Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 00:13:22 EST
From:         Frank <ST403231@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Clinton's 'Mandate'
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

>From:         "(Jim Thomas)" <jthomas@NETSYS.COM>
>
[part of diatribe deleted]
>The special
>interest groups that Bush accused Clinton of pandering to were merely
>the vast majority of people who feel dildoed by the repubs.
>No single administration can solve all problems, but after nearly
>a quarter century of republican rule (carter was little more than a
>care-taker prez), the country has slid backwards, the Supreme Court
>(thanks to Bush) is the worst in this century, and Bush especially
>played on social divisiveness. The message couldn't be clearer--reverse
>Reagan/Bush policies.

Um, call me crazy, Jim, but hasn't the House been under the control of
the Democrats continuously since January of 1955?  And hasn't the Senate
also been in Democrat hands just as long with the exception of the
first six years of the Reagan administration?  And isn't the House
empowered by the Constitution to originate all bills having to do
with revenue?  And doesn't the Senate have to confirm all major
appointments made by the Executive branch?  And don't *both* houses
have to pass a bill before it has a chance of becoming law?  So were
these people sitting on their hands for all these years while Reagan
and Bush visited every imaginable evil upon our country, unable to
stop them?  Poor, poor Congress.  It must have been so hard for them.

Let me out myself (along with Steve and Ruth) as one of the minority
among us to have cast my ballot for the lying wimp with the grandmotherly
wife.  Not because I particularly like the man, but because I honestly
think that he would do less damage in a second term than Clinton is
likely to do in one.  First time I ever failed to vote for the winner,
in fact.  But there is consolation in all of this.  Now the entire
responsibility for the deficit, for the state of the economy and
for just about everything else rests squarely on the shoulders of
Tom Foley, George Mitchell, and, yes, William Clinton.  No blaming
the mess on the other party.  If, in three or four years time, Los
Angeles and Chicago and New York have continued to decline, then,
using the same logic applied earlier by Alec and endorsed by
others, it will be because the Democrats hate the cities.  If the
deficit is still as large as it is today, it will be because the
Democrats didn't use our money and other resources wisely.  If the
environment continues to deteriorate, it will be because the Democrat
Administration and the Democrat Congress failed to do anything about
it.  No more Other Guys to hide behind.  I join Steve in hoping,
contrary to my expectations, that they will do a good job.  But
unlike some of you, I am not toasting this day or smugly congratulat-
ing myself on the restoration of democracy or on getting <my> country
back.

I have to agree with you on the Supreme Court, though.  It is galling
to me that the crowd that complained for years that the (liberal)
majority was legislating from the bench has started to do the same
thing, now that they have the requisite five votes.  Somehow whores in
black robes are more offensive than the other kind.  Antonin Scalia
scares the daylights out of me.  (Sandra Day O'Connor, on the other
hand, seems to me to be an exception.  In the last 15 or so decisions
I've followed, I agreed with her on about 12.  Reagan's first appoint-
ment to the court was far  awayway his bes  )  Still, I fail to
see how Clinton's plan to have all his nominees pass a litmus test
regarding Roe v Wade will help put better jurors on the Court.
Jurors many people on this list will approve of, yes, but better
arbiters of the Constitution?  I don't see it.

Anyway, if nothing else, a Clinton administration may not be the
worst time to be a college professor...

Cheers to some, consolation to the rest.

Frank