For the above “Clinton did it too” posters . . . I’ve seen variations on this theme at several sites, but most of the locations were too amped up on hate to have serious dialogue. I’ve always wanted to ask the logic of that position. Presuming you are all correct, and the Clinton Administration was the Fountain of All Evil (something I’m not affirming or denying), how does it make W look good to compare him to Clinton?

“W politicized the Surgeon General’s Office!!”
“Oh yeah? Well, Clinton politicized the mailroom!!”
“. . . and that was a bad thing, right? Something you wanted him to be punished for, right?”
“Of course!! And that’s why W’s doing the same is totally not a bad thing!”
“?????”

To me, that defense of the administration damns it more than exculpates it (if I correctly guage your collective opinion of Slick Willie as “poisonous pond scum”). Even assuming Clinton was worse (again, not for or against, just assuming), the argument doesn’t help W:

“W, you took my wallet!!
“Oh year? Clinton robbed a bank!!”
” . . . so, I still want my friggin’ wallet back!”

It just doesn’t make sense to me, any more than the “everybody does it” defense. I don’t know where you all live, but here (in NE PA) everybody speeds on the highway. Everybody, with no exceptions. If Mr. Quota decides to pull you over and write you a speeding ticket, “everybody’s doing it” does not get you out of trouble — in fact, I believe they call it a “confession”.

I’m not trying to troll, I’m honestly wondering why you offer these arguments. Let me rephrase that — why does either “Clinton was worse” or “everybody does it” seem to exonerate W’s behavior for you?

Isn’t there a difference between “political” and “partisan”?
Isn’t there a differnce between “governmental” and “partisan”?

I hope there is still one in the USA.

If not you really are lost.

I really hope that judges in the USA still judge from law, which is something governmental, but not partisan.

And I also hope that taxes, although political, are designed and raised not according to partisan rules.

And I hope that facts are allowed to remain facts independent whether they fit into the partisan view of one party or not.

The problem here is not that government is getting politicized, but that government *must* politicize everything it touches, sooner or later. We have lots of examples, from education to the post office, of what happens when the government runs things. We even see the pattern in industries that are nominally private but effectively government-directed — health care, for instance. (As a Canadian, I’m just appalled by how many Americans still think that the solution to the latter is to take the 90% government-controlled mess you have now and make it 100%. You folks better smarten up soon, or our horror stories will be yours.

Do you intend to share the drugs you are on ?

Remember WHoDB ? The White House DataBase used by the Clintons used to fill political slots and solicit contributions (Hatch Act ?).

I will grant you that this may be the clumsiest handling of political appointments/firings, but your basic assertion is quite myopic.

(subborn = subdue?)

That reminds me of our two European examples where this establishment of Real Leadership worked: Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Democracy works due to checks and balances. Among them: the stability and non-populist structure of bureaucracy. The government belongs to the bureaucracy, indeed - PARTLY. It has to, it cannot be different. Otherwise things won’t work.

Really, I don’t want PEOPLE (in form of a mob) to decide directly and immediately, as they like. Our complex democratic procedures help to avoid short-sighted and partisan and often extremist and incompetent mob decisions. And it is good that a President is bound to implementation of his policy by a bureaucracy which has its own mind and leverage.

Usually, bureaucracy is more competent than the President or the people who voted him (or maybe soon: her) into office.

We should not try to establish a Mob President to rule us.

Yet I agree of course that bureaucracy has to be controlled, too, and has to be corrected, and has to be led. But please not by a mob, or by a President who can act like a King.

I doubt that those who only have contempt for bureaucracy can improve bureaucracy. They will only damage it further, poison it, abuse it for their partisan purposes - as we can observe.

On the longer run people’s will does prevail. Provided people really have a will and insist in this will.

Iraq withdrawal may become an example.

But it is important also that the President does not simply follow the polls. Bush is right insofar he says that government has to look farther than the poll opinion of the people.

(I do not want to defend here Bush’s decision to stay his Iraq course which is plain wrong; I defend the principle that government has to keep SOME independence from polls - as well as from bureaucracy, but “some independence” does not mean absolute or pure or complete independence: it’s all about the complex work of checks and balances in which ALL powers are involved. — Such reflections may be too complicated for binary thinkers. For Manicheans of Good And Evil.)

