(no subject)

[johnny9fingers]

Now when Bill Clinton was impeached, apparently it wasn't over whether he'd spunked over an intern's dress, it was because he had lied about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7105001.stm

I await to see what will happen now after this testimony.
Kenneth Starr, where are you? Surely this should matter at least as much, especially as we're talking of folk involved in something illegal (naming a CIA agent) not just of dubious morality (infidelity, for a given value thereof).

You know something, American hypocrisy about this sort of stuff is going to lose you chaps lots of friends. Either you're consistent about what matters, or you will be looked at as something pretty similar to the Nation states that your administration goes around denouncing.

You can arraign one president for being economical with the truth.
You will not do something about a president and administration that behaves much much worse by your own standards.

And yet you criticise other countries in the hope that they'll change their ways and adopt your system: well from the outside, your present government seems as criminal as that of South Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe....

This isn't a good thing, but I don't expect anyone to deal with it.

 

Comments

[tripinthehead33.livejournal.com]

It won't be dealt with here in a decent fashion until the world uses force to tear down the government set up here, or civil war breaks out. I give it 20 years, either way.

[thaliastrel.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yeah.

[masquedbunny.livejournal.com]

OK, so it's nothing to do with your entry, but--

Happy Birthday!

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[winterlion.livejournal.com]

I know this is being investigated still - and that's why no further charges (nor impeachments) have been held...
... but still... I wish they'd hurry it up!

[desidono.livejournal.com]

Surely you're joking. Impeachment won't happen, there are too many powerful interests that won't allow themselves to be brought down with the Administration. Patrick Fitzgerald couldn't get more than a perjury conviction against Libby for example.

Plus it doesn't make very good politics. The whole of the United States of America doesn't like to admit that it made a mistake, ever, and to impeach the President and/or Vice President would shine a light on a part of ourselves and our national psyche that we'd like to pretend just wasn't there, thank you very much.

What I think the nation as a whole is doing is hoping that the next President will play by the rules and that once the current President and his administration leave office, they won't be able to hide the depths of their transgressions. Maybe there'll even be some prosecutions, but I doubt it.

P.S> The nation is still dealing with the fact that we're not quite #1 anymore. Our military is stretched and breaking, we're locked in a middle eastern quaqmire, our national budget is in the toilet, our economy is falling apart, and don't even get me started on the dollar's slide. It's going to be an interesting time when that realization finally hits hardcore.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Bill Clinton is one only two presidents to have actually gone through the impeachment process, in what is looking now like the Republican party's greatest ever mistake.
Because what happened to Clinton, and what hasn't happened to Bush's administration, is going to hang over every decision they make for some time to come.
They are not a party to be trusted to do anything excepting in their own interests not America's. Being prepared to Impeach Clinton over what was a trifle, and then turning a blind eye to so many....crimes. And the Dems should have a field day about all of this, but are just too cack-handed to manage it properly.

And from the outside it looks like the party of big business doesn't have to obey the rules, but whenever someone like Clinton steps out of line in the smallest and most personal way....

The US is looked on as a country of hypocrites: and worse, exporting it's hypocrisy through invasion and war, and to emphasize the point, invasion mounted on the back of a campaign of disinformation and lying, which is OK as it's not about spunking over an intern's dress....just lying to both houses, the UN, and the rest of the world. The criminality is of a different order of magnitude: but America can't Impeach....because Bush and Cheney aren't Democrats.

Thanks to this administration you've finally done it. Whatever anyone like Sarkozy or Brown may say to the contrary no-one is now on 'your side'. Otherwise sane folk in England want Iran to do better than the US out of the present confrontation. This is madness, but this appears to be what it's come to. The few American-o-philes (of which I count myself) have a bloody hard time defending you chaps.

Sometimes your best friends have to tell you unpleasant truths: get your house in order chaps: please.

[desidono.livejournal.com]

I think this is the part where I call you a surrender monkey and accuse you of being french. Are we still doing that? I forget, the talking points are always shifting.

Seriously though, I hear you loud and clear. The saner part of this country never trusted him from the beginning, but there's also this fantatical right wing neo-con theocracy group that encompasses another third of the country. That leaves the middle group with the ability to sway things, and quite honestly, when they're in freaked the fuck out and/or "what harm could he do" sheople mode, they tend to give the right wingers their ear.

Why? Great question. I can't figure it out either. Again, hopefully the next president will get things back together. I hear that Hillary would send Bill out to help repair the damage and that alone is worth her price of admission.

All I can really hope is that we as a nation have learned from this.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

French.....
Some of my best friends are French, but really....

Nah, the French are okay: they beat us a couple of times, we beat them a couple of times and we both almost lost to Germany a couple of times: but all this was in a very different era. We're almost grown up now and have other forms of national expression.

A country that can nurture a Napoleon, and follow him to Moscow, can't be that inclined to surrender without good reason (overwhelming odds for example). The Brits have an insula stubborness that sometimes means we don't realise that odds are overwhelming, so we keep at it anyway. Sometimes the rest of the world thinks we're brave: when it's often just pig-headed stubborness.

But sometimes we're brave, & so are the French.

[desidono.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of respect for your country as a whole and a big part of that is because you seemed to be the only one of the colonial powers to have your various colonies turn out pretty successfully. Not that there wasn't various badness along the way, but badness of that sort is universal.

If the world is a giant garden, some of the nicest plants came from your seeds.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Nah, we screwed the Pooch over India/Pakistan. Admittedly under pressure from the US to divest ourselves of our Empire (look it up), we withdrew prematurely, allowing India to be partitioned, rather than federated. Palestine too....hasn't been good, but that could be because of the US vested interest in Israel. Kenya. Kenya. Zimbabwe.
The list is endless.
Zimbabwe 'worked' under Ian Smith: it was the breadbasket of Africa. The climate has changed somewhat, but now it cannot feed itself. From a practical position, de-colonisation has merely spread misery and starvation. Either we withdrew without safeguarding and securing proper government, or whatever safeguards we put in place were easily circumvented by corrupt and greedy politicians. Mugabwe went mad, from what I can work out, and now his people starve. And that happened in Uganda too.
The Congo, Central African Republic, and Rwanda are French and Belgian problems, but the C20th relicts of Britain's Empire in Africa and Asia haven't done us proud.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, yeah, they work.
I just pray South Africa doesn't go the same way as Zimbabwe.

[desidono.livejournal.com]

P.S> Go the French!

What is it with European dictators and Moscow though?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Because it's there.