Posted on 03/03/2012 4:56:33 AM PST by rickmichaels
Do not think for a moment that former U.S. president Bill Clinton has forgotten the messy campaign four years ago that put Barack Obama in the White House and left his wife with a supporting role.
It would seem the most popular Democrat in the United States believes not only that revenge is best served cold, but that it is also best served subtly yet pointedly.
In using a speech earlier this week at an energy conference near Washington to state the Keystone XL pipeline could be quickly resurrected with a minor route change, Clinton left Obama looking like Mr. Lonely, his only friends being a bunch of well-heeled Hollywood eco-loons who are using him like a cheap extra.
He was making him look even more isolated.
When the speaker causing him grief is not only a former two-term Democratic president but also the husband of the most powerful person in the Obama administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, there is no such thing as unintended consequences.
Every word of his speech would have been plotted.
So when Clinton laid out a plan this week on how he could see Obama changing his mind and approving the controversial pipeline linking the oilsands to the refineries in Texas, it pushed Obama into a very uncomfortable corner.
All TransCanada had to do in its original application was to submit a plan that would take the pipeline around the delicate Sandhills aquifer in Nebraska, said Clinton, and the deal would have been done like dinner. Even Obama would have to agree, Clinton speculated.
At this point, Obama was no doubt squirming. He was being set up.
It was obviously no coincidence, as well, that Clinton’s speech in Washington came exactly a day after leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Americans “deserve” the Canadian oil that Keystone would deliver.
“Deserve” may be too strong a word, but we got his drift.
And the timing was perfect. With less than 24 hours, the leading Republican and the most prominent Democrat voice in America had upped the pressure on the president to pull a 180 on the Keystone XL.
Will he continue to hold off until after the election?
We’re taking bets.
It was always going to be approved. He is waiting for the summer so he gets maximum political effect. There is nothing he does without an ulterior motive.
Well, Obama thinks they don't, obviously.
Imagine a country with cheap, unlimited energy. Industry and wealth would pour into such a country. The economy would soar.
You can call Slick Willie many things (and I have...), but you can’t call him stupid.
How any American president could think twice about the benefits this pipeline would bring to both our countries beggars belief.
More revenge, please!
Hard to Judge what is going on here.
Hillary seems to be 100% behind Obama, and yet Bubba pulls a slicker on him.
When was the last time Hillary and Bubba got together?
Think about it. This oil would displace Venezuelan oil now being imported into the gulf refineries. You get all the construction jobs. It would not cost the taxpayers a dime. 600,000 B/D might even have a downward effect on prices.
Think about how secure this supply would be. Canada would NEVER stop the oil. The reserves in the tar sands will last longer than the lifetime of the pipeline. The pipeline would be immune to terrorist attack, at least on the Canadian side. You get a supply of oil so secure you could sell off the SPR.
I do not subscribe to conspiracies. However, I think there is something deeper in this decision.
“You can call Slick Willie many things (and I have...), but you can’t call him stupid.”
It all depends on your definition of stupid.
This is a no-brainer. It didn’t get picked up anywhere.
All Clinton did was ensure that the environmental base stick with Obama. The reason Obama said no is because he is trying to get this to go through some unionized states.
That’s the negotiation.
According to Howard Dean, Bill Clinton represented “the Republican wing of the Democrat party”———but he campaigned for Gray Davis (imagine if a Republican was named Gray instead of Blue!) against Arnold Schwartzenegger.........broke his promise to cut middle class taxes—even when we had a budget surplus and recession was hitting.......
so were there really any “new Democrats”?
Also, Reagan left office with the capital gains tax rate at 28%-—which was equal to the TOP marginal tax rate at 28%........which was part of a revenue neutral tax reform which Clinton’s own party made with Reagan......but
Clinton cut the cap gains tax to 20%, eliminated the cap on Medicare taxes, taxed dividends as regular income an raised the top marginal tax rate to 39.8%-—which was DOUBLE the cap gains tax rate-—thus creating a huge tax loophole that made it possible for wealthy people to pay less than they paid under Reagan——thus Clinton’s economics really didn’t make much sense at all.
