Where was all these pissed off Progressives when Clinton was Governing from the center

[bigdarryl]

And he was a DLC guy and I heard nothing now all of a sudden Obama is losing his base because he's not Progressive enough .WTF!!!!!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. Well, to be fair, most of the people who dislike the DLC aren't great Clinton fans either.

Also, there was no internet then.

[rfranklin]

4. I was here but DU was not...

I was really pissed that he did nothing about IranContra, etc., which we now know enabled his idiot son to occupy the White House for 8 years.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. Oh you know what I mean...there was "internet" but it wasn't like it is today

My mom never let me use our internet except for school work. Dial Up was expensive and took a long time to connect. No Twitter, no myspace, no Facebook. Forums were limited...etc.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

20. I was using Prodigy and BBS's

Alas no DU.

[tridim]

2. PUMA nt

[Forkboy]

3. Nader ring a bell?

The split was there.

[jgraz]

5. I know. Practically no one was posting on DU or DailyKos about it.

Maybe people were just more complacent in the early 90s. I don't remember a single negative Tweet about Clinton during his first year... :shrug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. *snarf*

[Hippo_Tron]

9. I was too busy listening to Nirvana to complain about Clinton on my Facebook page

[JVS]

55. +1

[Larkspur]

7. Progressives did protest -- Seattle's WTO meeting was one event

and the protested NAFTA.

but DU didn't exist until 2001 and the internet was in its primitive stage in the '90s.

[karynnj]

22. There were usenet groups - including political ones, but the number of people

with access was much much lower. People DID question Clinton on the usenet groups.

[harun]

8. We hadn't learnt how dangerous DLC ideology was yet.

[Jamastiene]

10. The internet was not as readily available to so many people back then.

So, you may not have heard the grumbling, but trust me, it was there.

[amandabeech]

11. This one was royally pissed off. n/t

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. First, there was no DU. Second, the world hadn't had to endure 8 years of Bush yet,

now it has so people's tolerance and fuse are shorter.

Third, there is a core of PUMA resentment in a significant faction there that, IMHO is policy independent but since Obama's a centrist/DLC type, that's the angle of attack (if he were more leftist he'd be attacked by some of the same people for being a naive idealist who didn't know how shit gets done in Washington, etc.). I'm married to one so I'm exposed to this all the time.

[Armstead]

13. We were working to change the same mistakes that are being made now

DU wasn't around back then, but it would have looked much like it does now if it had been.

[VMI Dem]

15. What did Big Ed have to say about it back then?

[jgraz]

16. I don't know. I was too busy listening to Air America and watching Countdown.

:shrug:

[Hello_Kitty]

17. There was staunch opposition to things like NAFTA and deregulating communications.

There was no coverage of it.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

18. I was right here but DU wasn't so I couldn't post my concerns

What the fuck kind of question is this?

[FrenchieCat]

19. Clinton was re-elected by a resounding majority,

and most Democrats were too busy defending him from
the constant accusations of his womanizing by Republicans,
so they didn't have time to badmouth him.

What with ignoring Rwanda, starting wars, signing DADT,
and a bunch of other hot items....

Bubba was simply so much more special than Barack Obama could ever be.
It was the appeal of the Clenis. Folks just couldn't resist his charismatic
appeal and charm.....after all, he could feel the pain.

[11cents]

23. Six of Clinton's eight years, he had a GOP Congress.

He "turned to the center" after Congress changed hands. He was in a very different situation than Obama and the Dems are now; he no longer had the ability to enact his own legislation. He was supported by liberals by and large because he was correctly seen as the only defense against Newt's boys -- and he was skilled in defense And of course, it's true that many progressives, supported the wars he "started" -- you know, putting in Bosnian peacekeepers after negotiating the Dayton accords, turning back ethnic cleansing in Kosovo with the help of a certain Wesley Clark, returning Aristide to Haiti.... Liberals didn't support Clinton because he was "special" or because they even liked his policies much; it was because Congress was gone and he was the only Democrat standing.

