Posted on 09/16/2007 6:05:31 PM PDT by WyCoKsRepublican
60 Minutes aired an interview with former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan this evening. He inferred Nixon was vulgar and profane, Ford was a nice guy, Reagan wasn't that bright and was just an opportunist intested in his public image, and naturally Bill Clinton was the smartest of all that he'd served under. He went on to say how bright Hillary was and that Bush lied to him about the truth of our prosperity. Now folks, I'm considering the source and I knew where this propaganda piece was heading, but it was pathetic. Barf-a-rama.
Alan and Andrea are probably painfully aware of the Clinton body count, around 85 and counting. Seems people with stories to tell about the Clintons suddenly develop bouts of extreme depression and commit suicide, or get in bizarre fatal accidents just before they go public. Or in the case of Ron Brown, there is a bizarre accident and several witnesses kill themselves afterwards.
As for why they land on their feet, I can think of no explanation other than the willfully dishonest and self flagellating qualities of those who vote for them.
Can we keep these gangsters out in 2008? Please?
Here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal's review of his book:
Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a "lifelong libertarian Republican," writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out-of-control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."I didn't see the 60 Minutes piece, but Greenspan sounds like a good Republican to me, albeit one who does not suffer RINOs gladly! His opinions would not be out of place on this forum.
Greenspan also favors nuclear power, predicts carbon caps and taxes won't affect global warming, and says the way to fix income inequality is to improve education, not tax the rich.
As for saying Clinton was the smartest, that is not the same as supporting him. Intelligence simply makes a guy like Clinton more dangerous.
“Greenspan’s book is being published by a corporationafiliated with CBS.
IOW 60 minutes is just a book ad show.”
The same BS Simon & Schuster BS publicity stunt they pulled with the Richard Clarke book in 2004? Pump up the sales with Bush-bashing?
This is really sad, since Greenspan has been a small-government type who read Ayn Rand when he was a teenager. For him to bash Republicans while praising Clinton, of the internet bubble era, is nuts. Its further nuts to discount our current solid prosperity.Either these headlines are seriously distorting what he thinks, or he’s gone senile in his dotage.
“I must have missed those Republican tax cuts.”
1997, Credit newt gingrich and the conservative Republicans for getting that out of Clinton.
” I did see some spending cuts but I only remember the largest tax increase in the history of the world during Clintons tenure.”
the tax increase happened in the first 2 years.
Then Gingrich swept in and we got the lower spending and the tax cuts.
Grrrrr... I hate it when even Republicans are so brainwashed by the MSM they forget the good things the Republicans did... I guess it got to Greenspan too.
I both agree and disagree. I mean I’m no economist, but it seems to me Clinton balanced the budget on the short term revenues gained by so many American factories shutting down and taking their patents and manufacturing knowledge with them to Asia. Stockholders of these companies held onto their shares just long enough to cash in their dividends as the profits soared and they lived off the good name of former USA made products, selling off before most folks realized all that was left of a healthy company was an import/export office in an industrial park somewhere.
Those stockholders paid capital gains taxes, right?
Conversely Bush may be spending like the drunken sailor on liberty, but hasn’t the bulk of it been on military endeavors that were the result of Clinton’s procrastinating problems onto the next administration? Not to mention I believe 9/11 had long term effects on the
Clinton created consumer driven economy we really are in denial in accepting the severity of.
I’m not trying to gloss over Shrub’s shortcomings as much as rationalize that the hell this handbasket headed to was here no matter who carried it the last 7 years.
Anyway if you take the part of the equation of the cost of Iraq against the deficit it’s pretty absurd to think of a downside. Given the “alignment of the planets” present as Saddam was scheming with Chirac and others to wrestle oil commerce hegemony from petrodollar to petroeuro, the way I understand it we simply retained the ability to pay for Iraq the same way we paid for Vietnam:
Just print more money as developing nations need it to pay for oil.
“Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a “lifelong libertarian Republican,” writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb “out-of-control” spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush’s failure to do so “was a major mistake.” Republicans in Congress, he writes, “swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.””
