Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (31405)	2/1/1999 11:15:00 AM
From: JBL	Respond to of 67261

New Australian Peter Zhang Peter Zhang's Column Is Clinton the Manchurian clone? The New Australian No. 105, 1-7 February 1999 New Australian Many readers have asked whether there is more to Chinese officials calling Clinton "nanren men zai hua sheng dun" (our man in Washington)* than just mandarin-like smugness. Surely, they wonder, there is something more sinister afoot. Yes, is the answer, but not in the way they have construed it. What is not generally understood is that Beijing's 'control' over Clinton has been exercised by exploiting his venality, arrogance, intellectual vanity and immoral nature. As keen students of history (I do not mean that dialectical nonsense) with an unbroken cultural tradition extending back several thousand years, they have become astute judges of character. (An invaluable faculty in an environment where only the ruthless rise to the top and where an erroneous character assessment has been known to prove fatal). This is why Clinton's secret meeting with high-ranking PLA officers have gone so well for Beijing. Unlike Clinton and, to put it bluntly, his policy hacks Chinese officials have cultural continuity, a fierce nationalist pride and a sense and feel for history. For them, there is no short-term gratification; each move, tactic and manoevre is designed to promote the long term interest of the Middle Kingdom.** These people have only justifiable contempt for the Clinton administration's student-sixties view of the world. A view that could have dire consequences for the West if it is not dealt with. I have no doubt it will come as a surprise to Clinton's supporters to learn that Beijing officials have the greatest respect for Harry Truman. Here was a man who stood up for America, valued its traditions, never mocked its history or achievements and had no illusions about its enemies, recognising their true nature. The danger does not come from communism, which is truly dead in China, it comes from crude nationalism: the kind that fuelled Nazi Germany and motivated the Japanese military. Just as the economic mismanagement and political incompetence created conditions for the rise of Naziism, so a similar chain of events might arise in China. None of this is understood in the kindergarten that was once called the Oval Office. Instead of standing fast with China's reformers, offering them unstinting support, making clear there would be no truck with warlords, Clinton chose to abandon them. There is no doubt that Clinton allowed military technology to be sold to the PLA for campaign funds and other 'measures'. Not a soul in Beijing questions this view. Even some within the PLA were shocked at the willingness of the Clinton political machine to put at risk the very survival of its country. But perhaps what caused them the greatest shock (though a pleasant one) was that Clinton, his advisers and business supporters were incapable of understanding the nature of their offence. It was literally beyond their understanding. Disconnected from any moral moorings and totally alienated from the traditions and history of their own country, they were adrift in a cultural vacuum. No wonder Chinese officials could not believe their luck. However, these officials are not fools. They know just how rapidly the American mood can swing, something the Korean War taught them. But they also recognise that there exists in America a very strong isolationist undercurrent that runs in tandem with an even stronger tradition of patriotism. The trick is to stroke the former without provoking the latter. In this respect they have been remarkably lucky in the person of William Jefferson Clinton, the most narcissistic, pliable and corrupt president in the history of the United States. By occasionally rattling the sabre at Sadam while simultaneously gutting America's military machine he has not only diverted attention from events in China he has also weakened America's ability to deal with an aggressive Chinese military dictatorship should one emerge. I firmly believe it is only because the American media is dominated by the dregs of the sixties and seventies that Clinton has been allowed to escape the just consequences of his destructive behaviour. What depresses me, and so many informed Chinese, is that the American public is yet to see through man; to realise the mortal danger he may very well have placed it. Do not get me wrong. I am not suggesting for a moment that PLA generals are planning a first strike. What could happen is that some of them might mistake Clinton's cowardice and moral degeneracy as representative of the nation and act on the assumption that aggression does indeed have its own rewards, just as Japan did in the 1930s. Remember that Hitler was absolutely convinced that Britain was so weak morally and militarily that it would never fight. The rest, as they say, is history. In the final scene of the The Manchurian Candidate the brainwashed victim, who has broken free of his controler, assassinates his mother and stepfather who were at the centre of a plot to murder the president and take control of the country. Unfortunately Clinton is so thoroughly corrupt that there is absolutely nothing he can do to redeem himself. He is not a victim of circumstances. He is not a victim of his instincts. He is a dangerous self-absorbed brat with no concern for anyone or anything, possessing only a pathological need to satisfy his own desires regardless of the cost to others. The sooner the Clinton presidency and everyone and everything connected with it has been exorcised from America the safer the world will be. I guess at heart I am an optimist. The Chinese people do not want war — they want a prosperous peace. America should do everything in its power to help bring that about. Doing dirty backroom deals the the butchers of Tianamen Square is not the way to do it. Perhaps now readers will understand why Clinton is called "nanren men zai hua sheng dun" (our man in Washington) as well as hou yan wu chi.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (31405)	2/1/1999 11:24:00 AM
