Category: Bill Clinton

Years ago, when I was in a quandary about the direction of my career, I got some sound advice: Never fall in love with a corporation, because it’s constitutionally unable to reciprocate.

This week, the Supreme Court created a limited redress to that issue in Citizens United v the Federal Elections Commission, giving corporations unfettered permission to spend their general funds on the campaigns of politicians they favor, and turning them into “a real live boy” as Slate put it. Who says money can’t buy you love? If the Rehnquist court handed Republicans the presidency in 2000, it’s hard to believe the Roberts court hasn’t handed them the Congress in 2010.

Read more »

It’s not the New Deal. Or the New Frontier. Or the Great Society. Or, heaven help us, the Reagan Revolution. But I’m hoping after last night’s news conference, the passage of a stimulus package in the Senate and today’s rollout of a new TARP bailout that this is the Real Deal—a viable plan to restore some rationality to our economic life together as a nation.

Perhaps after the debacle of the last presidency it’s too easy to give President Obama high marks for engaging in a fruitful discussion of economics, foreign policy and, yes, even A-Rod’s steroid use. (He’s concerned about the message it sends to children.) For showing his understanding of the dynamics of Congressional politics, for using one of his vice president’s gaffes to make a point that no program’s perfect. This give and take went on for a full hour before he thanked the media and a heavy foot could be heard coming down from the podium as he strode off.

Read more »

It’s been a long time since I’ve rested as well as I did last night.

Thank you, Bill Clinton, for delivering a ringing, unequivocal endorsement of Barack Obama. Thank you, Barack Obama, for choosing a running mate who is not afraid to speak truth to power. Joe Biden finally confronted the debacle that Republicans have visited upon the American people. And he addressed directly the “issue” of Barack Obama’s patriotism by introducing his great uncle who helped liberate Buchenwald. Nice touch.

Read more »

It’s primary time in North Georgia where I visited last week. The signs are everywhere, in store windows, on lawns, on the side of the road, and most prominently, in my hometown of Summerville, on the sides of vintage pickup trucks that have been dispatched in the service of the incumbent tax commissioner.

There are also races for sheriff, county commissioner and state legislators. As in many locales these days, none of the signs designates the party of the candidate advertised. You can’t even find the party affiliation of the candidates in the local newspaper, although I assume that it will appear on the ballot.

So it was interesting when I paid a visit to my brother’s drug store across from the Chattooga County courthouse to hear a man delivering packages raving loudly that he didn’t think much of a community that would let liberals park on its streets.

Read more »

It’s rare that I agree with John McCain anymore. I used to think he was sincere about reforming campaign finance (maybe he was for a while) and about not torturing our enemies (he seems to have forgotten what he learned in those Vietnamese camps) or ending tax cuts for the rich (before he needed the rich to fund his campaign). But when he said that the solution to the energy crisis has to be widespread conservation, not simply moral acts of individual conscience, I saw a glimmer of hope that he was ready for the twenty-first century.

And then he endorsed more offshore drilling for oil.

Read more »