Bill Clinton's words of wisdom (likely to be ignored)

Bill Clinton wrapped up a lengthy stint on the couch chatting with the ladies of ABC's "The View" today by offering a thought that befits his continuing role of elder statesman (now that his hopes of segueing from ex-president to first laddie have been waylaid, at least temporarily).

As a prelude to the comment that caught our attention, Clinton repeated his oft-stated opinion that Barack Obama will win November's election, delivering his prediction with a level of certainty somewhere between the confident assertion he made while standing next to the Democratic nominee 11 days ago and the much more guarded words he provided in a CNBC interview last week.

Clinton then gave a shout-out to Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, saying, "I genuinely like both. I genuinely admire both."

And that set up a remark about political attitudes which struck us as definitely worth spotlighting. Clinton said voters "Make a terrible mistake, believing that we have to find something wrong with the people we can’t vote for."

As this epic campaign draws to a close, the passions are high and the mistrust between both sides' partisans seemingly insurmountable. But Clinton's perspective deserves contemplating (though The Ticket won't hold its collective breath waiting for many to heed it).

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Neutral Thinker]

Who would have thought that the voice of reason would be Bill Clinton's? He has a valid point that there is way too much anger in this year's political contest. Both candidates have positive and negative qualities. If you really want to be an informed voter you should know where your candidate stands. Let's hear these two answer the SAME questions in a debate and let's look at their records instead of forming your opinion from campaign ads that are always just a bit left or right of the truth. You can check out voting records here: http://thomas.loc.gov/

[Ann]

I don't hate John McCain, and I don't think that any Obama supporter do.

I am just truly sad that a man I respected, even when I did not agree with him, has turned has back on the ideals that drew Independents and Democrats in 2000.

I know that people change their minds and viewpoints over time, but 180 degree turnaround on so many issues has left me feeling either (A) sad, because he ditched his ideals or (B) betrayed, because he was lying all along.

[Aroleflin]

So, now we should consider opinion from a proven liar, disbarred lawyer and a sexually perverted womanizer as wisdom? Hey Bill, if your opinion is so wise, how about opening your library donor list so we can see how 'wise' you really are.

[Andrew]

Very astute. Sadly, I don't expect to see a rush of comments on this one...

[hillbill it is over!]

Hillbill, it is over. You and Hillary's weak attempt at supporting the Obama candidacy is so obvious that I can hardly believe you still hit the circuit with a straight face.

Team Obama did get McSame's numbber over 800,000 today at http://www.bop-o-rama.com

Obama '08

[Jackie]

If you want to see a master politician with no core beliefs listen to Obama's latest speech where he has taken virtually all McCain's positions as his own. He even denounces earmarks and promises to cut them. It was only a few months ago that Obama flew back to Washington to protect the earmark system with his vote....and remember he has only voted a handful of times in the last few years.

Chameleon Obama....taking every position required to win....What does he really believe?

[pollypook]

It is silly that we all analyze every word uttered by Bill Clinton, and then say that he will be ignored. He is obviously still very influential.

[Chalo]

Sorry, Bill, but you've got that one very backwards. The reason we can't vote for them is because there are so many things that are deeply wrong with them.

[Mayu]

Exactly how is Obama going to be less of the same?

1. He has no accomplishments anyone can mention
2. he voted "present" over 130x because yes or no was too hard
3. he missed MORE votes in 3 years than McCain missed in 21.
4. Mr "for the poor" voted to RAISE the taxes of families making $35,000 or more annually. $35,000 is considered lower middle to middle class.
5. he voted NO to a gas tax relief during the summer that McCain and Clinton pushed for... in fact, his demo friends tried to find a way to raise the tax by an extra 10cents from 18.4 to 28.4
6. He was the 2nd highest paid partisan from the 200mil Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave out. The top 3 being Dodd, Obama and Kerry.
7. His stance on abortion, whether you agreed with him then, now or never, is constantly lightening so he won't lose votes.
8. He has the highest percentage of attack ads, and misleading or untruthful commercials, something he said as a man of "Change" he wouldn't resort to.
9. He blatanly misled spanish speaking Americans with his spanish ad... proven to be a fabrication, as if spanish speaking Americans are idiots.
10. He and his supporters keep playing the race card TRYING to make it an issue when it isn't.
11. His supporters can't name any accomplishments other than one kid who said "he's the first black senator". Um. one, being black isn't an accomplishment, it's a birth right and two... Hiram Revels of Mississippi was the first black senator. (And this kid is of voting age. yikes.)

So how exactly is Obama going to be a man of change in the white house? The only thing he's going to change is from what he promised you, to what he feels like doing now that he's in charge.

[CJ]

While Clinton has a good point,,McCain gives us lot to dislike. Look at his VP pick. He said country first and picked Plain! Look at his sex. ed/kindergarten ad. As a motherof a 6 year old..that is nt acceptable in my opinion. For attacking bama for trying to protect our kids from sex predators. McCain has gone too far and forgotten what HONOR means.

Obviously both candidates are human and not perfect. What McCAin has done so far is attack Obama's character because he is unable to match Obama's plan on issues. And in my mind that makes him very disgusting.

[Sarah Hart- America's Third Party Campaign Manager]

Mistrust of the 2 party system is high during this election cycle. That is why David Jon Sponheim is running as a write-in for President. David Jon Sponheim has innovative ideas, about government waste and transparency. He proposes to put a web-cam in the oval office and listen to the American people. He also has a comprehensive energy plan to get us energy independent. In addition, he wants to build a seawater pipeline to broaden our ability to have arable and livable land. This seawater pipeline can also combat any droughts due to global climate change. I encourage you to check out David Jon Sponheim nightly, 5pm Pacific at http://www.blogtv.com/People/AmericasThirdParty

[Joseph]

Bill and Hillary Clinton just got done running a nasty campaign against Obama.. and now all of a sudden they think we shouldn't attack Palin's resume!?? If you can't challenge Palin's resume then WHAT CAN you challenge her on??!!

Bill is an expert politician and a sell out to his democratic party at the same time. They both run around the country doing the bare minimum to support Obama to show their party that they're not sell outs and yet they are quietly running a subtle campain to support Obama's opponent.. all just to give Hillary a shot at the presidency in 2012.

Disgraceful. Someone in the party needs to speak up about this trojan horse.

[Sandra S]

There are always going to be Clinton haters, but history and his fans will show that he was one of the best presidents in our time. He may have his faults, but he is of the people, by the people, for the people, and the Repubs and Clinton haters just can't stand that. Bill has always been one to see both sides to a fault, not liking confrontation which is probably one of the faults of his presidency. But since Clinton haters are out and since they are regurgitating the pea soup spit out by Limbaugh and which I see by trolls all over the blogs, here's one for your boy McCain:

Republicans Allege McCain Covered Up His Collaboration with the North Vietnamese While a POW
http://www.alternet.org/election08/99663/republicans_allege_mccain_covered_up_his_collaboration_with_the_north_vietnamese_while_a_pow/

Apparently, Bill didn't know about this one or he may not have been so kind.

[Sandra S]

Once the election is over and President Obama is inaugurated, I will be leaving these boards; so I will try to have patience with the last faint desparate cries of the neocon trolls as they slowly sink in the west.

[Benjamin]

Mayu: 1) no accomplishments anyone has mentioned? What has McCain achieved exactly? A POW 40 years ago, wow. Nice. Make him president cuz he was a POW. Other than that, he's been a pretty run of the mill senator from a leech state(a net taker) and played an active role in the deregulation of the financial markets he now wants to regulate. Mission accomplished?
2) Voting present is actually a strategic vote. Nothing to do with difficulty. On that subject, can you name a single time that McCain stood against Bush where his vote gave the opposition a real victory? It seems like the only time he was a "maverick" was when his vote didn't matter at all.
3) I see that claim repeated, but I don't see it explained.
4) Cite it.
5) gas tax "relief" was a laughable gimmick that only the feeble minded believed would do anything.
6) Cite it.
7) Contstantly lightening? That makes no sense.
8) Cite the numbers. McCain has by far told the most lies and the biggest lies. To this day, Palin said "no" to the bridge to nowhere, despite that she was all for it previously and then kept the money anyway. Nice reform.
10) The only people I ever hear talking about race in this campaign are people complaining that they're constantly being accused of being racist for not supporting Obama. It's funny that I never see anyone actually making those accusations, just a lot of people whining that it's made.
11) Obama has a long list of accomplishments. That have been talked about. Go to wikipedia and educate yourself if you're really interested in them. You're not though, so you won't, you just like making those claims as if they're true.

Obama is the American dream. From humble origins to US senator. McCain is the typical political story. Dad and grandad were admirals, stood on their shoulders, used his naval career aided no doubt by his daddy and grand daddy's legacy(who else with bad grades and a bad attitude would be allowed to become a naval aviator and not get kicked out on their ass from the naval academy? Who else with bad grades could even get into the Naval Academy, other than some other legacy kid?)

[Moo]

Simply because it's Bill Clinton speaking those words does not and should not in any way reduce the truth of the point those words make.

[Jay]

Still think that Obama would have prove if he is a natural citizen, and if he can't. Maybe HRC would be on top of ballot. Maybe Bill knows more that saying.....

