Bill Clinton’s speech at the premiere of The Hunting of the President

Bill Clinton gave a speech at the premiere of The Hunting of The President, which was arguably more interesting to watch than the documentary itself. Many of the points he made in his speech apply to the current political situation as much now, as they did before George W. Bush was reelected.

“I had one of those guys tell me, he was kind of a good friend of mine, he said, ‘You know I hate the way we treat you, but if we fought you fair you’d beat us every time, so we gotta convince people you’re no good. That’s the only way we can win — if we just demonize you, convince people you’re no good, then we don’t have to argue about whether your economic policies, your social policies, your foreign policies are right or wrong. We just say you’re no good.” [at 9’25”]

“… Those guys figured out that what really mattered was having a scandal. We thought we were in a bubble where politics didn’t matter, nobody had to take the work that the Presidency did, the work that the Congress did, and take is seriously. But it does matter, and since 9/11, we all know it matters again. It matters, it matters.” [at 25’28”]

“It’s very important. The thing that I hope that this movement will do… again I say… You can be outraged if you want to, but if I was outraged all this time, after I’d been outraged for years before, I’d be a dead man. Sooner or later you gotta let it go. … I want you to be outraged by the abuse of power — I just want you to understand that Kenneth Starr was not an independent actor. That’s what I wanted to say. And nor did he see himself as a power-abuser — he saw himself as throwing the infidels from the temple, and being part of this big movement to do that. And you can’t whip somebody that you’re on opposite sides with, unless you understand how they see the world.” [at 31’37”]

These are just a couple of tidbits — there are lots more. The video of the entire speech is here. [43’10”, 59.6MB]

Be First to Comment

Post a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.