Talk:Bill Clinton

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Peer Review, Suggestions, help

Hi, I think this article with a little work could reach FA status. However I think a peer review would be a good first step to finding some of the articles faults and locating areas for improvement. Can someone familiar with the peer review process please nominate the article for one? Furthermore does anyone have any suggestions for improvement that I could work on? LordHarris 14:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ive nominated for a peer review. LordHarris 12:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Please fix the date format in the last para of section Controversies|Impeachment and trial in the Senate: 1999-02-12 should be spelled out February 12, 1999. This article was locked. 18:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Date fixed. LordHarris 22:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Abortion?

Didn't Clinton at one point pay to have an ex-girfriend abort her pregnancy resulting from a relationship with Clinton (this was when he and Hilary just met)? I think I heard that on the E True Hollywood Story. If he did, shouldn't this be mentioned somewhere in the article? Perhaps under the family article? On all of the encyclopedias I have seen, a list of a person's children included miscarriages, stillborns, etc., so why not a terminated pregnancy? Emperor001 20:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

If you have a reference from a reputable source then please add it to the article.LordHarris 21:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

If I do add it, where do I put it? There is no family section. Emperor001 21:18, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't bother. Oh, the irony. Roe v. Wade was all about the right to privacy; and I assure you those who attend to our WP:BLP policy will not allow such an entry to stand, even if someone did say it happened on some tabloid TV show -- unless Clinton himself has publicly discussed such thing. Criminy. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The show had a video-taped interview with both Clinton and the ex-girlfriend admitting to the pre-marital affair and the abortion. I don't think they are to concerned about keeping something private if they admitted it in an interview that could and would be put on TV. Besides, E! True Hollywood Story isn't some tabloid. It's a documentary series that clearly distinguishes between fact and rumor. Emperor001 19:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That meme is nothing more than an urban legend. Bearian 22:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

No it ain't. I'm pretty sure Clinton and the ex-girlfriend both admitted to it on the show. I'd have to see it again to be 100% positive.Emperor001 22:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

New Approval Rating Graph

I made that graph, maybe you would like to put it on the page.

--Jean-Francois Landry 17:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Minor changes

I have made a couple of minor changes (a) fixing redundant language in the intro section, and (b) finding a cite for the claim he makes over $100,000 per speach. The NY Sun reported it was true, and up to $300,000. Bearian 22:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be useful to have a link in the reference to Ricky Ray Rector? The article on him would be of interest to people interested in Clinton, surely? Jones1901 12:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Perjury

Wasn't there an agreement with the prosecutor in the perjury-case, that C wouldn't function as a lawyer any more, in return for which, no legal action would be taken, after the presidential immunity would have ended? Didn't see anything about this in the article. Rembered this, because I then qestioned, whether a prosecutor can already make deals with somebody, when he is not yet entitled to file charges against him. James Blond 04:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Multiple small edits

Sorry for making many small edits to the article (sometimes only a single word) and thus filling up the article history. I'm not trying for a massive edit count but rather doing section edits due to a really crappy connection this afternoon. Cheers, Paxse 10:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Notes

Here's an example of a note:

First In His Class : A Biography Of Bill Clinton, David Maraniss, Random House, 1996, ISBN 978-0684818900

That's bizarre, in more ways than I can be bothered to describe. Let's not quibble over particular stylesheets (which anyway seldom mention ISBNs), but normal would be something along the lines of:

David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Random House, 1996; ISBN 978-0684818900).

I'm not familiar with the book but I assume it's over a hundred pages long. (Thanks to the recent trend toward biographical gigantism, it could well be six hundred pages long.) So which part of the book is cited? I'd expect the first and second citation of this book to look something like:

6. David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Random House, 1996; ISBN 978-0684818900), 143.

7. Maraniss, First in His Class, 161.

-- Hoary 15:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no definate way to reference an article. As the book is long, 500 pages true individual page citations would be useful, but its not a definate must for an article, even at FA level. Brownsea Island Scout Camp for example, recently promoted, doesnt cite indidivual page numbers on books that were used as citations. You are however right, the note should have the name of the author first: David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Random House, 1996; ISBN 978-0684818900). Also an ISBN is a useful (and very popular on wikipedia) bit of information for any reference.LordHarris 19:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

WP indeed specifies no single way in which books should be titled, and doesn't even start to do so. I suspect that one reason for this is that any attempt would face a large number of people with fixed, contrary and often plain bizarre opinions: I'd have no appetite for arguing against them and I suppose that few other people would.

Books such as this can be expected to come out in at least two editions since their first publication, and very likely four (US/British, hard/soft) or more ("With new Afterword", etc.). A good reason to give the regular info about the facts of publication, even the ISBN, of the edition used is to help the reader locate the precise citation. (Page 237 within which edition?) With no page numbers, there seems little or no point in adding the publishing information of an arbitrarily chosen edition; it seems instead like a meaningless bit of ceremony.

