Why do people, especially conservatives, think Bill Clinton was a liberal?

Question

The ex-President did very little to advance "liberal" causes:
-he passed NAFTA, a horrible trade bill that's slowly demolishing the American working class.
-instituted "don't ask don't tell" instead of allowing gay people to serve openly in the military (or at least not be ejected if found to be gay)
-did not vigourously pursue a universal health care bill
- passed a Federal death penalty bill
- passed "welfare to workfare" which hurt the poorest of the poor.

and there's more....but that's plenty of non-liberal stuff to begin with. So, I ask again, what was so "liberal" about him?

Answer 1

This is certainly true, and is the reason why Nader got almost 5% of the vote in 2000 allowing Bush to win the presidency. Liberals were fed up with Democrats who acted like Republicans.

On a side note, I've always found it odd (ironic even) that conservatives hate the Clintons so much, as both Bill and Hillary are among the most conservative Democrats out there. It tells me that the hatred has little (if anything) to do with the actual policies of these two.

Answer 2

Now it's probably more to do with Karl Rove anti-clinton rhetoric. But back in the days of Clinton presidency...

Mr. President, you're no LBJ - Bill Clinton's social policies; late President Lyndon Johnson
National Review, Dec 27, 1993 by Vin Weber
AS THE 103rd Congress closed up shop for the holidays, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were predictably boasting how productive President Clinton's first legislative year had been. House Speaker Tom Foley said Clinton's accomplishments in 1993 rivaled "the first years of Dwight D. Eisenhower's and Lyndon B. Johnson's Presidencies." The Washington Post echoed this sentiment in a front-page article, gushing that "in a triumph of substance over style, President Clinton and the 103rd Congress broke through the legislative gridlock that has gripped Washington in recent years, stumbling to one of the most fruitful first years of an Administration in decades."

The comparisons are, as Newt Gingrich recently put it, "a joke." Clinton passed no original legislation on the scale of the Civil Rights Act or Medicare. "You can't find a single bill they passed this year that resembles a medium-sized bill under Lyndon Johnson," said Gingrich, "unless it's the $255-billion tax increase."

Most of the praise Clinton has been receiving relates not to the weight of any new legislation that was passed, but to how well he and the Democratic leadership in Congress got along. They passed a record number of bills, and completed the year with no vetoes (only the second time that has happened in six decades).

http:// findarticles.com

Karl Rove stuff:

The Accidental President:
Fuzzy Math, Florida Lawsuits, and Campaign 2000
Pippa Norris
For British Elections & Party Review (*)
Revised Draft 19 Dec 2000 1:02 PM / Total 9140 words+diagrams and tables
The extraordinary process whereby George W. Bush eventually entered
the White House during the 2000 US elections, becoming almost an accidental
president, has generated serious concerns that promise to have long-term
consequences for the political process. No major institution of government
remains untouched.

http://ksghome.harvard.edu

Answer 3

He called it triangulation. Meaning: He made Democrats happy by being a Democrat in office and made Republicans happy by doing as they wished. Everyone was happy. (except the puny left and the libertarian right). Clinton got to pretend he was a moderate when in fact he was a Reaganite.

Democrats are good at throwing interceptions. Look just now they are pretending to be fighting to end the war and impeach the president. But once again, the Reepos intercept he ball!!!

Answer 4

I do not know why Republicans put him down at all and Democrats support him. If you hid his name and just show is record most people would think he is a Republican. He did very little for the Democrat agenda, he passed an assault weapon ban with an expiration date so does it even count? Other than that he did nothing for them but win elections.

Answer 5

Remember New Gingrich and the 'Contract with America'?

Did you notice that it was never heard from again after Clinton took office?

Why?

Because when Clinton took office, he became a Republican.

Clinton, as is his bride, is a career politician. He will say and do whatever it takes to get elected.
It's all about getting into office nothing more, nothing less.

There is no currency in being faithful to a party or a political philosophy and no one knows that better than the Clintons.

Answer 6

Clinton (both of them) are centerists. To a true liberal they are considered conservative and to a conservative they are liberal. So Bill is liberal only to those on the right of center. The farther right one goes the more liberal he seems.

Answer 7

Umm, not one person I know called Clinton a "liberal". He is a democrat, which is far different from a liberal. He was also an economic conservative (or atleast tried to make himself look like one).

I would define a liberal as having socialist leanings.

Answer 8

Because they want to push the center of American politics to the right.By calling moderates like Clinton liberal or even socialist they hope to silence anyone who is left of that or to characterize them as radicals.People like Kucinich and Gravel are liberals but they are portrayed as far left while if you put them in a global context it's pretty easy to see they are just left of center.

Answer 9

How liberal do you really have to be to offend the "moral majority" (22%)?

These people (Ann Coulter, Rev. Kennedy) go around calling Democrats "f.agg.ots" and saying that their wives get cancer just for sympathy...

It doesn't take much to be considered "open minded" compared to that!

Answer 10

He was more fiscally conservative than our Commander in Chief George W. Bush, but we are neoconservatives which are fiscal liberals with a social hate agenda.