Mike wrote:
> I think that he is forgetting about the many ways in
> which politicians are able to abuse the campaign fundraising system
> (and the legal defense fund system) as well as other mechanisms for
> trading on celebrity and lobbying after leaving office, such that the
> President's official income is to be considered a mere stipend
> compared to their real income. In the 9 months since the election, the
> Clintons have cleared over $20 million together, nearly half of which they
> earned prior to leaving office, and the rest while Hillary is an active US
> Senator. Their combined legal bills never amounted to more than a
> few million.
No Mike, I'm not forgetting. In case you don't know we actually
have a U.S. Senator from WA that used her own .com money to get
elected and ran a very close race while pointing that out.
I suppose you think it should be that way and then we certainly
would have a government "of the people" (sarcasm intended).
[I know its not really "of the people" now, but I wouldn't want to
see what the country would look like if we required that "average"
people run it (though I think we will get to see over the
next 3 years)].
Now I think the point should be that whatever the Clintons are
making they aren't collecting it from you or I (to the best of
my knowledge) and will not until they run for something again
and potentially use matching campaign funds. Why don't you
criticize Madonna from extorting all that money from her fans that
buy her records or go to here concerts? If the Clintons hold
a dinner and people want to go to here them speak or even shake
their hands *What the blazes is the matter with that?* They
have skills, they have insights, they have connections, if
people want to pay to have access to those I don't see anything
wrong with that.
My suspicion would be that any extra campaign funds will end up
going into a Hilary bid on the White house in '04 or '08.
So the money you are talking about isn't really going to
"The Clintons", its going to see if they can put a woman
in the White House.
> Why would someone spend tens of millions of dollars to get elected
> president, a position that only pays a measely $400k/year, if they
> were not planning on stealing/soliciting bribes to get it all back
> before they leave office?
Ego and ambition perhaps? Patriotism? A belief that one of them
might do a better job than the other yoyos up for the position?
I have a hard time believing Mike that you think every politician
is a crook. Or is it just the Clintons?
Oh yes, and just for the record, I'm not a big fan of the
Clintons. I voted for Perot.
J.R. Molloy wrote:
> it's also true that they are not held accountable for their failures,
> dishonesty, broken promises,
Huh? What was the whole impeachment trial all about?
If that isn't an attempt to hold someone accountable, then I
don't know what is.
It should never have gone to trial in the first place.
Sex should remain a topic for the participants and not
public consumption. If you thought Clinton should have
been impeached, then there is a long line of previous
presidents you think should have been impeached as well.
> and endangering the public with acts of war (to deflect attention from
> their failures, dishonesty, broken promises, etc.). [snip]
> but also the millions of tax dollars they waste deploying troops
> unnecessarily to foreign countries. Private sector CEOs don't usually get
> away with that level of organized criminal activity.
I presume that we are talking about Kosovo here (or are we looking
back to Bosnia?). I tend to ignore politics because I've got better
things to do. But in both situations I think we made the right
decision. It is unextropic to let people die if you have a reasonable
chance at stopping it at a affordable cost. I'll point out
(a) we have a volunteer army folks -- the people in it know
what they are there for; (b) In both cases we seem to have
been fairly successful at stopping the bloodshed; (c) For the
first time in history we get to put some of the idiots who
started the mess on trial -- which may make future idiots think
twice before starting such insanity; (d) we may have averted the
development of an even larger conflict that would have required an
even more significant intervention at a higher cost of life.
(Or are we forgetting the lessons of WWI and WWII already?)
Now *IF* there is a blood on the hands of the President its for
*NOT* intervening in Africa when we could have. It it isn't
on his hands alone because the Europeans could have done something
as well and did not.
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:24 MDT