Last night, former President Bill Clinton tried to color his eight years in office as wonder years for life and liberalism. Then he tried to contrast his two terms with President Bush’s two terms:
“Our position in the world has been weakened,” Clinton said, by:
“Too much unilateralism and too little cooperation.”
Clinton bombed the Serbs in Kosovo with neither a U.N. resolution nor congressional authorization. He bombed Saddam’s Iraq for a few days with no congressional authorization. And when Europe showed no interest in stopping the genocide in Rwanda, he cooperated by letting 800,000 people die.
“A perilous dependence on imported oil.”
Clinton did absolutely nothing to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil.
“A refusal to lead on global warming.”
Clinton claimed to care about global warming, but in 1997 he didn’t even submit the Kyoto protocol to the U.S. Senate for a vote. And that was when average global temperatures had been rising for 10 years.
“A growing indebtedness and a dependence on foreign lenders.”
In 1996, Clinton took more illegal campaign money from Communist China than any leader in American history, making him personally dependent. Under Clinton, the national debt more than doubled, even after paying off billions in loans by emptying the Social Security fund.
“A severely burdened military.”
Certainly, the armed forces are not so obviously burdened when they’re not involved in two difficult and prolonged ground wars. But under Clinton, the invisible burden increased by allowing threats to grow with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq, and by fleeing Somalia in cowardly fashion.
“A backsliding on global non-proliferation and arms control agreements.”
Clinton had allowed both India and Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons in 1998, allowed North Korea to develop a nuclear weapons program with rewards like free oil, ignored Iran’s nuclear plans and hadn’t even noticed Libya’s nuclear program.
“And a failure to consistently use the power of diplomacy, from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Central and Eastern Europe.”
I doubt Clinton used diplomacy more actively or more consistently anywhere. His Middle East peace talks were crammed in near the end of his administration, and they failed. And of course the power of his diplomacy did nothing to stop the Rwanda genocide or the Sept. 11 attacks.
Last night, Clinton also said:
“Clearly, the job of the next President is to rebuild the American Dream and restore America’s standing in the world.”
If our “standing in the world” is restored only by letting totalitarians add to their victims, then I don’t care about our standing in the world. I’d rather lock up the tyrants and live in a Free World than win a popularity contest.
“Everything I learned in my eight years as President and in the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job.”
Candidate of change. Maybe Clinton has learned that Obama would do things he wouldn’t do. On energy, debt and proliferation, and in many areas that Clinton didn’t mention, it’s time for change for the better.
Frank Warner
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