Bill Clinton doesn't want to be known as the guy who let Osama bin Laden get away. Already known as a childish man who pursued college-aged interns while heads of state and cabinet secretaries waited on him to keep late appointments, Clinton sees current events dictating how the future will view his past. That's why he angrily lectured Fox News's Chris Wallace and blasted his successor instead of taking ownership of his own failures.
Clinton has always viewed politics as a popularity contest. Unlike the current commander in chief, Clinton was preoccupied with polls. Now that he's out of office, he's preoccupied with history. He wants people to think of him as a great president. Caught between the Cold War and the War on Terror, Clinton's presidency is in a sense a victim of bad timing. At best, he can be considered an apt caretaker. Perhaps many would prefer living under an apt caretaker than a historymaker. But the latter category is the one with which historians are infatuated.
Terrorism is a major concern. It was not during Clinton's presidency. Because Clinton did not anticipate events, and instead focused on such innocuous fare as school uniforms, today we view him as a puerile president. Indeed, even in listing his accomplishments Clinton's lack of an imprint on history is apparent. Contrasting the powers of the president with the powers of an ex-president, Clinton told Chris Wallace that as president one "can simultaneously be trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo and, you know, make peace in the Middle East, pass a budget that gives millions of kids a chance to have afterschool programs and has a huge increase in college aid at home." That's Clinton's laundry list of presidential accomplishments. It's not only weak, but he didn't "make peace in the Middle East" and he didn't stop a "genocide in Kosovo" because there wasn't one to stop.
In his defense, Clinton is hardly the only one who failed to foresee the coming crisis. The 1990s were a silly time when Americans were preoccupied with Tonya Harding, O.J. Simpson, and Princess Diana conspiracy theories. It was perhaps fitting that with the public's interest increasingly oriented in a tabloidish direction that the president injected himself into the tabloids. An unserious people got an unserious president. Don't blame Bill. Blame the people who elected him. Alas, the people who elected Clinton expect more from their presidents than they do from themselves.
I think that what people expect from their elected leaders is that they maintain a higher standard and use their experience to be serious and at least behave properly. It’s important that they take responsibility for the needs of even an aloof citizenry.
Granted, it might not have been that different if Clinton were not at the helm. But, I can’t help but think that if we had a leader in the Oval Office who was less concerned about his image and stalking for easy $ex, that more attention might have been given to protecting our security.
Dan, you are saying that Clinton didn't prevent a genocide in Kosovo, and your evidence of that is that a genocide in Kosovo didn't happen? Interesting logic.
This is complete BS.
Not even worth responding.
I will just guess here that Dan's thought is that no genocide was going to occur. Following Clinton's line, I might claim that I stopped the genocide from occurring in Maryland this year.
You can certainly argue that a genocide was going to occur, but you should at least understand Dan's argument.
Brian,
Clinton said trying to STOP a genocide. You have interesting reading skills since you change the word from "stop" to "prevent" in order to wield your fancy logic skills. Did you make that mistake innocently?
Webster:
You're probably right, but still, we do have to guess what he meant. Dan didn't word himself clearly. Doing so would have clearly pointed out that his argument depends on knowing what would have happened if Clinton didn't act. Dan chose wording that hides the fact that there's a burden of proof on him.
Bruce:
Prevent is one of the definitions of the word "stop." If Dan says Clinton didn't stop a genocide, it means that he didn't halt a genocide that was in progress AND that he didn't prevent one, because preventing something is also considered to be stopping it.
"Not even worth responding."
I am not going to respond to your non-response. So don't consider these words a response. They're not.
lol
Brian R.,
Are you familiar with the fallacy of equivocation? You're using it to criticiz Dan's remark.
"Prevent" is not correctly used of an event already in progress (e.g., cancer cannot be "prevented" by surgically removing cancerous tissue). "Stop," on the other hand, is equivocal in that regard. A bank robbery, for example, can be "stopped" by apprehending the robbers before they get to bank, or it can be "stopped" during the robbery (e.g., by sending the S.W.A.T. team into the bank). These two senses of "stop" are exclusive.
Dan writes that "[Clinton] didn't stop a 'genocide in Kosovo' because there wasn't one to stop." He explicitly states that the event, genocide, was not already. Thus, he is clearly using the first sense of "stop," and therefore, not using the second sense of "stop."
You argue that "If Dan says Clinton didn't stop a genocide, it means that he didn't halt a genocide that was in progress AND that he didn't prevent one, because preventing something is also considered to be stopping it." But "prevent" is only synonymous with the second sense of "stop." Your argument, then, is a elementary fallacy.
I knew a marine who was stationed in Kosovo. He said that they spent a lot their time keeping the two factions apart and that when they left he thought it woukd start all over again. HEHE is right.
