As I said to my mom when I was 15, but everybody does it.

Never mind that Clinton was trying to cover up a BJ, while Nixon was trying to cover up his staff and associates involved in burglary, theft and misuse of the FBI.

It must have been simple politics that brought Nixon down, because you know, everybody does it.

-spence

So what's the big deal about a blow job? Why lie under oath about it? Why cover it up? If his staff and associates had gotten a BJ, would he have covered it up, lied under oath to deny it?

And misuse of the FBI? So you want to expand Nixon's cover-up of his staff's crime by stringing a bunch of words: burglary, theft (is that a different kind of burglary?), and misuse of the FBI (was that part of the same operation?). Didn't the Clinton's have their own "misuse" of the FBI in Travel Gate (having the FBI bring false charges against employees of the White House Travel Office to justify their dismissal to make room for Clinton cronies), and Filegate (collecting and storing in the White House FBI background files on hundreds of individuals no longer employed there, in violation of The Privacy Act)? Even David Broder of the Washington Post condemned it as "one of the most flagrant abuses of constitutional authority any president can allow or commit."

The "everybody does it" aspect (as you put it, not me) of my discussion was not to excuse or justify Nixon's cover-up--he deserved what he got. But Clinton deserved as much, and so did, and do, most of the politicians that have made it to the Hill. Of course, the vast majority get away with, and are usually allowed to get away with crap that the rest of us can't. And politics is dirty, has been dirty, and I don't foresee it not continuing to be dirty. And they are famous for lying, abusing, slandering, smearing their way into power. And therein lies the essence of "polarization"--not Bush, not the Clinton impeachment. Claims that a particular President has caused the "polarization" are a manifestation of it, not an explanation. It is, in itself polarizing to point to "Bush" as the cause. Politics, by its nature, is polarizing. Contests of any sort, by definition, are struggles between polar forces. When the prize is as serious as in the political arena, it is naive to think that anything but the "all's fair in love and war" attitude will prevail.

Nice. The interesting things about "scandals" like Filegate and Travelgate are that they were investigated and the Clintons we're found to have done nothings wrong.

Yet you toss them around like they're proven facts.

I guess it makes the argument a lot easier.
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Regarding polarization. I don't think anyone is arguing that politics are not polarized. That's the very basis of partisanship. The issue more is if the polarization is different now. Thos who have been in politics for decades seem to think so.
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AGREED :)

Regarding polarization. I don't think anyone is arguing that politics are not polarized. That's the very basis of partisanship. The issue more is if the polarization is different now. Thos who have been in politics for decades seem to think so.
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Are you saying that the FBI was not used to falsely accuse former White house staffers to justify replacing them? Are you saying that FBI files on hundreds were not culled and stored? Are you saying, and do you really believe, that the FBI was not misused? What is it that you say I'm tossing around like proven facts?

I think it's different now because most of the nation has woken up
to the fact that their lives, and their children's, could be drastically change by the current political decisions being made by the politicians.
Big G vs small G ,debt vs balanced budget ,more taxes vs cutting taxes ,jobs vs no jobs, more freedoms vs less freedoms. just to mention a few.

All these things are hitting home and people's pocketbooks.

What does "seem to think so" mean, or is that vagueness on top of a generality merely an implication? The argument is certainly easier when you don't have to be specific, when you can intimate something that "those" "seem" "to think" (not know for sure) "so."

"Maybe, perhaps, possibly," there are periods of more extreme polarization. But that just means that the political differences are more clearly defined, more clearly recognized, more ardently fought for. And if the agendas are important, more significant than usual, the extreme polarization should not be decried, but welcomed. Perhaps, maybe, possibly those who think they are fighting for resolution of what could be important issues are more willing to battle.

Just, maybe, that leftward trend in politics of both parties has hit a wall where the Republicans have become the Democrats of the 1960s-1970s and the Democrats have become and are about to go past the left of West Europeans. Perhaps, the escalating fiscal profligacy of both parties since the New Deal, has been perceived as a runaway train that needs to be stopped. Perhaps, the erosion of the Constitution from a solid rock to a malleable, changeable, living breathing flow of sand that can sift into whichever drift the current political philosophers deem "good" looks like it has arrived at a tipping point that needs to be strongly resisted. Perhaps what has transformed the normal, polite, and innocuous polarization of parties drifting away from our foundation is not the pols, not Bush, not this or that impeachment, but an injection of political awareness into a growing number of CITIZENS. It had already spread into popular culture via movies, television, radio, and now waves of folks getting angry and not taking it anymore.

Perhaps, for this more polarized duration, politicians who want to politely continue the meaningless squabbles of how much and for whom will have to become extreme and decide yes or no--or opt for a job in the "private sector."

[QUOTE=detbuch;749145]
"Maybe, perhaps, possibly," there are periods of more extreme polarization. But that just means that the political differences are more clearly defined, more clearly recognized, more ardently fought for. And if the agendas are important, more significant than usual, the extreme polarization should not be decried, but welcomed.
QUOTE]

BINGO!:uhuh::uhuh: