Let's make a list - Things that Bush Senior did, but were blamed on Bill Clinton...

[El Pinko]

Okay, there's the military base closures...

NAFTA

Black Hawk Down


Any others?

[yourout]

1. ???? last time I looked Clinton signed NAFTA.

[El Pinko]

2. All the groundwork was laid by Bush Sr. and basically left for Clinton to sign.

I disagreed with his doing so, but if he had not signed it, it would have been an extremely bold move for a newly inaugurated president...

[yourout]

3. And Bush put a gun to his head and made him sign it then parade around...

extolling its virtues?

[ulysses]

6. sorry, Bill loved NAFTA.

[MadHound]

10. Well far be it for a newly elected president to make an extremely bold move,

Wait, shall we ask FDR that question, see how that First Hundred Days plan worked out? How about LBJ? Hell, even Reagan went into extremely bold mode seven months into his administration over the air traffic controllers strike while Clinton signed NAFTA, what, ten months into his first term:eyes:

Stop rationalizing.

[El Pinko]

13. NAFTA had already been signed when Clinton took office.

Once it was ratified, he signed it, but at least he pushed for NAAEC and NAALC to address some environmental and labor concerns with the original NAFTA pact.

Again, I disagree with Clinton's decision, but if he hadn't signed, it would have been a political mess, pulling the US out of a trade pact it had already signed, and he had run on a platform of being a "new democrat" friendly to business interests.

I'm not trying to absolve him of all responsibility for NAFTA, but the way a lot of people talk, you'd think that Clinton had written the damn thing himself.

[MadHound]

16. Umm, NAFTA was voted on in the House on 11/17/93, in the Senate on 11/20/93

Like I said, Clinton was ten months into his first term.

He could have easily come out against it, he had the time, but instead he supported it and signed it. And look at the much bigger mess that we have now. US manufacturing sector is gone, Mexican agricultural sector is gone(a large source of the illegal immigration problem), and a violent transition to a service sector economy.

And it isn't like these consequences weren't known going in, many of the top economists were speaking out and advising against the passage of this bill into law. Yet Clinton pushed for it and signed it anyway.

Sorry, but Clinton sacrificed the working man and woman on the alter of business interests. His hands weren't tied, he was fully aware of what he was doing and what would happen. Yet he did it anyway.

That is the historical reality.

[El Pinko]

17. It was RATIFIED in 93. The US had already signed it in 1992.

Yes, he supported it, but the fact is that if he hadn't signed it, he would have been backing the US out of a trade pact we had already signed.


http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579853/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement.html


In December 1992 NAFTA was signed by the leaders of the three countries—Brian Mulroney of Canada, Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico, and George H. W. Bush of the United States. Despite approval from national leaders, the agreement would not be made effective until the legislatures in all three countries had also voted to accept it.

Clinton signed the ratification by Congress. It was Bush that signed the agreement itself.

[MadHound]

26. Remember your basic civics lesson

It has to be ratified by both the House and the Senate and signed off by the President, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA>

Just because this was a treaty doesn't mean that Clinton had to follow through on it, witness Kyoto.

Sorry, but your parsing bullshit trying to protect the Clintons. Stop, you're just making yourself look foolish and ignorant.

Clinton had every chance to stop this treaty, instead he supported it, and signed off on it.

[El Pinko]

27. I'm not saying that he didn't.

I'm saying that doing so would have meant reversing course on a pact that the Bush had already signed and the congress had approved.

I'm not saying that he shouldn't have refused to sign, but it wasn't his baby, he basically tied the ribbon on top.

If we are going to malign someone for NAFTA, I'd say that Clinton, Bush and the Congress are all responsible.

And again, Clinton did at least push for labor and environmental protections - something I doubt Poppy would have done.


You may be right though, that NAFTA doesn't belong on the list I described...

[water]

14. Funny you mention that... Hoover actually started many of the New Deal programs!

FDR expanded them.

[girl gone mad]

19. Or how about Bush's man-date?

I love it when Democrats argue that we need to toe the line while Republicans are allowed to run right over it at will.

[Quantess]

15. Yep. Clinton was the champion of NAFTA.

unfortunately.

Although, Bush Sr would have loved to champion it, too.

[Igel]

4. The problem is that you can't claim absolution by continuing

your predecessor's programs.

Black Hawk down ... in fall '93. Clinton was on board, Commander in Chief. What started as a decent mission--protecting food deliveries--morphed. He could have unmorphed or remorphed it. He didn't in the 9 months he had it.

Military base closures didn't have to continue. They could have stopped cold. They didn't. But they were part of the "peace dividend"--a cold peace, apparently.

