Bill and Hillary Clinton: The Right's Secret Weapons

May 12 2004
Counterbias.com
Scott C. Smith

            It’s no secret that right-wingers love to hate Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Even today, four years after his two-term administration came to an end, conservatives cannot get enough of the Clintons.  Especially George W. Bush.  Man, has Bill Clinton gotten Bush out of some serious jams.  When Bush took office, he got a quick look at that The Buck Stops Here sign on his desk, took it down, smashed it into pieces, smashed the pieces into smaller pieces, stomped on the pieces, and then took all the pieces, dumping them into a Chef Tony miracle blade chopper, and ground up the pieces into an orange smoothie that he then took outside where he dug a hole and dumped the buck-stops-here smoothie into the hole.

            The economy, for instance, was a great opportunity for Bush to lead by example.  And his example?  Blame Clinton.  The Clinton Recession!  It has a nice ring to it.  Sounds important.  Never mind that when Clinton left office, the Federal budget was at a surplus of nearly $300 billion dollars.  Since Bush comes from the School of Voodoo Economics and has embraced deficit spending to the point that the relationship could be called unnatural, the projected budget deficit for this year is going to be $480 billion dollars, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  It’s bad enough I have to pay back a student loan, now I have to help pay back $480 billion dollars.  All I can afford is $50 a month, which means my share of the deficit will be paid off in the year 3000.

            So, we have the Clinton Recession.  The war in Iraq?  Clinton’s fault!  That’s right.  See, Clinton didn’t take Saddam out in 1998.  He just bombed a few aspirin factories.  Although, in fairness, George Bush’s father was in more of a position to remove Saddam from power, following the Gulf war in 1991.  Blame Poppie Bush doesn’t have quite the same ring as Blame Clinton.          

            Next up in the blame game is Osama bin Laden.  As Sean Hannity has said, repeatedly, Bill Clinton was offered bin Laden on a silver platter but refused him.  Clinton had some lame excuse; I think it was something along the lines of “we have no legal reason to arrest bin Laden.”  What Clinton should have done was invent a law that would have allowed him to take bin Laden into custody.  Like Bush does.  The man loves his executive orders.

            While it’s easier to blame Clinton for failing to capture Osama bin Laden, the reality still is the Bush administration has had no luck in finding bin Laden.  This fall will mark the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

            Can you imagine be a conservative pundit in a Clinton-less world?  What would the pundits talks about?  A look through Ann Coulter’s column archives shows she’s mentioned Bill Clinton, either directly or indirectly, in five separate columns.  This year.  Coulter, in fact, owes her career to Bill Clinton.  Hey Ann, when are you going to thank Bill for making you the success you are today?

            Let’s not forget Clinton-love Sean Hannity, who mentions the former President on an almost daily basis.  Hannity’s favorite Clinton quote is “…the Sudan offered the Clinton administration bin Laden on a silver platter.”  Sean says this a lot, as if he thinks by repeating it over and over and over and over again it’ll become true.

            The reality is, Clinton is a dream come true for the likes of Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.  Not to mention Hillary Clinton, who has become the official nemesis of the right wing.  Over at the premiere web set for conservative debate and discussion, the Free Republic, the Clintons are discussed so often that they’re actually a keyword for the site’s search engine. 

            You can bet if Bush gets elected to a second term, and the economy is still in the toilet, Republicans will continue to talk about the Clinton Recession. 

            I think right-wingers need Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Without them, conservatives would slip into obscurity, as they’d actually have to talk about different subjects, something they have not been able to do since 1993.  I suspect if that happens Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the scores of other conservative pundits will have to dig deeper into history.  And when that happens, watch out, Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy.  Unless…. maybe Chelsea or Roger Clinton will enter politics!  I’ll say a prayer for my conservative friends.  Perhaps the Clinton legacy will last for decades to come, and the Sean Hannity of 2050 can say “Your great-grandfather was handed bin Laden on a silver platter and refused him!”

            The future does look bright.