“I didn’t see the 60 Minutes piece, but Greenspan sounds like a good Republican to me, albeit one who does not suffer RINOs gladly! His opinions would not be out of place on this forum.
Greenspan also favors nuclear power, predicts carbon caps and taxes won’t affect global warming, and says the way to fix income inequality is to improve education, not tax the rich.
As for saying Clinton was the smartest, that is not the same as supporting him. Intelligence simply makes a guy like Clinton more dangerous.”
SO IT LOOKS LIKE CBS TOOK A BOOK WITH MANY CONSERVATIVE POINTS AND SOME BUSH-CRITIQUES AND SHOW-CASED IT AS A BUSH-BASHING FIESTA.
The Greenspan era:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2929
MSM BIAS STRIKES AGAIN!
“The Clinton administration was a pretty centrist party,” he said. “But they’re not governing again. The next administration may have the Clinton administration name but the Democratic Party...has moved...very significantly in the wrong direction,” he said, referring to the Democratic Party’s populist bent, especially its skepticism of free trade.
“I’m saddened by the whole political process, and it’s not an accident that Republicans deserved to lose in 2006 — it wasn’t that the Democrats deserved to win,” he said. “When it came time to rule, all of a sudden their ratings collapsed, and the reason they collapsed is they’re just as negative as the Republicans.” - Greenspan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118999003209929296.html?mod=fpa_whatsnews
“I was brought up in the Republican Party of [Barry] Goldwater. He was for fiscal restraint and for deregulation, for open markets, for trade,” Mr. Greenspan said in the interview. “Social issues were not a critical factor. The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize. It’s fundamentally been focusing on how to maintain political power, and my question is, for what purpose?”
He also expresses puzzlement over Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s continued advocacy of antiterrorism policies that have the effect of curtailing civil liberties. If there had been additional terrorist attacks in the U.S. after Sept. 11, 2001, he said, “Cheney’s and Bush’s view would be now far more prevalent” in the U.S. But “when events changed, they held the views that they previously held.” He adds that while he doesn’t like their stance, “I don’t know what should have been done otherwise” because he lacks the access to classified information that they have.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118999003209929296.html?mod=fpa_whatsnews
Greenspan was the “maestro” poster boy for central government planning. He gloated in the interview about his influence over Clinton economic policy.
He said that Ford was “not the smartest”, but that he had the “decency” to say to Greenspan, “Let’s forget facts, for a moment. What’s the ‘right’ thing to do for the economy?” That approach from a government official should make any rational human being shudder. Greenspan loved it, because the President gave him (Greenspan) the power to impose his view of “right” and “fairness”, irrespective of the facts.
Actually, it was the numbers coming out of the Clinton Administration that the Fed, under Greenspan, refused to accept as legitimate...............Greenspan’s memory is fading fast.......
Nixon brought Greenspan and several other Jews from private business into government service in his administration, e.g., Arthur Burns, Herb Stein, Ben Stein, Henry Kissinger, Leonard Garment, Bill Safire. In some instances, Nixon rescued them from an obscurity they richly deserved, e.g., Burns urged wage-and-price controls on Nixon.
As for Nixon and the Jews, all that need be said on this subject was concisely said by Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin: "Clinton's not the best friend Israel ever had. Bush was OK, Carter was God-awful, Reagan was wonderful to us, but Israel's life was endangered only once and the man who saved us was Richard Nixon. Thank God for Richard Nixon."
As for the relative intelligence of the U.S. Presidents of the 20th century, most objective analysts conclude that Nixon was likely the most intelligent of the group. If anything else need be said on this subject, it was said by another, more gifted economist than Greenspan, namely, Milton Friedman who, when asked his opinion of Nixon by Charlie Rose in a PBS interview, replied:
"Nixon was one of the most intelligent men I have ever known."
Amen.
Why would you do that to yourself??
Don’t you know that Watching those types of shows DOES lead to dementia!!