Obamacrimes.com
http://dontvoteobama.net/

[jethromayham]

Bill is a nothing anymore. Why listen to a liar and it is obviou by his tone that he wants Obamaq to lose so Hillary has a quicker shot to go for it.

Let me tell everyone now, too many people think Billary machine is disgusting other than the old hags out there who give no consideration except to themselves. They want to project their losers image on any woman.

They talk about 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling is all bunk. Most have backed the winner of the priomary and the rest aqre nothing but the fringe. Nutty fringe.

[fsteele]

Unfortunately for the Democrats, the winner of the Democratic Primary, HIllary Clinton, had the nomination stolen from her. The number of her supporters planning to vote for McCain held pretty steady throughout the summer at about 3-4 million.

A recent poll at a 'women's network', 'Lifetime', shows what they call a considerable increase for McCain: from 18% to 23% iirc.

(Varying poll percentages depend on how those Hil's are counted who plan to protest by staying home (or voting third party, writing in Hillary, etc). When stayhomes were counted, it came out about 50/50 for Obama vs rejecting him. Ignoring the stayhomes as not 'likely voters' it came out to c. 70-75% Obama, 20-25% McCain.)

[sean o]

With endorsements like this, who needs critics?

[Sandra S]

And for those that continue to question Obama's citizenship because of the lies they hear on Fox, Worldnet or other right wing sources, please cut the crap and note that Obama was born in Hawaii, a state of the U.S., has a birth certificate and is a U.S. born citizen. McCain on the other hand was born in the Panama Canal Zone and it can be argued that he is not a natural born U.S. citizen and is less so than Obama. So how long do you want to argue the birth question or keep up the lies.

[Jon]

Mayu. It is annoying when people use bogus statistics, and pass then off as matter of fact. For example ...

"3. he missed MORE votes in 3 years than McCain missed in 21."

Luckily, we have the internet. The Washington Post has a nice congressional voting database at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

Here are the real stats:
110th Congress
McCain: 412 votes missed (64.1%)
Obama: 295 votes missed (45.9%)

109th Congress (Obama's first)
McCain: 58 votes missed (9.0%)
Obama: 11 votes missed (1.7%)

So, in fact, McCain has missed far more votes in three years as Obama has in the same three. I will go ahead and discount your other points by the same margin of error.

[Phreejazz]

First, HRC did not have the nomination stolen from her. She lost a nomination that everyone knew was hers from the beginning. She lost it by bad campaign management, bad money management, and listening to the wrong people at the wrong time. She lost it by not understanding or utilizing the democratic caucus system. She proved she's not capable of running a campaign well, nevermind the country. And Obama is the *last* person the DNC wanted to get the nomination. They knew he was the only democrat that could possibly lose in a year like this, especially against McCain, the only republican who could possibly win. The DNC refrained from pressuring HRC to drop out until long after they should have. Even talking about including primary votes from states that betrayed DNC rules that HRC agreed to shows how desperate they were to give HRC *some* hope. She lost. get over it.

And Bill's comments are asinine after the campaign Hillary and he ran in the primaries. Now, McCain has proven himself a pandering twit and neo-con puppet. A Rove-trained sleaze monger. There's plenty to dislike about that. I once respected him. I no longer do. I wasn't looking for reasons to dislike him, he just shoved them in front of my face on a daily basis until I couldn't help myself.

Finally, we get it Bill. You always wanted to be the national and international celebrity. We saw you play the sax, saw you fawning all over hollywood celebs. We get it and we get that you're p.o'ed because Barack actually has that quality on both the national and international stage. We get the jealousy and understand. Now please sit down and shut up, because your lukewarm support is useless, and likely doing more harm than good for Obama.

Obama '08.

[sal]

Bill Clinton is making himself irrelevant. Unfortunately, he is squandering his celebrity in these rambling appearances.

we are all sick of hearing how Obama "stole" something from Hillary. We VOTED, and he won. If you can't get beyond that, then use your ONE vote foolishly to somehow get revenge. The only problem is that you and your families will be paying the price of another 4 Bush-like years.

Clinton is gambling away the goodwill of his party and believe me, we will remember this in great detail in 2012.

[fsteele]

No, 'we' did not vote for Obama. We were shut out of caucuses, our votes were disallowed in FL/MI, delegates we won were reassigned by a committee .... at the convention no real roll call was done, just a sham of hotel room votes that were just as pressured and rigged as the original caucuses.

We real Democrats, ie Hillary supporters, will remember in November, and in 2012. After Obama becomes the McGovern of 2008, hopefully we can take our party back from the Pelosi/Obama/Brazile faction. If not, McCain and Palin look like a good team for several more terms. If the first woman president turns out to be Palin, good for her!

Too bad Obama didn't take HIllary's offer of Clnton/Obama.