Wyatt earp
Diamond Member
- Apr 21, 2012
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Well I have to give this opinion piece credit for telling somewhat the truth, I remember when he was getting impeached and Bill always calling Newt talking to him about how he could make America better..
Bill Clinton Had a Strategy. Trump Is Doing the Opposite.
Donald Trump may have no impeachment war room, but he does have an impeachment . He deployed it this past weekend.
It’s the same strategy he brought to his presidential campaign, then to his presidency: all base, all the time. In 1998 and ’99, Bill Clinton directed his anti-impeachment messaging to voters who did not necessarily approve of him, but who feared impeachment as disruptive. Trump’s message is aimed only at his most all-in supporters, those who see him as a victim of plots and persecution by shadowy, unseen forces.
On December 19, 1998, the day the House voted to impeach Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice, he read a short statement at the White House. He urged the Senate to adjudicate the impeachment in a “reasonable, proportionate, and bipartisan” manner. He tried to appeal to a greater good, saying, “We must get rid of the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship, obsessive animosity and uncontrolled anger. That is not what America deserves. That is not what America is about.”
That is not the tone we’ve heard from Trump in the past 48 hours. It’s as if the Trump campaign has read the Clinton playbook, and at every turn opted for the opposite.
At this distance of 20 years, we can reconstruct what might be called “the Clinton rules”:
1. Don’t be defined by impeachment.
2. Express contrition for proven wrongdoing. After Clinton’s early denials of a relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky were exposed as false, he expressed contrition for his offenses while arguing that impeachment represented an excessive response. “I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,” he declared at the White House prayer breakfast on September 11, 1998. “It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.”
Bill Clinton Had a Strategy. Trump Is Doing the Opposite.
Donald Trump may have no impeachment war room, but he does have an impeachment . He deployed it this past weekend.
It’s the same strategy he brought to his presidential campaign, then to his presidency: all base, all the time. In 1998 and ’99, Bill Clinton directed his anti-impeachment messaging to voters who did not necessarily approve of him, but who feared impeachment as disruptive. Trump’s message is aimed only at his most all-in supporters, those who see him as a victim of plots and persecution by shadowy, unseen forces.
On December 19, 1998, the day the House voted to impeach Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice, he read a short statement at the White House. He urged the Senate to adjudicate the impeachment in a “reasonable, proportionate, and bipartisan” manner. He tried to appeal to a greater good, saying, “We must get rid of the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship, obsessive animosity and uncontrolled anger. That is not what America deserves. That is not what America is about.”
That is not the tone we’ve heard from Trump in the past 48 hours. It’s as if the Trump campaign has read the Clinton playbook, and at every turn opted for the opposite.
At this distance of 20 years, we can reconstruct what might be called “the Clinton rules”:
1. Don’t be defined by impeachment.
2. Express contrition for proven wrongdoing. After Clinton’s early denials of a relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky were exposed as false, he expressed contrition for his offenses while arguing that impeachment represented an excessive response. “I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,” he declared at the White House prayer breakfast on September 11, 1998. “It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.”
