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Bill Clinton: “Everyone Should Hear” The “Real People Of The Tea Party Movement”

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» 43 comments

If you need anymore evidence that the Tea Party movement is being being considered a more serious player in the shifting political landscape, I submit the following clip. While promoting the Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting this week, former President Bill Clinton shared his insights on the Tea Party with Willow Bay for Yahoo! News and Huffington Post, saying that the message if the Tea Party is something “everyone should hear.”

In a joint effort between Yahoo! News and Huffington Post, Bay posts a number of interview segments with the former president covering such topics as job growth, the economy and the role of the Clinton Global Initiative in the Middle East peace process.

But its his insight on the Tea Party movement, and its potential affect on the future of American politics (both near- and long-term) that is most interesting. Bay seemed to reference the recent Delaware Primary victory of Christine O’Donnell, asking what message Clinton takes away from a Tea Party primary victories over a GOP establishment-backed candidates. Clinton replied:

There are a lot of real people in this Tea Party movement that are saying something everyone should hear, which is “seems like everyone but average Americans are doing all right here. The people that caused the financial crisis are all back in great shape,” (and its true that the banks have 1.8 trillion dollars in uncommitted cash reserves.) “The government is in pretty good shape – the people who work for the government have good jobs, health care and can pay their mortgages and can send their kids to college. What about us?”

The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the Tea Party movement, its not about restricting abuse of big public and private power, its about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don’t think that’s good for average Americans.

Clinton follows up with political advice for the Democrats in the upcoming elections, effectively saying that a race between apathy and anger, apathy will always lose, which doesn’t portend for the Democratic party in the new few weeks, months and possibly years.

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  • Big Eddie

    Bet he liked talking to a chick named Will Obey .

  • no-touchy-touchy

    Big Eddie said:
    Bet he liked talking to a chick named Will Obey .

    giggle

  • Azarkhan

    Willow Bay attended the all-girls Dominican Academy in New York, and graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover. She then attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate.

    Clinton attended Georgetown, Oxford and Yale.

    So what we have here is one elitist a-hole discussing with another elitist a-hole the Tea Party, a grass-roots movement that neither of them can possibly understand, yet both want to destroy.

    PS: BTW, what exactly does Clinton mean by “financial energy”? Is that another part of the “vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary whined about? LOL–more lies from the Liar-in-Chief.

  • http://politicsofdestruction.com/ Bobomatic

    What we have here are those that want to perpetuate the increased intrusion of government in our daily lives versus those that want to be left the hell alone. Clinton will vilify the TP movement in order to protect his vested interest in government intrusion in the daily lives of those who despise it.

  • CosmosDan

    Bobomatic said:
    What we have here are those that want to perpetuate the increased intrusion of government in our daily lives versus those that want to be left the hell alone. Clinton will vilify the TP movement in order to protect his vested interest in government intrusion in the daily lives of those who despise it.

    He didn’t vilify anybody. He actually expressed empathy for the all the Americans that make up the Tea Party

  • http://twitter.com/SailRabbits Magister

    CosmosDan said:
    He didn’t vilify anybody. He actually expressed empathy for the all the Americans that make up the Tea Party

    Exactly. I’d say that Perot’s involvement in the ’92 election taught Bill more about grassroots movements better than any of Azarkhan’s “elite” schools and as Perot went back and forth about being in the race and whatever you can deem a pseudo-endorsement, Clinton learned a lot about listening to those voters.

    As a Dem, what I find troubling is that in many of the places where I’ve seen Bill’s (sound) advice being discussed, I’ve found gobs of people who should be on his side condemning the man because they’re just hearing sympathy for the Tea Party and not what he is suggesting, plus it seems a lot of the Obamakids don’t realize that November is nothing but a bunch of local elections with no national component.

    What may play in a reliably blue district in upstate New York obviously wouldn’t do a lot of good for somebody running in Missouri and just because the “Tea Party” may look like a cartoon to those who don’t live among their sympathizers, it doesn’t mean that the movement’s strength isn’t coming from real people.

    Of course, if the Tea Partiers successfully dispatch with those they call RINOs and if the netroots stay apathetic toward the Blue Dogs, then no one should be surprised if we start next year with a Congress containing only the extremists, leaving those in the middle to gridlock.

  • no-touchy-touchy

    Azarkhan said:
    Willow Bay attended the all-girls Dominican Academy in New York, and graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover. She then attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate.

    Clinton attended Georgetown, Oxford and Yale.

