James Miller: The Bill Clinton Myth

From Zero Hedge:

Earlier this week, former U.S. president Bill Clinton gave the keynote address to the Democractic National Convention in an effort to lend some of his popularity to Barack Obama.  With the unemployment rate still stubbornly high at 8.1%, Obama has lost many of the enthused voters who put him into the Oval Office in 2008.  Clinton was tapped to deliver the speech not only because of his image of a wonkish pragmatist but because of his presiding over the booming economy of the late 1990s.  Like a prized mule, Clinton was dragged out to give Democrats someone to point to and say that his policies were the hallmark of smart governance.  Today, Clinton still takes credit for Greenspan’s manipulated boom.  His supporters on the left love nothing more than to point at his presidency as vindication of the backwards theory that higher taxes equal more growth.  Clinton wasn’t a policy wonk; he was a politician who dipped into the Social Security trust fund to give an appearance of balancing the budget while the national debt still climbed higher. Through all of his financial scandals, womanizing, aggressive foreign policy approaches, and possible cover ups, it is actually fitting that Clinton is still looked to by the political establishment as someone worthy of respect.  He is representative of F.A. Hayek’s timeless lesson: in government the worst rise to the top and state power corrupts.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-bill-clinton-myth