LIVE from Pittsburgh: President Clinton!
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 42nd President of the United States!
As those words boomed out over the loudspeakers, Bill Clinton strode up the stairs and onto the stage at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center to a standing ovation to deliver the opening keynote at Netroots Nation 2009.
His voice a bit hoarse (he noted he'd been spending a lot of time on airplanes lately, to great applause) he began by thanking the community for engaging hundreds of thousands of Americans in an ongoing conversation about our nation and our world's future, which are inextricably linked.
"It matters a lot... that we have taken a new approach in our relationship with the rest of the world," Clinton declared. "We would like to lead the world in a progressive way, not dominate it, and we know we can't."
He touched extensively on politics and policy in his speech, stressing the connections between the two. He presented a crash course in recent electoral history, beginning with the 1966 midterm elections (which Democrats lost) and concluding with the most recent presidential election of Barack Obama.
Referring to the sweeping victories Democrats have won over the last four years, Clinton remarked, "We have entered a new era of progressive politics - which if we do it right - could last thirty to forty years."
He referred again and again to the nation's growing diversity, crediting the beginning of a multiracial America as a reason the progressive movement has been able to muster newfound strength in recent years (against incredible adversity) in the tireless effort to remake America for the better.
The future the United States chooses will affect the entire globe, Clinton asserted. "We know that we live in an interdependent country in an interdependent world."
Clinton was interrupted partway through his speech by blogger Lane Hudson, who demanded that the President talk about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Clinton appeared only mildly surprised by the disruption. Pointing a bony finger in Lane's direction, he welcomed the confrontation and proceeded to thoroughly explain how he acted to prevent the Republican controlled Congress from making a bad situation even worse. He drew applause as he reminded the audience that he was forced to deal with Newt Gingrich and Company beginning in 1994.
Clinton proceeded to speak at great lengths (and perhaps that is an understatement) about two priorities that he believes are paramount for America to be successful: Accomplishing healthcare reform and addressing the climate crisis.
President Obama, Clinton said, needs the help of the netroots in dispelling and stamping out right wing untruths about healthcare reform. People have to understand the cost of inaction (which would be staggering), what's good about the President's plan, and that Republican criticisms of the plan are phony because the bad things they say are in the plan simply aren't there.
On attacking the climate crisis, he noted that huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved through efficiency alone. Weatherizing homes, retrofitting public buildings, and insisting on strict green standards for new construction can reduce energy demand and get us on the path to meeting the targets for lower emissions that we must reach if we are to cool Earth's fever.
The President ended his remarks by praising the tenacity of the netroots community and its ability to harness technology to bring people together. "You hold the seeds of a genuine revolution in our public life," Clinton said, adding somewhat wistfully that he has been waiting all of his life for this moment.
"We have to preserve this progressive majority," he stressed. "This could be the most exciting time in human history."
As those words boomed out over the loudspeakers, Bill Clinton strode up the stairs and onto the stage at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center to a standing ovation to deliver the opening keynote at Netroots Nation 2009.
His voice a bit hoarse (he noted he'd been spending a lot of time on airplanes lately, to great applause) he began by thanking the community for engaging hundreds of thousands of Americans in an ongoing conversation about our nation and our world's future, which are inextricably linked.
"It matters a lot... that we have taken a new approach in our relationship with the rest of the world," Clinton declared. "We would like to lead the world in a progressive way, not dominate it, and we know we can't."
He touched extensively on politics and policy in his speech, stressing the connections between the two. He presented a crash course in recent electoral history, beginning with the 1966 midterm elections (which Democrats lost) and concluding with the most recent presidential election of Barack Obama.
Referring to the sweeping victories Democrats have won over the last four years, Clinton remarked, "We have entered a new era of progressive politics - which if we do it right - could last thirty to forty years."
He referred again and again to the nation's growing diversity, crediting the beginning of a multiracial America as a reason the progressive movement has been able to muster newfound strength in recent years (against incredible adversity) in the tireless effort to remake America for the better.
The future the United States chooses will affect the entire globe, Clinton asserted. "We know that we live in an interdependent country in an interdependent world."
Clinton was interrupted partway through his speech by blogger Lane Hudson, who demanded that the President talk about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Clinton appeared only mildly surprised by the disruption. Pointing a bony finger in Lane's direction, he welcomed the confrontation and proceeded to thoroughly explain how he acted to prevent the Republican controlled Congress from making a bad situation even worse. He drew applause as he reminded the audience that he was forced to deal with Newt Gingrich and Company beginning in 1994.
Clinton proceeded to speak at great lengths (and perhaps that is an understatement) about two priorities that he believes are paramount for America to be successful: Accomplishing healthcare reform and addressing the climate crisis.
President Obama, Clinton said, needs the help of the netroots in dispelling and stamping out right wing untruths about healthcare reform. People have to understand the cost of inaction (which would be staggering), what's good about the President's plan, and that Republican criticisms of the plan are phony because the bad things they say are in the plan simply aren't there.
On attacking the climate crisis, he noted that huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved through efficiency alone. Weatherizing homes, retrofitting public buildings, and insisting on strict green standards for new construction can reduce energy demand and get us on the path to meeting the targets for lower emissions that we must reach if we are to cool Earth's fever.
The President ended his remarks by praising the tenacity of the netroots community and its ability to harness technology to bring people together. "You hold the seeds of a genuine revolution in our public life," Clinton said, adding somewhat wistfully that he has been waiting all of his life for this moment.
"We have to preserve this progressive majority," he stressed. "This could be the most exciting time in human history."
# Posted by Andrew : 6:45 PM
Comments:
Bill Clinton is still the same lying homophobe he always was. Thirty five senators voted to lift the ban entirely in 1993. That would have been enough to sustain a veto of any executive order he could have written to eliminate the ban.
The same Bill Clinton who ran campaign ads bragging about signing DOMA in 1996 now has the nerve to lie and say he never wanted to sign it.
Bill Clinton is such a piece of work.
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