    So what we have here is one elitist a-hole discussing with another elitist a-hole the Tea Party, a grass-roots movement that neither of them can possibly understand, yet both want to destroy.

    PS: BTW, what exactly does Clinton mean by “financial energy”? Is that another part of the “vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary whined about? LOL–more lies from the Liar-in-Chief.

    All that durned book lernin
    “financial energy”? more alterntives? drill
    Koch brothers? I thot it was spelled Coke

  • no-touchy-touchy

    Magister said:
    leaving those in the middle to gridlock.

    but at least this extremist agrees with ME

  • MichelleF

    I love how the left likes to ridicule Conservatives with the “durned book lernin” line. It’s so disengenuous. We have nothing against “book lernin”, but we don’t think it is the be all end all like your side. Just because someone went to Harvard, that doesn’t make them more qualified to lead that country than someone who didn’t. I mean look at BO, he went there, but he can’t even get through a speech to kindergartner’s without his teleprompter.

  • MichelleF

    And no-touchy-touchy, judging from your comments, you don’t have a lot of “book lernin”, so I don’t think I’d be ridiculing others.

  • writer

    The left sees the Clinton’s like shifting sand. Bill was our first ‘black president’. But when Hillary was running against Obama, she became ‘that white woman’ whose views on race were questionable. Then she joined the administration and she was okay again. But if she decides to run against Obama, then she’ll be a racist again.

  • The_Reasonable_Lib

    MichelleF said:
    I love how the left likes to ridicule Conservatives with the “durned book lernin” line. It’s so disengenuous. We have nothing against “book lernin”, but we don’t think it is the be all end all like your side. Just because someone went to Harvard, that doesn’t make them more qualified to lead that country than someone who didn’t. I mean look at BO, he went there, but he can’t even get through a speech to kindergartner’s without his teleprompter.

    “Be all end all”? In modern society, college degrees are one of the few ways to get ahead, and even that isn’t a guarantee.
    Secondly, FALSE!!!!!!!!!!! Obama did not use the teleprompter to speak to them, but rather to make a speech from the class. Stop with the lies, Michelle.

  • zumpano

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE BOOK LERNIN’ DOESN”T MEAN IT’S RIGHT

    LOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

    WE DON”T NEED NO FACTS TO TELL US WHATS RIGHT

    I KNOW WHAT”S RIGHT AND THE TRUTH IS KNOWN TO HAVE A LIBERAL BIAS

  • zumpano

    That guy who went to HARVARD is no smarty-pants

    NOW, Palin went to FIVE SCHOOLS

    SHE HAS FIVE TIMES THE SMARTS!!!

  • zumpano

    YEAH, I”ll take the DRAMA MAJOR FROM DELEWARE before a HARVARD LAW GRADUATE

    LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

  • writer

    George W. Bush is the only president to have an MBA from Harvard, and we know how smart the left always says he is.

  • zumpano

    What was his GPA though

  • zumpano

    The funny thing is that mainstream america has NO IDEA what the TEA PARTY IS

    They just think it’s REPUBLICAN

    Ask people who don’t follow this shit like it’s the World Cup and they will look at you CLUELESS when you bring up the TEA PARTY

    TRUE STORY

  • writer

    Oh, so now Harvard doesn’t mean that much. Gotta know the GPA too.

  • http://twitter.com/SailRabbits Magister

    writer said:
    George W. Bush is the only president to have an MBA from Harvard…

    …and Abe Lincoln was self-educated.

  • writer

    And Thomas Edison never went to college. It would seem a college education should only be hauled out and touted if we’re talking about Obama.

  • The_Reasonable_Lib

    writer said:
    George W. Bush is the only president to have an MBA from Harvard, and we know how smart the left always says he is.

    A degree doesn’t equal intelligence, my uncle has a masters…that he carries around in his wallet like a birth certificate.

  • MichelleF

    UNreasonable libs says:

    A degree doesn’t equal intelligence,

    Gee, that’s what I said. Thanks for agreeing with me! I knew you’d wise up eventually!

  • The_Reasonable_Lib

    MichelleF said:
    UNreasonable libs says:

    A degree doesn’t equal intelligence,

    Gee, that’s what I said. Thanks for agreeing with me! I knew you’d wise up eventually!

    Nice try, Michelle, I am in no way agreeing with you. You can have a degree but still lack common sense as you evidently do. There is book knowledge and common sense, both equate intelligence, you lack both. Good job negating what else I said to you as well, not acknowledging your lie.

  • writer

    So it’s not the degree that matters, it’s common sense. RL is agreeing.