If the Dept. of Education actually worked, then the reading levels would be far higher than they were in 1958 when Johnny couldn’t read. After tens of billions of dollars thrown at this, the reading level remains constant with only minor deviations and always moderates back to the mean. Yes, children do not learn to read any better today than they did in 1958. Instead of working to solve the problem, once and for all, the Dept. of Education exists to *continue* the problem, along with all the support personnel and entire industry to propose ’solutions’ that never get anywhere.

In the arena of Foreign Policy, we now have bureaucrats seeing Administrations *not* as their boss, but just a temporary fixture which is worked around while the oh-so-wise bureaucrats put forth the ‘real’ foreign policy of the Nation. A policy ‘wonk’ is adored, because the bureaucracy can work wonders to make such individuals stagnate and get into bureaucratic blind alleys that it isn’t funny. Meanwhile the more ‘general’ sort of manager is ‘buffered’ from the actual decisions going on and given little insight or say into how they happen. This is not only a Foreign Policy problem but is across the entire civil service. Presidents are temporary, and if you just outwait them then the ‘real work’ can be done, don’t mind the fact that it isn’t what the President wants…. temporary…

That is why when Ronald Reagan was elected, everyone thought he was going to bring a chainsaw to the Federal Government, maybe kill off some large departments and stop the Dept. of Education before it actually got off the ground. Instead he brought the fertilizer and watering hose and planted some kudzu.

Personally, I would prefer that a President make sweeping changes so that the bureaucracy actually needs to adjust to a new Administration. To do that, however, requires that Presidents actually exercise the one great authority given to the office, by Congress, in the 1970’s. That is the power over the Senior Service in Agencies which is *not* part of the Civil Service. All those Senior Executive Service (or Intelligence Service) positions are one year contracts, renewable for up to four years before renegotiating. Yes, don’t renew the contracts en mass: require an SES ‘reset’ without discrimination for any part of the Federal Government and have the senior bureaucrats report in the interim.

Even better is something else the Federal Government can do on any of its contracts: Terminate for Convenience (T4C). And because it is the government, it does not have to pay a single, red cent on a T4C.

From these two things there is a concept that can be created by any President who actually wants to control the Government, not be tweaking around the edges: Fire until competence is found.

Want to stop leaks at the CIA? Let the SIS know that this concept will now be implemented across the board: one leak, they all go. Ditto DoD, State, Justice…

Really, I don’t mind political appointees. It is the ones who try to worm their way into the civil service and then fortify their political positions that I detest. They make work harder to get done by trying to enforce their own politics downwards from a civil service position, which are damned hard to end. Don’t give them the opportunity and clean sweep the lot of them, top to bottom. Yes, this will cause some chaos… but it will remind the bureaucrats *who* they work for: the elected representative of the American People via the Constitution, The President.

Continuity has gotten stagnation and made it so the ‘politicization’ is seen as a ‘bad thing’. You ELECTED a President based on political outlook and should vote that way… you should also want the Federal Government to be limited, so that political patrons put into Senior positions know their butt is going to be out the door when the President goes. Limit the opportunity for mischief. And force the bureaucracy to actually have to expand the way it thinks and does work so as to adjust to different outlooks. That is why you vote a new President into office: to change the course of the Nation. Instead we get minor deviations on a course set just like the Captain of the Titanic set it.

In *front* of the iceberg.

Can’t hit it! No! That costs money! Breaks a few dishes! Might be some strained muscles by the passangers or even a broken arm or leg! Much, much, much safer to avoid the iceberg….

The sound that was heard was multiple containment sections being ripped open by the unseen part of the iceberg. But it was a great course right up to that point! The paint job was so very safe… right up to when it wasn’t. Then *no one* could save it.

You can’t get a good and efficient government by putting it in charge of outlook.

You can get one that is flexible and adjusts to the changing Will of the People, however… but some of that messy politics just might intrude.

Choose carefully, we can no longer stop the ship, the course of the iceberg and the mass of the ship means forward. Some messy politics all over? Or a government that no longer sees a need to adjust to the People? Best decide soon… the options are ever more limited as time goes.

It is just your innuendo that she considered herself as being harrassed.

Sure, Clinton lied and committed perjury - I conceded that, and I also concede that he tried to obstuct justice in this case.
DKM, read my post again! I conceded a lot, maybe more than I should.

So now, DKM, answer my challenge: Clinton was right to do so, because he had to fend off an intrusion into his private life.

In Germany, by the way, we do not allow oaths in such cases - because we consider it comprehensible or even your right to lie - in such a case.

But no matter. History, like science, is all malleable in the service of the GOP.