You yourself say that specifying the page should be useful. It's something that's done in biographical and most other work. (It's not normally done in, say, chemistry; and not because chemistry happens to have a different style but because chemistry papers are usually short and anyway worth citing in their entirety rather than for any discrete ingredient within them.) I'm not familiar with the Brownsea Island Scout Camp article, but if it doesn't specify page numbers, it's a poor article in this respect. Compare it with the recently featured Pierre Rossier; this clearly specifies page numbers. Or with Robert Benchley (heading in the FA direction till its primary author got pissed off with WP and left); this does too. If you merely want this article to be "featured", you can get away with all sorts of horrors; if you actually want it to be good, you have to provide useful bibliographical information. -- Hoary 23:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I want the article to be good but I do not think that page numbers are required for every statement and all the book references in an article. Given the nature of the information supported by the references - its hardly contentious stuff, how likely are readers going to look up the page numbers if they have a book that is extremely hard to get. Indeed if they were interested in finding the relevant section for information used in the article that they need only look up the the index in the books used here such as first in his class. I notice a difference between some FA articles - which are based on a few book sources massively quoted with page numbers and based on a notes system and another, the one in the Clinton and brownsea articles, based on the reference only system. I think the latter is fine. LordHarris 11:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

how likely are readers going to look up the page numbers if they have a book that is extremely hard to get. I don't follow all of that. First, I don't suppose that the books cited are extremely hard to get: they're in libraries with good holdings of English-language books, and they're also available via abebooks.com, etc. Secondly, I don't see the relationship between (a) the rareness of a book and (b) the likelihood that somebody who has got hold of a copy will look up something within it (either by page number or via the index). Additionally, I'd be surprised if every longish source cited in this article has a good index. -- Hoary 14:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I just dont think page numbers are needed here. LordHarris 15:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Does every longish source cited in this article have a good index? -- Hoary 23:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Mansoor Ijaz's comments

The comments were not vandalised. They are at Foreign policy of the Clinton Administration. Per Wikipedia:Peer review/Bill Clinton some information has been moved from the Bill Clinton article to his relevant split articles e.g. foreign policy and clinton administration. This is to reduce the Bill Clinton article length. The information itself is not directly related to Clinton but more about Sudan, Bin Laden and his government, than about the man himself. LordHarris 15:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Congress has "sole power ... to regulate the armed forces"

I think the bolded claim below is wrong:

"After much debate, Congress - which has sole power under the U.S. Constitution to regulate the armed forces - implemented the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, stating that homosexual men and women may serve in the military as long as their sexuality is kept secret."

In reality, regulation of the armed forces is a shared power. Let's look at the text first and then some history.

While it's true that Congress has the power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces" (Article 2, Section 8), it's also true the President is "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States." It would seem that, like many powers in the Constitution, the power to regulate the armed forces is a shared power.

Moreover, Presidents have issued executive orders that, in practice, regulate the armed forces.

For example, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which required "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin... as rapidly as possible..." It is said that through this order, Truman abolished segregation in the military.

Because of the foregoing, I think it's wrong to claim that either the President or the Congress has "sole power under the U.S. Constitution to regulate the armed forces." Therefore, that claim in the Clinton article should be dropped. The sentence could be changed to "After much debate, Congress, implemented the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, stating that homosexual men and women may serve in the military as long as their sexuality is kept secret."

PubliusPresent 20:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your argument, though I actually know little about the constitution of the US. If other people don't have objections it should change. LordHarris 10:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Pardons

Why is this sentence in this article?

"Other presidential clemency actions have been controversial, such as President George H. W. Bush's pardons of six Reagan administration officials accused or convicted in connection with the Iran-Contra affair and Orlando Bosch.[121][122][123]"

It seems like this would be more appropriate in articles on Reagan or Bush than in a Bill Clinton article. It's whiny, sort of like someone saying "But I'm not the only one that did it". Needs to be removed because it has absolutely nothing to do with Clinton. Tadellin 21:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It puts Clinton's pardons in context with those of his predecessors, to show that there has been controversy with many end-of-term presidential pardons in multiple administrations, and not just in this one alone. Tarc 21:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It does put in perspective and there is no doubt that end-of-term pardons happen and are controversial. However, the Presidents that are mentioned (even though they are previous Presidents) are Republicans and thus gives the appearance of a slam against either Clinton or his predecessors - depending on your point of view. Could we include some pardons from Jimmy Carter as well to give a more well rounded, balanced appearance? --BlindEagle^{talk~contribs} 20:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It strikes me as defensive and irrelevant. The perspective provided is minimal and seems a little out of place as there are no corresponding "perspective" statements in other scandal points. Clinton performed those acts and it is appropriate to list them, but I agree that the use of reference to similar complaints being lodged against Republican presidents in the past strikes me as a bit of defensive partisianship. If it is good here then perhaps we need to add cross refrence statements in every Presidential scandal reference in every Presidential article. Or maybe just strike the sentence as irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.193.203.117 (talk) 18:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The Man with the Twisted Lip