  • The_Reasonable_Lib

    writer said:
    So it’s not the degree that matters, it’s common sense. RL is agreeing.

    Yes, common sense does matter, you can have all the degrees in the world, but it still takes common sense to employ. The combination is what equates to intelligence imo

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Westover/1496648721 Tony Westover

    “The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the Tea Party movement, its not about restricting abuse of big public and private power, its about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don’t think that’s good for average Americans.”

    It worked fine for the first 130 years for America. Everything has gone down the shitter since then thanks to the Progressives.

  • The_Reasonable_Lib

    Tony Westover said:
    “The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the Tea Party movement, its not about restricting abuse of big public and private power, its about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don’t think that’s good for average Americans.”

    It worked fine for the first 130 years for America. Everything has gone down the shitter since then thanks to the Progressives.

    Except it didn’t. That’s why you had the coal miners revolt, the great depression, and the american revolution itself.

  • felixw

    Clinton is shrewd, and realizes that ridiculing tens of millions of people who want responsible government is a losing political strategy. Too bad that the leftwing media hasn’t figured that out yet. They will understand things better after November 2.

  • dahni

    The Clintons are just more politicians who have gotten extremely wealthy while “serving their country”. Of course he believes that everyone should just shut up unless they work for, or support, the Government.

    The more people the Government can hire or support through Entitlements, the more difficult it will be to get them out of power and make the Government more of the “Of the People, By the People and For the People” as it seems to have been originally intended.

  • MichelleF

    Of course, missing from this thread is the LIE that Clinton told that both Colby and David Gregory let slide that he reduced the nation debt. Wrong!!

    Consider me checked, Colby!!

  • http://sharethisurlaboutglennbeck.com/ GlennBeckReview

    MichelleF says: “Just because someone went to Harvard, that doesn’t make them more qualified to lead that country than someone who didn’t. I mean look at BO, he went there, but he can’t even get through a speech to kindergartner’s without his teleprompter.”

    You realize that Obama didn’t start using a teleprompter or even NOTES during the campaign, until right near the end when victory was within view.

    You know the right is grasping at straws when they have to fall back on the teleprompter criticism.

    Anyone who graduated from Harvard is more qualified to run the country than someone who is without higher education. The latter, the Know Nothing Party, has the role models Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, for spokesmen. Enough said.

  • writer

    Anyone who graduated from Harvard is more qualified to run the country than someone who is without higher education.

    You mean like George W. Bush?

  • MichelleF

    GBR says:

    You know the right is grasping at straws when they have to fall back on the teleprompter criticism.

    via Tingles, AKA Chris Matthews:

    CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know, sometimes I really support the President in a lot of his views, in fact all of them almost. But I have to tell you, Michael, if he doesn’t get rid of that damn teleprompter, it’s like an eye test. He’s just reading words now. It’s separating him from us. Your thoughts. You go to a meeting with him I’m told, businessmen are invited to meet him at the White House, he hauls out the damn teleprompter, and he reads it to them. Well, why even bring people into the room, just have the teleprompter. I sense it’s getting between him and us and I thought that speech last night was a terrible, well a great example rather, of him using the teleprompter instead of his heart and his mind. He was reading words to us that any president could have written, had written for him and delivered.

    ps, how are you coming along on those lies in the video I posted of Obama’s Socialist friends?

  • dahni

    Does any one know anything about the Shore Bank in Chicago? I think it received TARP money and is involved in the Cap and Tax situation to make money off CO2 limitation programs. Who is on the BOD? Who are the Founders/Owners, etc. I can’t seem to find out much. Maybe nothing to find out…but interesting.

  • let-me-explainify…

    MichelleF said:
    I love how the left likes to ridicule Conservatives with the “durned book lernin” line. It’s so disingenuous. We have nothing against “book lernin”, but we don’t think it is the be all end all like your side. Just because someone went to Harvard, that doesn’t make them more qualified to lead that country than someone who didn’t. I mean look at BO, he went there, but he can’t even get through a speech to kindergartner’s without his teleprompter.

    i love how you mentally rightarded wingnuts like to ridicule democrats for the stupidest, untruthful, non-issues.
    do you need a teleprompter to be so nonsensical, dishonest & irrelevant?
    or perhaps you use a PALM-O-PROMPTER like your hero pop-tart pseudo-politician palin?

    NEWSFLASH -
    bush used teleprompters all the time…
    and yet, he was still a rambling dumbass!
    palin uses them too & when one is not available, she writes on her hand!
    …and yet, she’s still a rambling dumbass!

