More Bubba

Clinton could have made a better case for himself by citing the fact that the Bush fat cat tax cuts would not have happened under his (or Gore’s) watch, and it was all that new money going into “investment vehicles” that played a large role in the housing bubble.
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I also doubt that Greenspan would have pursued his irresponsibly low interest rate policies for a Democratic president. Greenspan dropped rates way too much, and way too early, and kept them way too low for way too long, because he liked Bush’s laissez faire approach to the economy. Greenspan tried to stack the deck for Bush, despite all the signs that his policies were a failure.

KT:
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Jesus Christ!
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What’s with you people? The Clintons again…now?
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OK, I’ll repost from my comment at Scherer’s bankrupt thread below:

Michael Scherer:
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The former president, it turns out, remains very much the same…
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Err…great?
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When will you guys get it through your heads that nobody in their right minds (this, of course, excludes much of the ennui-afflicted Village) has the least bit of attention-span reserved for manufactured Clinton stories?
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In fact, so many Americans –mostly the young– were so terminally bored by the press’ Clinton-tic that they didn’t elect one of them President last time around.
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I know full well that Tweety would love to have you on his show to spend two segments on this magpies’ occupation, but can you at least have the conscience to acknowledge that this is the Beltway press corps’ obsession, and not the country’s?

SZ, love you, but have to disagree. I think this interview was an important and substantive one, and helpful in understanding where we are now.

SZ, love you, but have to disagree. I think this interview was an important and substantive one, and helpful in understanding where we are now.
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I agree — although I think that Stuart also has a good point.
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The interview transcript that you link to is a valuable source. Less valuable, but still worth reading, was the Times magazine piece based on Clinton interviews.
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But the Gaggle stuff from Newsweek that Stuart commented on was worthless — obsessed with trivialities (Clinton’s gift-giving, and the characterization of continued resentment of his treatment by the Obama campaign) with nothing of substance discussed. And Michael Scherer’s post, which was all about the Gaggle nonsense, was worthless squared.

KT:
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In order to understand where we are now, we don’t need to “deconstruct” Bill Clinton talking about his own record, and we similarly don’t need to “deem him” honest or dishonest. We need real analysis of what happened, not He Said-She Said/stenography of the principle actors (whether it’s Clinton on the financial crisis or Cheney on torture).
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From the piece:

Now his anger appears gone, and he has entered the reconciliation stage of the familiar Clinton cycle of fall and redemption. “I think his blood pressure is down again,” McLarty said. And after an uncertain beginning, he added, Clinton has passed through “a fragile period” during the transition and reconciled himself to the new administration. “I think he’s better,” agreed Skip Rutherford, another longtime friend and dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. “I think he’s happier.”

This isn’t Daily Show parody-laughable to you, KT? …Really?
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Regardless of what Matt Yglesias thinks (do we even know what he thinks? …he merely asserts “He defends himself (persuasively, I think) from the charge that Glass-Steagall repeal was key to the economic crisis“), Clinton’s defense of his legislation that got us in this mess by legally allowing banks and investment banks to essentially insure themselves is incoherent at best –although the interviewer doesn’t seem to know that:

Clinton argued that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act set up a framework for overseeing the industry. “So I don’t think that’s such a good criticism,” he said. “I think, actually, if you want to make a criticism on that, it would be an indirect one — you could say that the signing of that legislation sped up what was happening anyway and maybe led some of these institutions to be bigger than they otherwise would have been and the very bigness of some of these groups caused some of this problem because the bigger something is and the newer it is, the harder it is to manage. And I do think there were some serious management problems which might not have occurred.”

What, Mr. President? What was that? The “very bigness of these groups” might have been a problem? …And you and Larry Summers merely “sped up what was happening“, by making something that wasn’t happening (because it was illegal) happen (because you made it legal again, a la pre-Great Depression banking law)?
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I guess, according to Clinton, we may as well roll back all of Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite anti-trust, anti-monopoly legislation. Hey, legalizing monoploies will just “speed up what’s happening” anyway, right? Oh wait –I forgot, Bill Clinton did help pass legislation kind of like that, didn’t he?
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That this piece of frivolity wastes electrons on shameless A&E Biography-style puff, and performs outright witless courtroom stenography on what are almost completely ludicrous and nonsensical statements by a very intelligent man speaking about his own legacy. We don’t need a political press corps that spends page after page, paragraph after paragraph “deconstructing” this man’s personality, we need good, hard analysis of what actually happened, otherwise pieces like these are worthless.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that you believe that the piece is “important and substantive” because –in between an in-depth study of “The Mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton” and a litany of hilariously un-self aware celebrity-gossip, tabloid details (“The couple’s hyperbusy, often-separate lives intersect when schedules permit.“, “They spend much of their lives on airplanes, hers provided by the Air Force, his usually by one of his wealthy friends.“, “Mort Engelberg, a Hollywood producer who made films like “Smokey and the Bandit” and has done volunteer advance work for Clinton for years, was there too.“) the guy gets asked about how his policies contributed to the country’s current economic crisis –the disaster that has made ordinary peoples’ lives much more likely to be touched by tragedies large and small.
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It isn’t. This piece is not “important and substantive”, except perhaps in comparison to something put out by Access Hollywood. It’s classic in its conceits, in that it condescends to literate readers’ senses of absorbing something “good for them” that’s “serious”, but merely dresses up a juicy character story in respectable intellectual robes. The policy-oriented quotes in defense of Clinton’s contributions to the financial sector debacle are merely there to support the facile “He’s still a wonk…Imagine that!” storyline (“He remains a wonk of the first order…He obsessively works the Times crossword puzzle, enlisting others to figure out clues.“).
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As it happens, it seems to be exactly the sort of thing that Villagers love, i.e. the veneer of faux-substance over gossipy, personality profile fluff. As it happens, a larger and larger portion of your audience is further segmenting into people who are demanding “Who cares about that economy stuff? Does he still think about Monica???” and other who say “For God’s sake, enough with the fluff, already! We’re not watching television! Who do we have to sleep with in order to get some thorough analysis around here??” (like us).
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I could be wrong, though, KT –and I love you, too (and have the utmost respect for you and your work).

Bubba who?

More!

stuart, KT isn’t talking about how happy Clinton is. She’s focusing on his analysis of the roots of the current economic crisis. In addition, the interview with Clinton, as opposed to the “how is he feeling?” questions asked to his acquaintances, was important and substantive.
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This isn’t ancient history. Figuring out what went wrong with the economy is important. Clinton’s interview is a valuable primary source – to use history jargon – which shouldn’t be overshadowed by Peter Baker’s inadequacies as a journalist.

Rose…hmmm. Let me consider that. Maybe I have gotten KT’s emphases wrong.
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Thanks for that clarification.