"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"thunder" wrote in message
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On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:28:41 +0000, Calif Bill wrote:


Whatever President Bill's shortcomings, he is damned smart,
well-informed, and articulate. On the other hand, Dubya keeps his
pants
zipped. So far as we know.

Neither makes for a great President.

I thought "Slick Willie" was a rather apt name for Clinton, but during
his
Presidency, I developed a grudging respect for his competence. What
surprises me, is that some hold such a deep hatred for the man. After
all, his time was relatively uneventful and prosperous. Now, I will
admit
to an anti-Bush bias, predominately because of Iraq, but what astounds
me,
is that some are calling Bush one of our greatest Presidents. I just
don't understand it.

Bush keeps things simple. That's all of it. End of story. Clinton was more
like Mario Cuomo: He dared to use big words and details.



Clinton used big words, and popularity polls to see which way the wind was
blowing. He lucked out, actually he has to be one of the luckiest pols
alive. Just lucky that his Arkansas time did not put him in jail, or stop
him from the presidency is lucky. But he inherited a growing economy and a
congress that for a time stopped overspending. He did nothing to inhibit
the speculation on an ever growing dot.com boom, and did nothing with the
fantastic excess in Federal income in those years to pay down debt. He
allowed the budget to grow to suck in all the extra money. Where was his
veto pen? And then at the end of boom times, we have an even more bloated
Fed budget, and no money to pay for it. Therefore even greater deficits.
Same thing happened here in California. 39% increase in the budget in 4
years, where as inflation and population growth justified 9%. As to Iraq,
we are / were going to be at war in the middle east in the next few years
anyway. Too many Muslim extremists wanting to take over the west. You
forget that there were also a bunch of attacks in the previous 8 years.