Is Barack Obama using Bill Clinton as the model for his Presidency?

And is that good or bad?

Bill Clinton had some good results from the tech revolution that took place under his watch. He also made some decisions that totally sucked.

I remember that Bill Clinton did his level best to get along with the Republicans. The harder he tried, the more he got criticized by the Republicans.

Does it seem that Barack Obama is going down a similar road?

man behind the curtain in the Oval Office. Presidents in the past have asked advice of former Presidents but this seems to be more than advice.

Gotcha

just kidding. :evilgrin:

he's not going to give them any ammo by womanizing, that's for sure.

n/t

and raised the concept of triangulation to an art form.

I don't think Obama is trying to be like Clinton. I think he is a pragmatic realist who is trying to advance our society a little to the left of where Bush left it, while dealing with a calamitous financial collapse, peak oil, and the eclipse of American superpower.

He is trying to be a trans formative President, more like Reagan or Johnson than anyone else.

Reagan transformed America into a Conservative paradise. Johnson, with his Great Society Program, tried to transform America to a liberal nation. Of the two, Reagan was more successful.

It ain't hard to see the DLC hands at work moving the strings.

now as it was then.

But look at it this way 82% of Democrats favored a public option and 62% of Republicans favored a public option and the president made it clear from the beginning that at PO was expendable. So, we have no public option.

I still don't understand why so many people thought Obama was a True Progressive and Hillary Clinton a Republican-lite. There was no evidence for either claim. They were very much alike.

list. But it seems the Presidential race was orchestrated from the beginning to have one of them be the final candidate. The rest of it was theater to make us believe we had a choice and that the majority won. The way the other candidates were shoved into the side lines even before they had a chance to debate was obvious and laughable.

and that's important.

They were both quick and smart, unlike any of the Republican candidates.

And that's a good thing.

Obama may be even be more successful, because his opposition is weaker (and more publicly crazier) than Bill's were.

He may be able to get more progressive goals accomplished.

I got fried for saying he reminded me more of Bill Clinton than Hillary did.

But, as you say, that might be a good thing. It just might.

Almost as if it was deliberate.

Guess which president had a bill to sign and who didn't?

Clinton tried to do some good stuff... he hit a lot of walls... if he can point out those walls to Obama, more power to them both.

I'm pretty sure the Republican coddling is coming to an end.

this may be a product of what was left by Bush II. I do not like this as I am anti-war.

However, the Honduras coup, surge in Afghanistan, renewal of the Manas base (that may have resulted in the Krygystan coup), basing agreements in Colombia, and drone attacks in, military funding for, and a new basing agreement on Yemen's Socotra Island seems an expansion of war.

Socotra is interesting and I suggest a Petraeus Socotra Google. We may be setting up an airbase and Navy port there (in addition to the large base already in the region in Djibouti). Socotra sounds like a beautiful and unique place to visit with a rare and sensitive ecology. The Socotra airport has already been improved and there are reports that there has been an US intelligence gathering operation since early GWB.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=63041

Socotra is at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (See map below). It is of crucial importance to the US military. Among Washington's strategic objectives is the militarization of major sea ways. This strategic waterway links the Mediterranean to South Asia and the Far East, through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

snip

The Socotra Military Base

On January 2nd, 2010, President Saleh and General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command met for high level discussions behind closed doors.

The Saleh-Petraeus meeting was casually presented by the media as a timely response to the foiled Detroit Christmas bomb attack on Northwest flight 253. It had apparently been scheduled on an ad hoc basis as a means to coordinating counter-terrorism initiatives directed against "Al Qaeda in Yemen", including "the use American drones and missiles on Yemen lands."

Several reports, however, confirmed that the Saleh-Petraeus meetings were intent upon redefining US military involvement in Yemen including the establishment of a full-fledged military base on the island of Socotra. Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh was reported to have "surrendered Socotra for Americans who would set up a military base, pointing out that U.S. officials and the Yemeni government agreed to set up a military base in Socotra to counter pirates and al-Qaeda." (Fars News. January 19, 2010)

On January 1st, one day before the Saleh-Petraeus meetings in Sanaa, General Petraeus confirmed in a Baghdad press conference that "security assistance" to Yemen would more than double from 70 million to more than 150 million dollars, which represents a 14 fold increase since 2006. (Scramble for the Island of Bliss: Socotra!, War in Iraq, January 12, 2010. See also CNN January 9, 2010, The Guardian, December 28, 2009).

This doubling of military aid to Yemen was presented to World public opinion as a response to the Detroit bomb incident, which allegedly had been ordered by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

The establishment of an air force base on the island of Socotra was described by the US media as part of the "Global war on Terrorism":

"Among the new programs, Saleh and Petraeus agreed to allow the use of American aircraft, perhaps drones, as well as "seaborne missiles"--as long as the operations have prior approval from the Yemenis, according to a senior Yemeni official who requested anonymity when speaking about sensitive subjects. U.S. officials say the island of Socotra, 200 miles off the Yemeni coast, will be beefed up from a small airstrip to a full base in order to support the larger aid program as well as battle Somali pirates. Petraeus is also trying to provide the Yemeni forces with basic equipment such as up-armored Humvees and possibly more helicopters." (Newsweek, Newsweek, January 18, 2010, emphasis added)