Moonage Political Webdream

Former President Bill Clinton was on "This Week", well, this weekend to discuss his efforts for raising money for Katrina victims.  He was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos.  He had a lot to say.  George had a lot to lead him with.  It was insightful for one primary reason.  I’ll get to it just a little later.  First, let’s look at some things Clinton had to say:

• Well, that’s what I think. I think this idea–I think it’s very important that Americans understand, you know, tax cuts are always popular, but about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to people in my income group, the top 1 percent. I’ve gotten four tax cuts.

  They’re responsible for this big structural deficit, and they’re not going away, the deficits aren’t. Now, what Americans need to understand is that that means every single day of the year, our Government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts. We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else.

• They should continue to oppose it ( tax cuts ), and they should make it an issue in the 2006 election, and they should make it an issue in the 2008 election. And they should hope to goodness for the sake of our country that the cows don’t come home before we have time to rectify it.

• On the race issue in New Orleans: Well, I think we did a good job of that. For example, we had the lowest African-American unemployment, the lowest African-American poverty rate ever recorded. We had the highest homeownership, highest business ownership, and we moved 100 times as many people out of poverty in eight years as had been moved out in the previous 12 years……We know what works, and we had a program that was drastically reducing poverty, and they got rid of it. And they don’t believe in it…..

  But I think the fundamental problem there was, it’s like when they issued the evacuation order: that affects poor people differently. A lot of them in New Orleans didn’t have cars. A lot of them who had cars had kinfolk they had to take care of. They didn’t have cars, so they couldn’t take them out.

• On the buses:

  Maybe the Mayor, maybe the Governor, but all I can tell you is that when James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a Federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that. But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people.

• On Iraq: ( On winning the war ) Well, if we do, it’s not working right now, at least. But I know what they say…….

  But the administration, then, decided to launch this invasion virtually alone and before the UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were any weapons of mass destruction there. So I thought that diverted our attention from Iraq and Al Qaeda and undermined the support that we might have had.

• Let’s get the country back together, move the country forward again.

• The country in 2008, and I think in 2006, will be in a desperate mood to come together and move forward. I think they’re going to reject ideological solutions that are not fact-based, and I think they’re going to want a government that works.

Had an awful lot to say.  He even mentioned why he was there.  Can you guess why?  Does that sound like he’s working his butt off raising money for Katrina victims?

He’s working his butt off for sure.  But, while he was chatting with George, it wasn’t for the benefit of New Orleans.  Wanna take a poll on who he was trying to benefit?

Technorati Tags: 2008 Presidential Race

Tags: 2008 Presidential Race

1 Comment »

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed