I've heard this view many times, and I don't fully disagree with it, but I'm actually a product of your concept of a "cool Dad", yet I don't drink, have never smoked, have never been in trouble with the law, have a graduate degree, perfect credit, etc. Those who believe that kids need iron discipline to turn out well have a hard time explaining me. There are plenty of other people out there like me. An authoritarian leader is only desirable if they are enforcing your particular belief system. Clinton was no authoritarian, but that was ok with me, since he wasn't actually enforcing my belief system all that well, either.
I was only trying to show why people thought Clinton was so good for the country not make a statement about what type of parenting is best.

I wasn't talking about applied research. Carter enacted support for basic research into lots of fundamental technology that could be built into other things, but was not directly marketable on its own. Reagan cut all that. The innovations came from the handful of companies that funded their own R&D departments. Many of those companies have since scaled back, cut off R&D, or even gone under. There have been a few notable replacements, though, and we keep on progressing.
That’s where all of our major achievements have come from, the private sector, and that is where they should stay. Government funded research and development is usually money not well spent, like all government programs and funding a lot usually goes to waste. Cutting these government programs and letting the free market work is a good thing not a bad thing. Technology hardly stood still during the 80’s, it boomed.

Just depends on what economists you talk to. The 80's were great, the 80's were mediocre, or the 80's were bad. Are there two economists anywhere who actually agree? When it comes to the economy, you can use it to support your position whatever your position happens to be. For myself, I remember the 80's as having super high interest rates (do you remember the 5.25% intrest on basic savings accounts? It's been 0% for the last decade), one of the worst stock market crashes since the 20s, waves of unemployment, and unimpressive economic growth leading to the downturn that pretty well knocked Bush Sr. out of office (remember "it's the economy stupid"). Some people certainly did well, I just didn't know any of them.
When economies face high inflation it is typical for interest rates on saving accounts to be high. When Reagan took office we had double-digit inflation, hence the high yields on savings accounts and CD’s. The early 80’s I remember still not being that great, it took several years of Reagan being in office before the interest rates went down and employment got better. By the time Reagan was running for his 2nd term unemployment was dipping considerably from its highs, the economy has generally stabilized which is probably why Reagan won in a landslide victory in 1984. So you can say the 80’s were all things, bad in the beginning, mediocre in the middle, and great at the end.

That's a very valid point. Some people have tried to attribute the 90's to Reaganomics, which ignores some fundamental mathematical principles, but the actual boost during this time can more reasonably be attributed to Bill Gates, not Bill Clinton. All that can be said about Clinton is that when he got a surplus, he didn't squander it.
Do you mean economic principles (not math)? The thing Reagan did was allow the free market to work that’s it. Presidents have little to do with how the economy does you are right it is up to individuals and the free market to rise or fall on its own, the only thing presidents can do is make it easier for people to succeed by getting out of the way of free enterprise.
Clinton’s surplus can be attributed to the Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress in 1994. Remember the president cannot spend anything; it is the Congress that controls the purse strings. The Republicans and the Contract with America under Newt Gingrich is largely responsible for the surpluses enjoyed under Clinton, the Republicans had something to prove with their newfound power. My only regret is they soon forgot their fiscal restraint once they had a Republican in the White House.

Bush's policy, both foreign and domestic, has been that of a golfer with a whole bag of clubs who evaluates every situation and chooses the same one. He starts off by taking a stick to the problem, and if it works he celebrates. Of course, it often doesn't work, and his follow-up is generally confused and dogmatic. Of course, he has also done his placating, by cozying up to dictators who were situationally necessary (Pakistan, Uzbekistan, for two). And Clinton didn't cozy up to everyone (Serbia, most notably).
I guess the Serbians didn’t contribute enough to his campaign like the Chinese did To be honest I don’t really mind the way Bush has handled some of his foreign policy. Of course there are failures along the way but if you notice no one is even talking about Iraq anymore (his supposed biggest failure). I don’t hear anything in the news; you generally have to dig around to find anything. This largely has to do with the newfound successes there.
I do like the pro-active approach to things, mostly due to what I have learned from history (things get far worse if you ignore, placate, or appease). Clinton was the exact opposite to pro-active, easily likeable by people at the time because there are no ugly wars or entanglements, but looked down in history’s eyes because these are the kind of people that usually set up far worse things down the road due to lack of action (in Clintons case we have North Korea, Iraq, Radical Islamic Terrorism, etc..).

They had their reactor mothballed until W took a stick to them, at which point they started it back up and even detonated the most feeble nuke in history. W's response: Sell out, but bring in a few other parties to add window dressing while we try to get back to the same deal that existed before. Was that better? Make them go nuclear just because you want talking points?
Last I heard they were shutting down their program with talks to continue. Also if you think they restarted their program just because Bush yelled at them I think you are being a little naive. Everything points to North Korea working on their nuclear program after the deal with the Clinton administration, they didn’t suddenly start it up again because the big bad US was picking on them. They were working on it all along.

Frankly, I don't know whether it is true that the Chinese couldn't create a missle that could reach the US, nor do I care. The chinese are not going to attack the US, but they might very well end up in war with Russia....again. Considering the economic might that China is beginning to demonstrate, and considering that a war between the US and China would be unwinable by either side, is it so bad to try not to create enemies? Wasn't it Churchill who said something like "Where dollars don't cross borders, armies will."
The Chinese pre-Clinton couldn’t get a rocket off the launch pad. Post Clinton they had a space program with plans to put someone on the moon. We already know the Chinese were given sophisticated missile technology by the Clinton administration and obviously they used this not only to further a space program but to develop long range ICBM’s to accurately reach the US.
The Chinese are massively overhauling their military, modernizing and expanding. This includes their nuclear forces. I refuse to be one of those people who mistakenly bet on no war just due to economics or because “no one would win”. It’s foolish to think China is building a huge military for simple show purposes. China recently shot a ground based missile and successfully destroyed one of their own satellites. What use would the US and their military be if their satellites were all destroyed?

Actually, it predated him, as the threat was built up from American involvement with the resistance to the soviets in Afghanistan. All the major players today formed during that time period. Nor did anybody really have much to say about it. W flatly ignored it until 9/11, and then he used it as an excuse to go after the wrong target, which had nothing to do with the attack, and wasn't harboring any of the organization...until W let them in.
Yes it predated Clinton but Clinton failed to do anything about it. It’s like seeing a burning building with people inside and saying, well I didn’t start the fire why should I do anything? Bush was only in office 8 months when 9/11 happened, hardly enough time to implement any substantive anti-terror program (it could very well be that he wasn’t going to do anything like Clinton but we will never know). He could have done the same thing Clinton did after the first towers bombing, nothing, however we know differently.

I'd say that all of the links you have made are at odds with history.
I am not saying that Clinton caused all the problems we are facing today. What I am saying is that he didn’t do anything about those problems or his policies to deal with them on a large extent failed. When you look at what is happening now I can’t see how you could ignore those failures or claim that they are at “odds with history” when they are clearly not.

Wow long post sorry to anyone who read it

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