it hard to believe that the US GDP was twice that of either GB or Germany at that time.”
I don’t, though, actually the study I was looking at was looking at the economies of 1920 (or thereabouts) right after the United States first lost it’s mind and put a Democrat administration in charge of the country after a long period of virtually uninterrupted Republican rule, and it was comparing those 1920 numbers to today’s economic numbers.
The United States was an economic monster in the first part of the 20th century. When people said “In America the streets are paved with gold” they weren’t just blowing smoke out their ass.
OTOH, I’ve seen the claim that Australia had the highest per capita GDP at the end of the 19th century before, and I find that really hard to believe. Could be true, but I’d sure like to see some more evidence on that one.
I can’t locate the original study I saw the 2-1 thing in, but here’s some figures from WWII (when Americans really lost their minds and the liberals had just gotten into power on a damned near permanent basis, at which point the United States economy -and standard of living- hadn’t really started to slip yet).
You can see the U.S. still mired in the depression until 1941 when our economy jumped back up to where it was supposed to be…and then it’s turn out the lights boys, because the Axis made the fatal mistake of trying to take on an economic Frankenstein in a war to the death and they had chance zero of pulling it off (as long as we had the will to see it through).
I think you’ll see that the 2-1 claim is pretty close to the mark, even in the 1940s.
The United States is still an economic giant today, and in absolute terms we’re much richer, but we’re nowhere near what we used to be relative to the other first world type countries.
IMO, those economic figures are pretty close to the truth, and America’s economic decline (again, in relative terms) is because of liberal misrule.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 02 at 12:17 AM • permalink
- Dave,
In 1920 all the other major powers had just finished bankrupting themselves (and most borrowing from the US of A) to fight World War I. If we had twice anybody else’s per capita GDP then that would be the reason. But I am suspicious of that ratio, because in that year we were in the middle of the post-war depression. The Harding Administration that came into office in March, 1921 treated it by doing nothing except cutting the Federal budget, in a controlled fashion, by 40 percent. The result was the depression ended in about a year, as opposed to the next one which lasted ten years while the Federal Government dorked around trying to plan the economy and control everything it could.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2008 02 02 at 01:02 AM • permalink
41 FDR was saved by Tojo/Hitler economics.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 02 at 01:10 AM • permalink
“In 1920 all the other major powers had just finished bankrupting themselves (and most borrowing from the US of A) to fight World War I.”
Fighting wars is definitely part of the equation. Wanna go broke? Keep fighting war after war and you’ll get there eventually.
1865-1912 & 1921-1932 Civil War ends (caused by Democrat traitors…big shock) Republicans rule…one itty bitty war.
1913-1920 & 1933-1972 Democrats rule, four serious wars, 600,000 Americans killed, economy starts to slip.
Coincidence?
Doubt it.
Militarism, Socialism, and crap economies go together like shit, stink, and flies.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 02 at 01:21 AM • permalink
43 Dems give the impression they will not fight, so Jeff D, Kaiser, Hitler/Tojo, Kim, Ho, etc start little wars which grow.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 02 at 01:40 AM • permalink
Strewth, we’re blaming the Democrats for the world wars now?
And you know, in the light of the past few administrations, it might be a while before we can again cast militarism and crap economies as being more D than R.
Posted by Jefferson Skates on 2008 02 02 at 03:05 AM • permalink
- #40
Dave, I’m no economist, but say 1890, before that decade’s recession -Australia small steady population maybe 5 mill, vast wealth from wool and gold, empirically I could accept it. Certainly right up thereWeThey the prople elected a leftist Government here in December, throwing out a highly succesful but perhaps tired centre right government, for no obvious reason that the morons wanted a change. PM Howard lost his seat. We are already seeing economonic and other manifestations of socialism. PC is returning.
#45; The need for militarism, traceable to lefties and their appeasement always? (Whether D or R.) Crap economies, to me is like the climate, it comes and goes.
Posted by dean martin on 2008 02 02 at 04:50 AM • permalink
To paraphrase Clinton: I feel your warmth.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 02 02 at 06:26 AM • permalink
Charles Krauthammer – one of the shrewdest and most incisive of political commentators – makes the following observations about Billy Jeff’s hunt for his legacy.