Clinton, With a Dig at 'Far Right,' Admonishes Americans to Cooperate

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CNSNews:

(CNSNews.com) – Former President Bill Clinton gave Democrats exactly what they wanted Wednesday night, not only nominating Barack Obama for a second term but giving him a hearty endorsement – and an argument to use against Republicans.

“What works in the real in the real world is cooperation,” Clinton said. (Political cooperation was a recurring theme of his speech.)

“One of the main reasons we ought to re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to constructive cooperation. Look at his record,” Clinton said, noting that Obama “appointed Republican secretaries of Defense, the Army and Transportation. He appointed a vice president who ran against him in 2008, and he trusted that vice president to oversee the successful end of the war in Iraq – and the implementation of the Recovery Act."

In a line that drew laughs, Clinton said Obama appointed to his cabinet several Hillary supporters to “Heck, he even appointed Hillary!”

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Bill Clinton's Sham Night

Wednesday

Now for a few notes on tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

First, last night I watched a breathtakingly good documentary about the financial collapse in America in 2008. It was called "Inside Job." I agreed with virtually every word until the end when it because was too partisan. But it was a magnificent effort and success.

So, I was primed to like Elizabeth Warren, the Native American woman who is running for Senate as a Democrat in Massachusetts. She is a big critic of abuses on Wall Street, as I have been all of my life.

But what a shock when she actually came on. She is a rambling kamikaze of a politician, aiming to blow up everything in her path. She simply made up a bunch of abuses by the GOP, then said she would make them all better. But she never said how. And there is no "how" anyway.

Human beings are greedy and dishonest in many, many cases. They are money crazed. That is the religion in America. Both Democrats and Republicans are under the spell of money. Mr. Obama is at least as much under money's spell as Mr. Bush 43 was or Mr. Romney is. Look at who he has around him: Valerie Jarrett, slumlord, oops, property developer, sorry. Rahm Emanuel until recently. Wildly well paid hondler (a Yiddish word) for Lazard Freres. Got $7 million for basically just making municipal bond "gonnections" (as Meyer Wolfsheim called them in "Gatsby"), Tim Geithner, former head of the New York Fed, who totally bungled the job as the 2008 crash happened, whom Obama made Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, genuine genius but no enemy of Wall Street.

People are people and they like money and Wall Street has a lot of it. They will have a lot of power.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/06/bill-clintons-sham-night

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VINTAGE CLINTON — A GOOD STORY, PLENTY OF POLICY, A LOT OF ‘SHARING’

Charlotte, N.C. — Bill Clinton, the former president that many Democrats freely admit they admire most, gave a spellbinding speech Wednesday night that hailed a president he said is “committed to cooperation” and denounced the “faction that now controls the [Republican] Party.”

He played three roles: He was at once the Democrats’ éminence grise of politics, the expert on all matters economic, and the wily attack dog. His own arithmetic and characterizations, some eyebrow-raisers, will be ample grist for the fact checkers. But overall, he delivered a powerful performance for the Obama campaign.

“President Clinton represents the gold standard for many voters,” former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard told Human Events shortly before the 39th President addressed the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night. “He’ll lay out the strategy we need to follow to win and it will be positive.”

Clinton focused almost solely on economic policy, and in a speech that was reminiscent of his State of the Union addresses, he walked through a laundry list of issues, causes and potential solutions. He emphasized reaching across the aisle, and he tried to make that mantle fit Barack Obama as well.

“Heck, he even appointed Hillary!”, said Clinton, citing his wife’s appointment as secretary of state by her ’08 nomination foe and Obama’s naming of Republicans to his Administration.

Ostensibly on the convention program to place Obama’s name in nomination for a second term, the last Democratic president drew a hero’s welcome. A bit more gaunt, his voice a bit raspier, the 66-year-old Clinton set aside the earlier worries of some he would talk more about himself and his presidency than Obama.

“I want to nominate a man who is cool on the outside, but burns for America on the inside,” said Clinton to wild cheers.

 

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/09/06/clinton-delivers-powerful-performance-defending-obamas-record/

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Bill Clinton: Please don’t judge Obama by the standards he set

Byron York

CHARLOTTE — Campaigning in 2008, Barack Obama set the very highest goals for his presidency. He would not only bring about economic recovery, he would lay the foundation for a new economy, bring Americans together, reduce the rancor of political debate, and even slow the rise of the oceans. Now, as he runs for re-election, Obama is caught in a trap of his own making: Many Americans who voted for him, particularly independents, are judging him not so much by what he has done in office as by what he promised to do. If voters hold Obama to that standard on Election Day, he will lose.

What Obama desperately needs to do in the campaign’s last two months is to lower expectations, to bring the high hopes of 2008 in line with the reality of 2012. That might be an impossible job, but Team Obama realized there was just one Democrat capable of even giving it a shot: Bill Clinton. So the former president was given the spotlight at the Democratic convention in Charlotte Wednesday night, his assignment to convince voters that the standards Obama set for himself in ’08 were unrealistic.

Clinton argued that the economic crisis Obama inherited was so serious that “No president — not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.” Obama will need eight years to finish the job, and even if people don’t see things getting better now, they will if they’ll just vote for Obama. “He has laid the foundation for a new, modern, successful economy of shared prosperity” Clinton said, “and if you will renew the president’s contract, you will feel it.”

“I believe that with all my heart,” Clinton added. He said it with such apparent conviction that it’s likely some longtime Clinton watchers immediately assumed it was not true. And it’s probably not. But with Clinton, who knows? Everyone knows he and Obama have had a difficult relationship. Everyone knows what happened in the 2008 Democratic primaries. But Clinton remains a Democrat, and he said what he needed to say.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/bill-clinton-please-dont-judge-obama-by-the-standards-he-set/article/2507160#.UEiGYRxiJwc