Guido,
It's hard to get more anecdotal than that.
Could that interview have been termed - Clinton: unplugged?
Ralph,
I was going to respond to your response of said non-response but on second thought..... I won't. Please disregard this non-response as it never happened.
I will not even dignify this thread with a response.
Ralph:
Correct. 'Stop' refers to one of two exclusive actions (interrupt or prevent). However, the negative of stopping an action (not (interrupt or prevent)) means the action was not stopped by either definition (not interrupted and not prevented).
Also, don't forget that Dan was responding to the original statement made by Clinton, where the word 'stop' was still eligible for either definition. Knowing more details about the situation, it is clear that Clinton was saying he prevented a genocide.
Dan Flynn's response to that claim of prevention was effectively "that's not true, because a genocide didn't start." In other words, the fact that a genocide did not occur proves that Clinton did not prevent a genocide.
Dan's argument depends on Clinton's statement being incorrectly interpreted as "I ended the genocide in Kosovo." Then the false interpretation is easily refuted. That is known as a straw man. That's all I was pointing out.
Brian R.
Well, I'm sure I don't know what Clinton meant by "stop" (I'm still trying to figure out what he meant by "is"). If he meant that he stopped genocide from occuring (that is, he prevented it), then your criticism is fair. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, however, to learn that he believes he stopped a genocide that was occuring.
Your use of De Morgan is curious in that it is incorrect. The equivalence only holds between the negation of the conjunction of p and q and the inclusive disjunction of negations of p and q. The negation of an exclusive disjunction, on the other hand, is equivalent to p if and only if q.
Now that I've thoroughly bored the rest of the board, what was the point of your mistaken equivalence in the first place?
Ralph:
I was actually aware of that when I wrote it, but I didn't want to complicate things. Actually,
not (p xor q) = (not p and not q) or (p and q)
Since (p and q) can't happen, "or" and "exclusive or" act the same way, because there is no such thing as stopping an event by both definitions.
Brian R.,
I think this thread has been abandoned, so I can justify a little more logic chopping.
I wrote: "The equivalence only holds between the negation of the conjunction of p and q and the inclusive disjunction of the negations of p and q. The negation of an exclusive disjunction, on the other hand, is equivalent to p if and only if q."
My two sentences are badly paired given that the first concerns one of De Morgan's theorems and the second concerns the other (it's easy to do when you're not paying attention).
My first sentence, then, is not relevant to your penultimate comment. It should have read "The equivalence only holds between the negation of the inclusive disjunction of p and q and the conjunction of the negations of p and q." This matches my second sentence which correctly states that the negation of an exclusive disjunction is equivalent to the biconditional.
Your claim that "not (p xor q)" is equivalent to "(not p and not q) or (p and q)" is correct. But notice that that proposition is also equivalent to the biconditional "p if and only if q."
Finally, you state that "Since (p and q) can't happen, 'or' and 'exclusive or' act the same way, because there is no such thing as stopping an event by both definitions." This is an interesting problem for logicians that I've spent a good deal of time thinking about. What your position actually entails is that the top line in the truth-table for "p and q" is "impossible," and therefore, has to be excluded. That's one way to deal with the issue, but the cost is that the "can't" in "'p and q' can't happen" does not involve logical necessity. Another approach has it that a definition of q would reveal "not p" as a constituent. That view has problems of its own that are too lengthy to discuss here (if you're interested, see an article by Ludwig Wittgenstein titled "Some Remarks on Logical Form"). Either way is problematic.
We are now a good distance from our starting point, Dan's comment that a genocide which is not occurring cannot be "stopped." You never did tell me how you got from that to the beginning of this rabbit trail.
Brian R, Ralph,
It's like a literary Boolean algebra, huh? I like it.
AM,
It is just that, a formal way to understand the relationships between propositions. Brian and I are discussing the most elementary "literary calculus" known as propositional or sentential logic. The next level up adds quantifiers (all, none, some) and is known as predicate logic. Then it's off to the races from there.
Gallup Poll panel survey. Sept. 21-24, 2006. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Sample was randomly drawn from Gallup's nationally representative household panel, which was originally recruited through random selection methods.
"Who do you blame more for the fact that Osama bin Laden has not been captured: George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?"
9/21-24/06
Bush Clinton Unsure
53% 36 % 11%
Source: http://pollingreport.com/terror.htm
No apologies nessacary.
George Tenet:"BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK WITHIN THE UNITED STATES"
GBush: "Hey let's go golfing!"
This administration ignored terror. They are to blame.
Wow. A whole 1,010 sample. I'm convinced now. Especially since people's opinions mean much more than facts.
Knucklehead.
Hehe.
No. The facts matter more.
Just wanted to introduce a poll into the discussion.