    Obama uses them & sometimes he speaks from the cuff & he’s always well-spoken & intelligent.

    *sigh*

    you stuck on stupid dumb-asses are truly pathetic.

  • let-me-explainify…

    felixw said:
    Clinton is shrewd, and realizes that ridiculing tens of millions of people who want responsible government is a losing political strategy. Too bad that the leftwing media hasn’t figured that out yet. They will understand things better after November 2.

    HAHAHA! he called you baggers out for being stupid pawns for the private sector
    (aka the billionaire koch brothers) you’re just too dumb to have realized it. :)

    “The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the Tea Party movement, its not about restricting abuse of big public and private power, its about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don’t think that’s good for average Americans.”

    *sigh*

    you stuck on stupid dumb-asses are truly pathetic.

  • Fuzzytoes

    Wise up people, it’s simple the really rich are controlling the not so rich to tell us poor that we need to listen to them. Listen to them and get mad at government and let the super rich run the country. Oh yea, I’m for that. Let’s listen to the Puppet Palins and go for it.

    But really, I’d like to find an honest politician. LOL What an osymoron that is.
    I believe the T-party is rogue republicans puppeted by the super rich and nothing different.
    Simply lipstick on a pig. The pig deserves better than that. The super rich could at least give it a clean pig sty.

  • SteveMorris

    Ignorance about the Tea Party abounds. The Democrats and Republicans can whine, bitch, and name call all they like. The Tea Party movement is about the discipline of Self-Government and the Liberty to practice it.

    Mostly I think the detractors are too inept to practice Self-Government (aka self control, self determination) so they have little issue with capable people being ruled alongside the lowest common denominators (themselves).

    http://tinyurl.com/32yc6oe

  • Morgan

    Colby wrote:> But its his insight on the Tea Party movement, and its potential affect on the future of American politics (both near- and long-term) that is most interesting.

    The Tea Party movement will go away as soon as this problem (this administration) goes away. Most of the Tea Party people are “middle of the roaders” who were happy in their work, leaving all the crappy political business to the left and right-wingers (there were a lot of conservatives in the parties too, as they had nowhere else to go). The partiers could live as independents and casually vote for whoever they thought was best–as a public duty.

    What changed it all was when the Obama administration began railroading legislation without transparency and started spending outrageously. With the passage of ObamaCare and now the inevitable rate increases in insurance coverage (compounded by the failure of the economy to recover) people started feeling the pain in their pocketbooks. They squandered a year and a half in not addressing the economy while ignoring the crys of the people. It became necessary for the people to reclaim control of the agenda in classic Boston Tea Party style.

    Near term, the Republicans will lose some but win far more; they will be the beneficiaries of the Tea Party movement. Depending on the results, If Obama can be brought under control, the Tea Party movement will fade away…”Mission Accomplished.”

    Long term, a lot of new leaders from the movement, that were formerly content on the sidelines, will be finding places on the Republican side of the two party system; marking a beginning in a “changing of the guard.” Not to be outdone, they will be reinforced by returning military to add character and depth to the party, making it a powerful contender in 2012 and the future.

  • http://none pyrope

    zumpano said:
    What was his GPA though

    What was -0bama’s GPA?

  • http://none pyrope

    Magister said:
    …and Abe Lincoln was self-educated.

    Had Abe Lincoln lived in today’s times, he would have been working as a dishwasher at some obscure greasy spoon restaurant. In the 21st Century, the autodidacted have basically a snowball’s chance in a frying pan of making a decent living. Add to that, in today’s age, Mr. Linconln’s chronic depression and nutcase for a wife would have precluded his winning any public sector post higher than that of dog catcher. No disrespect to Mr. Lincoln, that’s just the way it is.

  • http://sharethisurlaboutglennbeck.com/ GlennBeckReview

    SteveMorris says: “Ignorance about the Tea Party abounds. The Democrats and Republicans can whine, bitch, and name call all they like. The Tea Party movement is about the discipline of Self-Government and the Liberty to practice it.”

    …and a continuation of the culture wars from the ’90′s. Five Tea Party candidates opposed abortion in the case of rape or incest.

    These reactionary Tea Party candidates want to tear down the wall of separation between church and state. They, contrary to their fake “Don’t tread on me” ideals want the government to control woman’s bodies,

    It’s the Tea Party that represents a REAL and PRESENT danger to freedom, not the Democrat’s minor reforms passed to protect middle class Americans from predatory health care insurance companies and Wall Street banks.

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