From: JBL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

The defense of Bill Clinton bears an eerie resemblance to Hiss case Detroit News February 1, 1999 By Barrett Kalellis Detroit News The scene of Bill Clinton being surrounded by hugging and cheering House Democrats after the impeachment vote in mid-December is strangely similar to the "laying on of hands" usually found at revival meetings. Like the procedure normally used to exorcise demons, the South Lawn gathering produced a much revived patient in Clinton, who thanked Democrats for their support. What's wrong with this picture? The fervent support of Clinton, in spite of overwhelming evidence of disgraceful and even criminal behavior, is eerily reminiscent of another political upheaval that occurred 50 years ago: the Hiss-Chambers spy trial. Alger Hiss was a prominent New Dealer who served in a number of important positions in the Franklin Roosevelt administration. He had a stellar resume and snobby East Coast academic credentials. He was a delegate at the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta conferences, as well as temporary secretary general of the newly founded United Nations. The trouble was, he had been a Communist spy for Soviet leader Joe Stalin for several years. In 1948, after being named president of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, Hiss was publicly "outed" in a congressional committee meeting by Whittaker Chambers, a senior editor for Time magazine. Chambers had been a fellow spy with Hiss during the 1920s and 1930s but renounced communism around 1938. To back up his accusation, Chambers had microfilm copies of State Department documents that Hiss had passed on to his Soviet handlers. Before the age of the copy machine, Hiss' wife Priscilla had to retype them on his old Woodstock typewriter, which became the strongest piece of hard evidence against him. When confronted with the proof, Hiss denied everything. The Justice Department ultimately indicted him for perjury, and after a second trial in 1949 (the first resulted in a hung jury), he was convicted and served 44 months in a federal penitentiary. To his dying day at age 92, Hiss never admitted his guilt and always blamed his misfortune on others' machinations against him, even though recently released Soviet documents contradict his claims. The Hiss case became a defining issue during the Cold War. Intellectual leftists and Eastern establishment liberals - many of them former communists or sympathizers - rallied around Hiss, as well as other Soviet spies like the Rosenbergs, and echoed their claims of innocence. In the Monica Lewinsky affair, a similar scenario is being played out. Beginning with the accusations of perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power against Bill Clinton, Clinton, like Hiss, responded with forceful denials. When more facts became incontrovertible, he and his Democratic sympathizers began a stream of verbal obfuscations, backpedaling declarations, false contrition and, most prominently, corrosive assaults on any accuser. Similarly, Hiss' left-wing allies vilified Whittaker Chambers and his partisans like Richard Nixon for years: Chambers was not only a liar, a fabricator and a villain, they said, but a closet homosexual and a dumpy, disgusting troll with bad teeth. Today, Clinton apologists lash out from all quarters: Clinton accusers are "trailer park trash" (James Carville), part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" (Hillary Clinton), practitioners of "sexual McCarthyism" and "mad dogs of radicalism" (Alan Dershowitz) and "a bunch of dirty old white men" (Betty Friedan). In his 1997 biography of Chambers, author Sam Tanenhaus reveals the significance of the Hiss-Chambers case: It was "the passionate belief by so many that Hiss must be innocent no matter what the evidence." Hiss had become a symbol for leftist causes, and he had to be supported at all costs against the forces of the right. Bill Clinton is the Hiss for the '90s. He's trapped by his own lies, and the country is divided as to what to do with him. People guided by a moral compass want him removed from office. Clinton defenders want to keep him around because they believe his stand on social or economic issues trumps any failings of personal morality. In fact, Clintonistas curiously want it both ways. Clinton is guilty and his behavior was "reprehensible and indefensible," but he should not be removed from office; yet he's innocent because he "legally did not commit perjury" and therefore broke no law. If history teaches any lessons, we should consider that the knee-jerk defense of Alger Hiss in 1948 led to the scourge of McCarthyism. Unfortunately, if our "Fabricator-in-Chief" fails to pay a hefty price for traducing the Constitution and the rule of law, future candidates might get the idea that once elected, they can pull the wool over everyone's eyes.