Blame everything on Bill Clinton.
That's the long pass Republicans are throwing as the clock ticks toward the November congressional elections influenced by the sagging economy and corporate accounting scandals.
"There's no question our economy has been challenged by a recession that was beginning when we took office," Bush told his Texas economic forum last week. He repeated the message as he took to the road to campaign for Republicans.
The recession rhetoric headlines the White House's new public relations offensive on the economy. Many Republicans on November ballots also are seeking to implicate Clinton in the business scandals, suggesting lax oversight and a permissive attitude during his White House years.
"Clearly, the actions by these corporate executives was a result of the go-go Clinton years," said Republican Party consultant Scott Reed.
The issue can be a winning one for Republicans. "The candidates have now been home for a couple weeks and are getting a real front-line experience on what the voters care about," Reed said.
Bush himself does not go quite so far in blaming Clinton and his aides for corporate fraud. But Bush has cited a national hangover from "the economic binge" of the late 1990s and has claimed that his chairman at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, "was put in place to clean up a mess."
Bush's take
"After some scandals had been in the making for awhile, they bubbled to the surface," Bush said Thursday.
Top Republicans are attacking Clinton's treasury secretary, Robert Rubin. They assert that Rubin, as a Citicorp director, tried to trade on his Washington connections in seeking to avert Enron's bankruptcy filing.
Citigroup is the failed energy-trading company's biggest creditor.
Democrats scoff -- and note that the Clinton years saw the largest economic expansion of the post-World War II period.
"All I know is 18 months ago, we had a surplus," says Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
While Bush's team blames Clinton for the economic mess, the Clintons are taking credit for Bush's successes.
"The military he inherited performed admirably in Afghanistan, and many of the techniques used in Kosovo worked well in Afghanistan," the senator said.
Blaming your predecessor is hardly novel. Presidents often claim credit for the good times -- and try to shift responsibility for the hard times.
Ronald Reagan blamed President Jimmy Carter for the weak economy of 1980, when interest rates topped 15 percent and inflation approached 13 percent. Carter leveled similar criticism four years earlier, complaining of inheriting from President Gerald Ford a then-historic budget deficit and 7.8 percent unemployment.
Clinton made the economy the top issue in his 1992 defeat of the first President Bush. Once in office, he accused his predecessor's budget office of cooking the books to hide the magnitude of the federal deficit.
All their fault
The current Bush White House has blamed Clinton for other problems, too. Some officials have even suggested the two-term Democrat's efforts to prod an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement helped fuel the recent Mideast violence.
"These people ran on responsibility, but as soon as you scratch them they go straight to blame," Clinton responded in a recent television interview.
"Now, you know, I didn't blame his father for Somalia. I didn't do that."
Will voters buy the blame-Clinton strategy?
"All of the political polling experience has been that the man in the Oval Office gets the glory -- or the blame -- at the time things happen," said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.
"I'm not sure the American public is blaming Bush or Clinton. It's more that they want something done about this, and turning to Bush because he's the president and Clinton's not," Kohut said.
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
BULLY TACTICS: Beijing has continued its incursions into Taiwan’s airspace even as Xi Jinping talked about Taiwan being part of the Chinese family and nation China should stop its coercion of Taiwan and respect mainstream public opinion in Taiwan about sovereignty if its expression of goodwill is genuine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) made the comment in response to media queries about a meeting between former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) the previous day. Ma voiced support for the so-called “1992 consensus,” while Xi said that although the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have “different systems,” this does not change the fact that they are “part of the same country,” and that “external
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source