Clinton made a typical Bubba mistake on September 24, 2006, when he told Chris Wallace, "You have that smirk on your face." Actually, like Batman's enemy The Joker, Wallace's face permanently displays a sardonic smile. This is merely due to the unique configuration of his facial muscles and has nothing to do with his attitude. Clinton would have known this if he had ever watched Wallace on television at any other time.Lestrade 20:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

What does this have to do with the Bill Clinton article on wikipedia? I would hope that more people would be intelligent enough to realize that a talk page is not an opinion forum.Shabeki 04:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Bold textbill clinton cheeted on his wife! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.210.215 (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

As long as we are making irrelevant statements about past Clinton blunders he thought McDonald's fried chicken sandwiches were low calorie. Ok now maybe we can confine this discussion page to comments relevant to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.193.203.117 (talk) 18:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalized talk page

—70.187.196.183 (talk) 10:09, August 20, 2007 (UTC) vandalized this page and was removed. User:calbear22 08:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Clinton bias

re: this sentence in the article: "Clinton left office with polls revealing that most people questioned his morals and ethics"

This sounds like something from Fox News; it really ought to have a link supporting this opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.118.199 (talk • contribs)

LOL your statement shows a little anti-fox bias; however you may note that link #59 already provides support for this assertion earlier in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.193.203.117 (talk) 18:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Guys, please try to keep the theatrics at a minimum and only discuss changes. The Evil Spartan 18:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Controversy - Presidential Pardons

In the controversy section I find it curious that it doesn't mention the presidential pardons he gave right before leaving office. The controversy this raised in the media stemmed from most of them being real criminals who contributed to his campaign, making it seem like they bought their way out of prison. e.g. Four men who swindled the government out of $40 million for running non-existant Hasidic schools were pardoned, and they gave generously to the Clinton campaign. There were numerous articles written on this at the end of his term. JettaMann 14:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Did you miss the Bill_Clinton#Pardons_and_campaign_finance section, and the links to where the pardon controversies have their own articles? Tarc 14:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Lewinsky scandal

The article as currently written significantly understates the importance and impact of the Lewinsky scandal to Clinton and his second-term presidency. Some word counts from the article, by topic:

• Campaign for Democratic nomination: 531 words
• Clinton's surgery in 2004: 129 words
• Launch of whitehouse.gov: 124 words
• Healthcare reform: 120 words
• Lewinsky scandal: 30 words (One sentence)

Lewinsky is only mentioned by name twice in the entire article (the merits of the scandal, of course, are not to be confused with the ensuing grand jury and impeachment proceedings, which are covered in ample fashion). Based on sheer anecdotal late-night-talk-show evidence alone, Lewinsky and Clinton were intertwined in the public psyche for the majority of Clinton's second term. I'm surprised that the substance of this scandal is glossed over in the article's current version, especially considering that the Monica Lewinsky article's lead paragraph correctly states that the scandal "severely affected Clinton's second term..." For further comparison, note that Lewinsky is mentioned by name six times in the Hillary Rodham Clinton article, where "The Lewinsky scandal" merited its own section.

Any NPOV suggestions on how to more accurately describe the historical relevance of this event in Clinton's life? LennyGroup 23:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me see, this has been discussed, 427.38 times. It's just right. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

If that is the case, then why would Hillary Rodham Clinton merit so much more Lewinsky discussion than the Bill Clinton article? I'm sure you are personally tired of the subject, but that does not change what the numbers above demonstrate. EDIT: By the way, your userpage statement that "Bill Clinton is one of the greatest Presidents in this country" indicates that you are not the NPOV viewpoint I was seeking. LennyGroup 00:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, anecdotal late-night-talk-show evidence is some of the weakest imaginable. For one thing, which nation's late-night talk shows? In the nation where I was living at the time, the late-night talk shows primarily drooled over local, and not US, salacious non-events. -- Hoary 23:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, if you don't like my admittedly comical talk show evidence, try googling "Clinton Lewinsky" and see how many hits come up. I'm not being a Lewinsky conspiratorialist here, just pointing out that there is a slight skew towards coverage of less historically significant parts of Clinton's life (e.g. the White House website, his bypass surgery, etc.). LennyGroup 00:18, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Approval rating discussion - inconsistency with graph

The section on Public Approval states:

"While Clinton's job approval rating varied over the course of his first term, ranging from a low of 36% in mid-1993 to a high of 64% in late-1993 and early-1994,[55] his job approval rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s in his second term.[56] Clinton's approval rating reached its highest point at 73% approval in the aftermath of the impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999.[57]"

However, the graph just to the right conflicts with this. The graph does not show the rating surpassing high 60's nor does it show it dipping below the low 40's. They are obviously different sources. The wording should probably state the poll that is being cited. Some mention of end-of-presidency approval should be included.71.111.48.173 05:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)