I think the anger at the moment is more at the Democrats in Congress than at Obama, but at any rate it's reasonable to expect more from both than from post-94 Clinton, because they're in control.

[FrenchieCat]

39. He had a majority Democratic congress in his first year......

And so that is what I compare, as Obama has only just now completed his first year.

while Clinton had a majority Dem congress through December of 1994. House had 258 Democrats
to 176 Republicans (pretty close to what it is now), and had 56 Democrats in the Senate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1994

DADT was signed in that first year.
Clinton established the policy through Executive Order in December 1993.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell

and Rwanda's crisis occurred in 1993-1994 (the Dayton Peace Accord didn't occur until '95, and the Kosovo war was in 1999):
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by the Hutu dominated government under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, or more, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April through mid-July, at least 500,000 people were killed.<1> Estimates of the death toll have ranged between 500,000 and 1,000,000,<2> or as much as 20% of the total population of the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

and he also failed to pass healthcare in 1993....

Also in 1993, Clinton controversially supported ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the U.S. Senate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton#First_term.2C_1993.E2.80.931997


So yes, it had to have been the Clenis that held a special fascination for Democrats.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

56. In what kind of pea-brained world do you live that 49% is a "resounding majority"?

Serious question: How fucking old are you and the rest of the cheer-leaders?

It has to be your only excuse.

[Jennicut]

21. There was no DU! Internet was in it's infancy.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. We were writing letters to the editor that were not getting published.

About the only option we had back then.

I helped campaign for Clinton, and have been through this cycle before - Support, but gee, that was dumb, I can't believe he said that, I can't believe he signed THAT, WHAT THE FUCK IS HE THINKING!

It took three years for Clinton to lose me, and for me to understand that the DLC was not just another alphabet organization, but a group dedicated to the destruction of traditional Democratic values and structure.

I don't want to go through that again. And this time, we have the internet.

[DrToast]

25. Clinton only won 43% of the vote. And the Dems got their clocks cleaned in 1994

It's at least understandable why Clinton moved toward the center.

[Tailormyst]

26. To be fair, you probably just didn't hear them

The internet and internet access has come along way. People can communicate and network more easily now.

[flyarm]

27. I guess you weren't around the Democratic party then ..were you? eom

[paulk]

28. Clinton didn't "turn to the center" until after the Republicans

took control of Congress.

Many "progressives" are upset with Obama because he has turned to the center with a supermajority in the Senate and a huge advantage in the House. They find it a bit premature - of course, this would only be premature if Obama actually held any progressive positions.

[jgraz]

29. NAFTA, DADT and HillaryCare all predated the 94 takeover.

Cinton was center-right beforehand. He went hard right after the Repukes took over.

[paulk]

30. DADT was a compromise after the Senate,

led by Democrat Sam Nunn, rejected Clinton's attempt to let gays in the military. You knew that, right? That DADT wasn't Clinton's idea - that he wanted to let gays serve in the military?

What part of "Hillarycare" was conservative? I thought universal healthcare was a liberal perogative? Her plan was, in some ways, more liberal than the current version, in that health insurance wasn't tied to your job.

NAFTA - well, I still maintain that NAFTA wasn't the disaster that many on the left paint it as. It hurt some states but helped others. It's just become a code word, without any real thought or understanding of what it is or does.

Not that I believe it was overall a good thing - but it's hard to judge - the environmental and worker's rights legislation attached that was a condition of Clinton's support was never really enforced under a Republican Congress, and certainly was completely ignored under 8 years of Bush.

And I have to wonder why Obama and his supermajority haven't addressed NAFTA's shortcomings.

[jgraz]

35. Clinton could have allowed gays in with an executive order.

You knew that, right?

[paulk]

47. how realitic was that scenario?

Especially when it was his own party that shot him down on the issue.

Even now, fifteen years later and with a much larger majority in Congress I don't see our current President taking such a foolhardy course as that.

Make a real argument.