Clinton could have lobbied hard against NAFTA and demanded renegotiating it. He didn't. Instead he pushed for it's passage in a dem-controlled Congress.

[DiamondJay]

18. Bush Sr sent troops to Somalia in Dec 92

a month before leaving office which is a dirty trick. He did it to hurt Clinton, because he knew some of the Bush people like Colin Powell and Major General William F. Garrison may still be there to screw things. Major General William F. Garrison even sent Clinton a letter of full responsibility, as seen on a link somewhere in this thread in the PBS timeline

[El Pinko]

20. Definitely a last-minute mess left in Clinton's lap

Spiteful old bastard.

[DiamondJay]

24. and its gonna suck a lot worse for the next president

[TahitiNut]

5. Waco and the Branch Davidians

:shrug:

All the planning and preparation for WTC-I was done during Reagan/Bush.

[El Pinko]

21. How did that have anything to do with Bush?

?

[TahitiNut]

28. How did it not? 100% of the federal officials were Reagan/Bush appointees.

The fuse was put in place and lit in 1992, during the Bush adminstration, by Bush officials. The surveillance was established and grossly mismanaged by Bushies. The assault was planned and scheduled to occur 5 weeks into the Clinton adminstration, BEFORE Clinton was able to get an Attorney General confirmed. (Remember Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood?) Janet Reno took office on March 11. The final siege occured in April. There was no way that any of it was initiated by Clinton officials and the falsehoods (e.g. fraudulent claims of drug production) were concocted by Bushites - along, no doubt, with misinformation fed to Reno.

It was a "time bomb" planted by Bushites. :shrug: I gotta hand it to Reno - she stepped up an took the blame even when she didn't deserve it. She accepted full responsibility for what occured "on her watch" even though she was grossly ill-served by the holdovers from the Bush adminstration.

[Fuzz]

7. Ruby Ridge

[Historic NY]

8. Somalia invasion

US President George Bush launches Somalia intervention
Deteriorating security prevents the UN mission from delivering food and supplies to the starving Somalis. Relief flights are looted upon landing, food convoys are hijacked and aid workers assaulted. The UN appeals to its members to provide military forces to assist the humanitarian operation.

With only weeks left in his term as president, George Bush responds to the UN request, proposing that US combat troops lead an international UN force to secure the environment for relief operations. On December 5, the UN accepts his offer, and Bush orders 25,000 US troops into Somalia. On December 9th, the first US Marines land on the beach.

Bush assures the American people and troops involved that this is not an open ended commitment; the objective is to quickly provide a secure environment so that food can get through to the starving Somalis, and then the operation will be turned over to the UN peacekeeping forces. He assures the public that he plans for the troops to be home by Clinton's inauguration in January.

This US-led United Task Force (UNITAF) is dubbed "Operation Restore Hope."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/etc/cron.html

[Historic NY]

9. Arming Saddam..

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons and provided the technology for Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear programs.

The reasoning of the Reagan/Bush administrations for arming Iraq was that while Saddam was certainly an odious human being, he could serve as the region's policeman. He might be a bastard, but he was "our bastard". At the time, Iraq was fighting a war with Iran and the United States was worried that a victory for Saddam's nemesis could result in the spread of fundamentalist Islamic regimes which would destabilize the region and block our access to the oil in the Middle East.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/12/13_iraq.html

[Historic NY]

11. Reducing US Armed Forces and military spending.....

Pappa bush's Sec. of Defense Cheney cut US forces and military spending deeply but the major blame by the Repukes goes to Clinton. It funny its clintons Military that answered bin laden in Afganastan.

http://www.itsyourtimes.com/?q=node/2012

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=520

http://www.dirksencenter.org/RHM_Manifesto/toc_Hunter_National%20Security%20Under%20a%20Republican%20Congress.pdf

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3DE1230F932A15755C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Then we have revisionist history by Repukes:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/puplava040201.html

[Nite Owl]

12. He left Clinton a foreign policy mess

Haiti
Bosnia
Somalia

and of course Iraq.

[Quantess]

23. And Bill Clinton was the perfect antidote!

Clinton was EXCELLENT with his international relations. Bill Clinton had foreign crowds cheering upon his arrival.

[El Pinko]

22. The Oklahoma City Bombing - Indirectly anyway...

The War to get Iraq out of Kuwait (an invasion that Bush's ambassador April Glaspie implicitly INVITED) was largely responsible for turning McViegh into a terrorist nutball...

[robbedvoter]

25. The plotting of the 1993 WTC bombing - FBI was sitting on a stack od untranslated

documents - containing everything they needed to have prevented that one.
It happened within weeks of Clinton taking office - authors brought to justice - no war on terra needed.