One of the most annoying discussion topics I encounter on liberal message boards is “worst president ever” threads naming Richard M. Nixon. I was only ages 6-11 during his tenure but I as most non-leftist Americans do, remember him to be probably one of the most effective administrators in government of the 20th century. To think they dragged him down and ruined the man over the perception of his dishonesty- the country went along with it because by golly, they would clean up Washington politics once and for all!
We had no idea what a good thing we had and kicked him to the curb.
I didn’t think much about Dick Nixon until one Sunday morning I happened to be up and Meet the Press was on, must have been around 1987 or so. It was not long before his death, and at the time IIRC the Gipper was giving some rather embarrassing performances on Capital Hill, not to cast aspersion on him but he wasn’t too sharp with his defense on Iran-Contra.
A young Tim Russert was guest hosting and had a long interview with the former President and it was both a treat and very sad at the same time. His mind was like walking into a library with every question Russert asked, Nixon’s brilliance, especially in foreign policy, was incredible. I say sad because while Reagan was a great motivator, and inspiring speech giver, I felt if Nixon had been getting grilled on Capital Hill he would be the one embarrassing them. Sharp as a tack.
What struck me was the impression I got of Nixon’s character. I’d almost been taken by his critics’ revisionist impression of him as a dishonest, fearful little man but he was both humble and confident, and above all sincere.
The last thing Russert asked was what his greatest regret of his career was. You might expect “that I didn’t tell the truth right away” or “that I didn’t fight the charges” or some variance of such a selfish hope to repeal a mistake, salvaging his humiliation. No, he said it was his failure to assertively take command of the situation in Vietnam and immediately bomb Hanoi, in defiance of Congress. Had he done so, he said, he would have saved countless thousands of lives of both US soldiers and Vietnamese citizens, a mistake he said that weighed heavy on him since he left office and would until he died.
I thought that was a very selfless thing to hold as your biggest regret, considering his career’s end.
(sorry about the length, thought I’d share a little respect for a man who rarely gets any)
I'm quite sanguine about the prospect that Nixon will rank among the greatest U.S. presidents when this era becomes the subject of genuine historical appraisal, say 25 years from now. The team of Nixon and Reagan was the best setup and closer combination in U.S. history -- they were, in presidential terms, what Duane Ward and Tom Henke were to closing out ball games in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
I don't know if you have read it, but the timely publication of Nixon's The Real War during the spring of the election year (1979) that saw Reagan displace Carter from the presidency not only helped to oust Carter, but it set the stage for Reagan, and served as 'the Bible' for the Reagan Presidency.
No other President's speechwriters had it as easy as Reagan's did: everything Reagan thought and believed is contained in The Real War, including the notion that the Cold War struggle was a contest between "good" and "evil", using those words in their soundest, least polemical sense.
I was gladdened to read in the recently published Reagan Diaries that Reagan was pleased to acknowledge Nixon's assistance in remodelling his approach to the Soviets -- and that he continued to send a birthday greeting to Nixon each year of his presidency. It was of course Nixon, not Thatcher, who convinced Reagan that talking to Gorbachev would have productive results: the INF Agreement and the legitimation of a path-of-no-return for a Soviet implosion under the pressure of U.S. economic might.
It is intriguing that Reagan and Nixon, being such different personality types, did not find each other's company especially congenial, but as recorded in Mitchell's Tricky Dick And The Pink Lady, the two men had such an identity of viewpoint that Reagan, even while Reagan was still a registered Democrat, switched his vehement support for The Pink Lady to Tricky Dick, and he proselytized vigorously in behalf of Nixon's election to the U.S. Senate. That is the stuff of real history.
Funny......NO ONE knew what this guy said when he had a JOB, but now everybody knows what he means!
No. He may have implied that Nixon was vulgar, etc, but he did not "infer" it.
The listener infers things from what is said. The speaker implies things with what he says.
Don’t forget that 60 minutes has a reputation for editing the hell out of interviews to the point that the person being interviewed appears to be giving an opinion 180 degrees off from what they said in totality.
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