[jgraz]

49. Not very, given Clinton's general support for progressive issues.

His mistake was going to Congress in the first place. He should have just integrated the troops and told people to deal with it.

[Hippo_Tron]

52. Clinton was going to do precisely that

And as soon as he announced that he was planning to allow gays to serve openly by executive order Sam Nunn announced that he was introducing legislation barring gays from serving in the military and given the makeup of Congress in 1994 he had the votes for it, especially since pretty much every top official at the Pentagon supported Nunn's proposal.

Laws supersede executive orders. You knew that, right?

[donheld]

59. Would have been a tragic mistake

Sam Nunn Democrat from Georgia would have put a total ban on gays in the military into law ASAP had Clinton done that.

[jgraz]

60. Was Sam Nunn King of the US and I just missed it?

How else do you figure one Democratic Senator could have written a law, got it passed and *then* gotten both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto?

[donheld]

61. See this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/10/AR2008061002527.html

[jgraz]

62. Which part of that gave him the ability to override a presidential veto all by himself?

Seriously, there were probably a few cards that Nunn held, but passing a law to circumvent an order from the CinC was not one of them.

[FrenchieCat]

40. Clinton signed an executive order in 1993; that's how DADT first got implimented.

he had majorities in both houses at the time; overwhelming on in the House,
and 56 senator in the senate when having a super majority still wasn't the rule.

[paulk]

48. it was a compromise forced on him by his own party

let me ask you something - why hasn't your hero, Obama, signed away DADT via executive order?

Should I lay the blame on him for his inaction on this issue?

[Hippo_Tron]

53. Actually he planned to sign an executive order allowing gays to serve opnely

Sam Nunn and other conservadems and Republicans announced then that they were planning on passing a law barring gays from serving in the military which would make Clinton's executive order useless. Clinton agreed to sign DADT if they agreed not to pass the law barring gays from serving in the military completely.

[Krashkopf]

31. You weren't listening!

Even then, we progressives were loudly calling Bill Clinton THE BEST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT EVER!

[Enrique]

32. maybe you heard nothing

but we were there.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Clinton lost me, for one

I voted for Ralph Nader in 1996.

However, there was no DU during Clinton's term, much less Internet of any sort in those days, and because of the whole trumped-up Whitewater affair, those of us on the left felt inclined to defend him, even though we didn't like his policies.

[PVnRT]

34. Yeah, where was them at?

Me not see!

[asdjrocky]

36. Oh, I was right here.

Or on the streets in Seattle. Or on the streets in San Fransisco.

How do you think we got Nader? I could list the decisions Clinton made, or allowed to be made, while he was in office that offended every true liberal I know, but it would take far too long.

Let's just say, things like Nafta, welfare reform, telecommunications really helped to put this country on the road it's on today.

Be a serious person, ask serious questions.

[jsamuel]

37. I was 11 years old

[krawhitham]

38. Clinton is white

[FrenchieCat]

42. and had the Clenis.......

and for a Bubba, that was big! :rofl:

[hughee99]

41. They were busy making a killing on the .com bubble.

People pay more attention when the economy sucks.

[FrenchieCat]

43. Not in Clinton's first year, he didn't.

He had a sucked up economy inherited from Bush the first. Not as bad as Obama's inheritance from Junior, but it wasn't a .com bubble till later in his 8 years.

[Milo_Bloom]

44. Did you read any of Michael Moore's books?

[Habibi]

45. soc.politics, probably

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

46. In the Michigan Militia.

[Clio the Leo]

50. Elementary school. NT

[Midwestern Democrat]

51. You ever see "Bullworth"? That was basically Warren Beatty's

middle finger to the 1990s era Democratic Party.

[Phx_Dem]

54. They were there. They voted for Nader and elected Bush.

P.S. Does that make them Bush's base?

[JVS]

57. At alt.politics.liberal DUH!!!

[Ildem09]

58. Um i couldnt vote

Dude was seriously the Best Republican President we've had since Eisenhower

[vaberella]

63. I don't think DU was established, to hear them. n/t