Letter: Appreciation for the Clinton era

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006 | 7:26 a.m.

It seems politics has sunk to a new low. We Americans who dare to question this present rogue administration are branded as un-American and outright traitors, and anything and everything in between.

And yet, if we remember the eight years under Bill Clinton, we had relatively stable employment, stable inflation numbers, a somewhat more peaceful world than we see now, many more friends around the world, and - take a breath - actual surpluses in the Federal Treasury.

And what did Bill Clinton receive for those eight stable years?

He got impeached stemming from a lawsuit filed by one Paula Corbin Jones. This lawsuit was eventually dismissed in its entirety by Judge Susan Webber Wright on April 1, 1998.

He got dogged by a Whitewater investigation that began in the summer of 1992, lasted 7 years in duration, and finally officially ended on March 20, 2006. It cost, according to the General Accounting Office, between 80 and 90 million dollars. That's our tax dollars.

He got a Republican Congress that gave him zero votes - nada - zilch for his very first budget proposal, the fiscally responsible budgets that led eventually to our budget surpluses. And his enemies generally tried to create an eight-year atmosphere of hell.

And now we Americans, many of us having served our country honorably in war time, are not allowed to question the guy in the White House? This guy that peacocked across an aircraft carrier proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."

As I say, politics has indeed sunk to a new low.

James M. Donaldson, Henderson