Welcome to our live chat session! While we wait for Robert Scheer to arrive, feel free to chat amongst yourselves and/or submit questions.
11:06 Comment From erniesfo
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:06:34 GMT
Comment: Dear Bob - 3 topical questions: 1) What do you make of the Administration’s silence re the threat posed to Net Neutrality by the Google-Verizon Deal?; 2) What do you make of the administration’s rebranding eh, “remissioning” of the Iraq war?; 3) Does it appear a little early for Obama & BP to take a victory lap in the Gulf?
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11:07 Comment From erniesfo
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:07:00 GMT
Comment: One other - on point question: What do you feel is the functional purpose of the Dems’ nostalgia for Clinton given his economic record - accelerating the financial deregulation and deindustrialization of the US and the end of welfare as we know it, which, it must be said, targeted poor (mostly white) women and children?
11:09 Robert Scheer
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:09:32 GMT
Comment:
Well as I said in my column, it’s a dangerous gimmick. We see it on the Republican side in the constant celebration of Reagan, and the radical deregulation that Clinton implemented was the Reagan revolution, the end of Reagan’s 8 years; he [Clinton] signed off on financial bills that stiffened, it fulfilled the promise. So yes I think it very dangerous to try and celebrate Clinton.
11:10 Truthdig
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:10:01 GMT
Comment:
Question from: Northamerican: “I can`t believe your comment on JFK! Do a little research, Scheer… My question would be ... is it your Israel connections which make you hate the man? Most of us “goyum” who studied the history of JFK and his concerns of the khazars know better.”
11:11 gudoleboy via twitter
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:11:17 GMT
Comment:
Clinton wedding-2 million, Jenna Bush wedding 100K - Republican Party is party of the rich??? Who has class? Taste?
11:12 stuartvernon via twitter
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:12:10 GMT
Comment:
RT @baroqueartisan: @Herfarm FACT—>George Bush & his Republican Congress destroyed the Clinton Surplus~What do you say to that?
11:13 Robert Scheer
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:13:51 GMT
Comment:
I don’t get the question; what are you talking about? I don’t think I have a bias. My writings raise important questions, the need for state solutions. The question on JFK, and certainly when the man was alive I liked and supported him, but the fact is that JFK did things his predecessor Dwight Eisenhower refused to do, which was to send troops to Vietnam. He called them flood control advisory and it was under JFK that the CIA killed Ngo Dinh Diem. When you look back at the history of the Vietnam War, JFK ... and it killed 3.5 Indochinese. As far as Cuba, it was JFK who decided to invade Cuba, and again, what business did we have? Castro’s great crime at that time was to nationalize exploitative American properties. We still have a strange relationship with Cuba, whereas communist China underwrites our debt. Yes, I would criticize JFK on those accounts very seriously.
11:14 Comment From Tom Allen
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:14:11 GMT
Comment: I lived in Capitol Hill during the dark days of Clinton. It was Clinton who finally convinced me that there was no place for me in American mainstream politics. I now live in Canada and work for a real honest-to-god social democratic political party (the NDP). It’s easy for much of the electorate to feel nostalgia for the Clinton administrations because so many of them are so completely tuned out. How big a role does basic ignorance of the details of actual Clinton policies do you think fuels this nostalgia?
11:15 Comment From Tom Allen
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:15:48 GMT
Comment: By the way—I enjoy reading your columns regularly and send them out to my colleagues soon after reading them. Thanks for your work.
11:15 Comment From EJK
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:15:52 GMT
Comment: Bob, big fan.
11:16 maxpeppertree via twitter
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:16:17 GMT
Comment:
If HILLARY CLINTON has plans for 2012 she needs to resign because if anything happens in the world, she will be blamed for it just like Bush.
11:18 Spectricide via twitter
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:18:48 GMT
Comment:
RT @MWJ1231: RT @SgBz: When they had the chance, instead of using it to pay down deficit, Repubs squandered Clinton surplus on tax cuts for rich #p2#tcot
11:20 campfiresteve via twitter
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:20:40 GMT
Comment:
Bob Scheer puts the “Clinton Royalty” into perspective. FI: “Without Lewinsky’s stained dress we’d have had Al Gore.” http://bit.ly/9vVmdm
Click here to check out Robert Scheer’s new book, “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.”
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“I’m not ready to give up on Obama,” Mr. Scheer says.
I just wonder when do you think it might be the right time to give up on Obama.
We know how he got to power, we know about the corrupt party he chose to run
with, and we know about some of the decisions he’s made. Would it be the right
time to give up 10 years from now when it all becomes merely interesting history?
This is not the right kind of political analysis.
“Well first of all, I am not ready to give up on Obama.”—Robert Scheer
Attacking Bill Clinton is helpful in cases of avoidance and denial isn’t it?
The above comment lacks of the courage conviction not too mention
intellectual consistency.
Arguably there is not much of a difference between Obama and Clinton, both
worship at the alter of corporate interests, yet according to your impassioned
piece, it is Clinton alone who must be erased, if not purged from national
memory. The language reserved for Clinton of punishment, suppression,
removal, cauterizing, is all rather unpleasant and scarily matter of factly
authoritarian. How easily this language drips from Robert Scheer’s pen. I don’t
know where this screed leads. How does this directly help the progressive
cause? I would not trust anyone left or right prone to such emotional, almost
ritualized vengefulness. I also think it is simply mean spirited to use someone’s
daughter as a foil to make a political point. The ends justifies the means is
rarely a good model to follow. It always ends in tears for all concerned.
Say ‘Hi-Ho!’ as They Strip-Search You
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By MeHere, August 6, 2010 at 4:39 pm Link to this comment
“I’m not ready to give up on Obama,” Mr. Scheer says.
I just wonder when do you think it might be the right time to give up on Obama.
Report thisWe know how he got to power, we know about the corrupt party he chose to run
with, and we know about some of the decisions he’s made. Would it be the right
time to give up 10 years from now when it all becomes merely interesting history?
This is not the right kind of political analysis.
By Richard Nixon, August 6, 2010 at 12:21 pm Link to this comment
Was this even announced? I didn’t see any ads for it or I would have tried to get on
for it?
Also how would people feel about disabling the twitter feed during it? I think it
Report thismakes a little more confusing and none of it seems to be relevant.
By exo, August 6, 2010 at 9:35 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Well first of all, I am not ready to give up on Obama.”—Robert Scheer
Attacking Bill Clinton is helpful in cases of avoidance and denial isn’t it?
The above comment lacks of the courage conviction not too mention
intellectual consistency.
Arguably there is not much of a difference between Obama and Clinton, both
Report thisworship at the alter of corporate interests, yet according to your impassioned
piece, it is Clinton alone who must be erased, if not purged from national
memory. The language reserved for Clinton of punishment, suppression,
removal, cauterizing, is all rather unpleasant and scarily matter of factly
authoritarian. How easily this language drips from Robert Scheer’s pen. I don’t
know where this screed leads. How does this directly help the progressive
cause? I would not trust anyone left or right prone to such emotional, almost
ritualized vengefulness. I also think it is simply mean spirited to use someone’s
daughter as a foil to make a political point. The ends justifies the means is
rarely a good model to follow. It always ends in tears for all concerned.