In Clinton’s first term when Republicans argued that his tax increase would chill economic growth-—Clinton argued that he wanted slower growth-——that “slow, steady growth is better than fast growth”.......but he cut the cap gains tax in 1997-—which led to the boom and bust which temporarily led to a surplus and 3.7% unemployment rate—which ended with the Greenspan rate hikes. Nasdaq stock market index crashed by more than half in Clinton’s last year——after Greenspan raised interest rates.
So it was fast growth that balanced the budget under Clinton but left us with the very bust he warned against when he argued for slow steady growth.
He should have kept his middle class tax cut pledge, because the stock market was doing quite well before the cap gains tax cut in 1997——and hasn’t been anything but volitile ever since.....then President Bush slashed cap gains tax again.
Clinton’s original economic theory utterly failed-—which is a point nobody has mentioned or exploited.
Clinton said that the economy depends on housing, which depends on interest rates, which depends on deficits and surpluses-—which is how he justified his tax increase to “balance the budget, but not on the backs of the poor or middle class” ( which was a slam against Reagan for cutting the top tax rate to 28% from 70% while raising the gas tax and Social Security tax so high it ran a revenue surplus for 30 years and created the SS “trust fund” to pre-fund the Boomer’s retirement.)....
Anyway-—the Clinton tax increase was meant to lower interest rates to drive the housing market-—but interest rates did NOT fall after Clinton came into office, therefore he found other artificial ways to juice housing——yet Krugman has called the Reagan economy an “inflationary bubble”-—even though gold and gas prices fell under Reagan.
Republicans better learn their history so they can start getting the middle class behind them.
One thing they can mention is how gas prices FELL from $1.11 down to $1.07 during those 12 years of Reagan and Bush——who believed in a “strong and stable dollar” compared to W Bush and Obama-—who believed in letting the dollar weaken and float to increase exports.
If you listen to Democrats, they support a demand side fiscal policy against a supply side monetary policy and it makes no sense when they constantly contradict themselves.....
because one minute they claim that the weaker dollar will lead us out of recession, then they claim that consumer spending from only the middle class will lead us out of recession, but then they argue with Bernanke when he says that only housing and low interest rates will lead us out of recession and fuel recovery......
...except that Clinton argued that “budget deficits crowd out private investment and cause inflation”-—ie that housing would drive the economy thru balancing the budget to drive down interest rates.
Why don’t Republicans go to town blasting Clinton and Obama for their economic theories and——ask “WHY?” were Clinton and the Democrats so hard on HW Bush for “deficits” during the early 1990s, but so light on Obama——especially because
it was BILL CLINTON HIMSELF who argued that deficits kill the housing market by driving up interest rates!!!!????????
and look at interest rates in 1990 under HW Bush—especially the Fed Funds rate. Bush complained that Greenspan kept interest rates too high after he raised taxes to fix the deficit as demanded by Democrats and the press in 1990-—when gold fell from $500 to $300 dollars an ounce..........but Bush was called an antisemite anglo for criticizing a Jewish banker.......but imagine if HW Bush had lower interest rates in 1991? Where were Democrats and Krugman and the media in 1990 when Bush was calling Greenspan too tight with monetary policy-—considering that the Left has supported Bernanke’s aggressive easing and zero percent interest rates-—but Krugman has argued now that Bernanke is too tight????? Where was Krugman in 1991?????
You are right and I’d bet the farm the clintons have business interests that would benefit with the pipeline.
These people live on the "public teat", ride in limousines, never have to pump their own gas and they Don't Care how much they hurt the American Consumer, as long as they get their way.
Same goes for healthcare. They'll have their own system, but they know best for You!!!
For people who castigated the Slick One for being a leftist, he was never that. He’s always been an opportunist. His crime is that he occasionally knew the right course of action, but he always put his finger in the wind to determine how to act on a particular issue. Sometimes he would do the right thing (cut capital gains taxes), and sometimes he wouldn’t. The real leftist ideologue or idiotlogue is currently ensconced in the Oval Office.
A decrease in supply will drive up the price.
Hillary’s chances of getting the RAT nomination in ‘16 are increased significantly if there is an incumbent Republican in the White House then.
Nine months before Chelsea was born...
You can’t fool me that was Web.
Good ol' boy Bill jus' getting back at Obama for taking Hillary out. Kewl!
I think the Chicago political mob had smoking gun evidence about some of the Arkancides.
That kept the Clintons from using their vaunted private detective operation to expose Baraq’s falsified past.
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