We all remember this line from the 1992 Republican National Convention, right?
And the man who uttered it, right? Here’s what sparked the line. Watch.
History records that the line former President Reagan uttered then was directed to this man, and his then 1992 presidential campaign.
“President William Jefferson Clinton’s pre-inaugural celebrations began in 1993 – the year in which Thomas Jefferson’s 250th birthday was also widely celebrated. To dramatize the links between himself and the third president of the United States, Clinton journeyed to Washington from Monticello, Jefferson’s hilltop house in Virginia. Deliberately, the Arkansas Democrat followed the path to the White House taken in 1801 by the founder of his party at the start of his presidency. Before and since this symbolic pilgrimage, Clinton has followed in Jefferson’s footsteps in other ways.
A striking similarity between the two presidencies is how the media treated them. The press of Jefferson’s time, as of Clinton’s, was ever ready to publish reports that the president was hypocritical, irreligious, amoral. It charged, moreover, that the author of the Declaration of Independence (in fact, his authorship too was questioned), had been guilty of financial chicanery in his personal affairs and cowardly in the face of danger.”
– See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/elizabeth-marvick/clinton-and-jefferson-teflon-syndrome#sthash.kD2VopCB.dpuf
Even though it has never been proven outright that Mr. Clinton is guilty of the things that history says that he is there is, however, [great] cause for speculation.
In the early goings of the race for the White House in 1992 the Clinton presidential campaign camp contrasted and compared the then Governor of Arkansas to that of our nation’s third president Thomas Jefferson – It was his birthday after all (then as now), and both men have crossed paths all throughout history, and one could argue throughout life on this earth as we now know it today.
And there are many comparisons, even conclusions, that one can draw between our great nation’s 42nd and 3rd Presidents of these United States.
Both men in their days were top legal minds, accomplished politicians, bookends to a bi gone era(s) in history. But there’s something else, some thing that some would say is far more sinister, may be even downright troubling? Both Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton have troubled the lives of African-Americans for years, and in Clinton’s case, it’s still ongoing (Ain’t no Congress that I know of yet to repeal this madness – how about you?). Watch.
Yesterday our nation’s 3rd President would have turned 273 years old, were he alive. This year Mr. Clinton will turn 70. Barely one-quarter of Jefferson’s age today. Jefferson was young when he assumed office. So to was Clinton. In fact, and in many cases, they were the youngest office holders in political history. Often times assuming positions of power, per the edicts of the voters, in their late 20’s and early 30’s.
Yet for all of their accomplishments in life there shortcomings ,far and away, overshadow their; lives, fortunes and sacred honors. Particularly in this nearly thrice ‘New-American-Century’.
Even though Thomas Jefferson was personally opposed to slavery he enslaved nearly 1,000 Africans and Guineans people’s on his Monticello plantation in present-day Charlottesville, VA. USA – when he was 21 years old he was the youngest slave owner in American history.
Bill Clinton enslaved (and has enslaved) 1,000’s of African-Americans and poor whites with the ‘Three-strikes law’.
Combined with the so-called “War on Drugs” William Jefferson Clinton has been single-highhandedly responsible for the en mass incarceration of millions of African-American males and youths now decades removed from his presidency.
As a country the United States of America, since the Jefferson and Clinton presidencies, has enslaved and continues to enslave millions if not billions of human beings around the world through something called human trafficking, brought about by slavery starting in Thomas Jefferson’s day.
You say well Jefferson apologized and Mr. Clinton apologized not all that long ago. Watch.
And so therefore we must honor that, respect that, maybe even fear that, right?
Let me tell you what I fear, what I respect, and what I honor, and that is this admission of guilt from Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush. Watch.
With all due respect to the former Presidents and their apologies for slavery are for crap. And I have far more respect and reverence for the American statesman known as Bobby Rush for freely and openly admitting – without cause reservation or political expediency – “Hey! You know what Mr. and Mrs. American Citizen? I screwed up! And I’m deeply and profoundly sorry for my mistake…”
I put way more, way more, stock in trade in Mr. Bobby Rush and his apology than I ever will Bill Clinton and Thomas Jefferson’s, regardless of the admissions of guilt. You cannot, now or in the future, excuse away such an egregious and onerous mistake as slavery. Or for that matter Mass incarceration, especially when you know better. Watch.
The policies and practices of the former Presidents are troubling to say the least. So to is early American history. Before slavery, before Colonial whites came from place like England, France, Scotland and Whales to “settle” in this Newfoundland there were millions of freed men and women living on the North American continent, particular in southern-most United States, especially in Florida and Texas.
Known as the Moors [of the Americas]. They along with the Spanish and the “first tribes,” of Early American Indians lived and worked amongst each other to “settle and work the land that the Great Spirit saw fit to give them all…”
Thomas Jefferson’s birthday milestone is a great feat of the so-called ‘American spirit’ or the human condition to be sure. So to is Bill Clinton’s presidency, but both the urban blight and early American life, as we now know it,have led to our demise as Americans. For good or for ill it is the Mooring of Jeffersonian democracy and “Comeback Kid,” politics, and I will never honor that as long as I live.
–Rhett.
Say What News?! 