Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hanson]

... how different would the world be?

[Woland]

Well, obviously, the constitution would have been amended to allow him a thrid term. There's a start.

(Welcome back! Hope you had a great vacation!)

[Dev]

9/11 wouldn't have happened because he would have hooked up Bin Laden with some hot chicks.

[On the other hand]

Public opinion in Europe and elsewhere would be nowhere near as hostile to the USA as it is now.

Assuming 9/11 had happened on Clinton's watch, he'd have handled the P.R. aspects of it a lot differently than Bush. No way would "you're with us or against us" have made it into any speech uttered by Slick Willy, and he sure wouldn't have described his mideast policy as a "crusade". (Was Bush pandering to the Religious Right on that one, or was he just totally clueless?)

Had Clinton decided to attack Iraq, there would have been a heavier rhetorical emphasis on the whole neo-Wilsonian "helping the Muslim world to build freedom and democracy" thing. The speeches would sound like a less abrasive version of Christopher Hichens(in other words, they'd sound like Michael Ignatieff.) Hillary's posturing as American feminism's ambassador to the Muslim world would be slightly more convincing than Laura's. And Clinton would avoid macho military imagery as much as possible, and wouldn't be saddled with any perceived connection to people like Anne Coulter.

[mithridates]

Assuming having Clinton means that Al Gore is still VP, the US would be well on its way towards weaning itself off of oil. A lot of the pro-US governments in Europe would still be in power (since a number of them lost by a razor thin margin).
And the situation with Israel and Palestine would be completely different.

[Hanson]

...in other words, the world would be better off!

I am one of the so-called "Bush Bashers" often referred to on Dave's, and proudly so. There were no major wars during Clinton's 8-year term (Kosovo doesn't count as a major war, does it?) and the world seemed to be more amiable towards the US during those years.

Clinton wasn't a saint, and he had his flaws, but he was about as good as it gets for diplomacy and treating war as an absolutely last resort. I miss Bubba!

[Ya-ta Boy]

Actually, he'd be on his fourth term by now, having surpassed FDR's record of days in office.

There would probably be troops in Afghanistan, there wouldn't be any inside Iraq. Most of the dead Iraqis would be alive, except for the ones killed by Saddam.

There would very likely be a federal budget surplus.

There would probably have been some deal made about Social Security.

He would very likely be struggling to survive his record-setting third impeachment, this time for having played the saxophone in his high school marching band (on the long-hallowed legal grounds that marching bands are a sin against nature).

[numazawa]

Cigars would probably be more expensive.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

They -Bush and Clinton would have done many of the same things.

There would be no budget surplus.

The recession started before Bush came to office. - Less Tax revenue

The stock market meltdown started before Bush came to office. - Less Tax revenue

9-11 was planned before Bush came to office. -Major effect on US economy - Less Tax revenue

High oil prices are a drain on the US economy - and a large reason for them it increased demand from China and India. You can't blame Bush for that.

On another subject.

There would have been no war by Bush & the US if Saddam , Al Qaeda and Iran gave up their war. and if the international community and the UN were serious about dealing with them -maybe there would have been no war.

[Hanson]

[Manner of Speaking]

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Clinton has defended the Bush again and again on Iraq.

I don't think Clinton would have invaded Iraq but he has been very understanding of why the US did so. Clinton himself bombed Saddam for 5 days in 1998.

US foreign policy would have been more or less the same.

Other difference is that Clinton would not hae gotten into a war of words with North Korea and then not be in a position to do anything about them.

That has been a major Bush mistake.

Then again the US came sort of close to going to war with NK in 1994.

[some waygug-in]

I believe that if Clinton were president there is a good chance that 9/11 would not have happened, or at least it may have happened differently. The reaction of the US government would have been very different.

A better question might be if Gore were president, which he rightly should be.

[EFLtrainer]

[jinju]

NK would have been handled far, far better. Because when it comes down to it, KJI knows Bush is spineless and bogged down in Iraq. Clinton would be far more open to diplomacy and doing what it takes to solve the problem instead of ignoring it for years.