Here's the classic Bill Clinton that we've seen for years.
Let's not kid ourselves and think that he had nothing to do with the abuses on Wall Street that brought down the economy. Maybe the GOP was leading the charge for scrapping the protections that kept America safe from Wall Street for decades, but Bill Clinton embraced the "reforms" and his team - Wall Streeters themselves - implemented the plans.
It was Clinton who signed the Gramm Leach Bliley Act back in 1999. The Clinton team at the center of the changes - Larry Summers and Robert Rubin - later went on to cash in themselves (Rubin was already a Wall Street giant) on the reforms and made millions more on Wall Street. Bill Clinton himself was no stranger to Wall Street gigs. Sorry if I'm not buying into the new and improved Bill Clinton who supposedly supports OWS, but I'd much rather hear him explain how bad his decisions were and how those terrible decisions left Americans with the worst economy since the Great Depression. It wasn't that long ago that Bill Clinton was defending Wall Street ("time to lower the rhetoric and talk about the facts") and telling Americans to shut up since Wall Street did nothing illegal. It wasn't illegal because people like Bill Clinton helped legalize the abuse of the system, which left Americans holding the bag while Wall Street continued the celebration with fat checks.
As long as people like Bill Clinton remain involved in the political process, there's really no hope for reform. He cashed in on his public service and takes money from the highest bidder. He's clever enough to tell which way the wind is blowing, but it doesn't make him any less cynical and opportunistic. It may not be polite to say in Democratic circles, but that's the way it is with our party elder. Forbes:
“I think what they’re doing is great,” he said. “Occupy Wall Street has done more in the short time they’ve been out there than I’ve been able to do in more than the last eleven years trying to draw attention to some of the same problems we have to address,” he said. Without once looking around, but completely engaging me, the statesman continued. “There are a lot of young people out there, I see a lot of unemployed students and they are upset, he said. They don’t know where the jobs and opportunities are for them, and they are worried about how they’re going to pay off their student loans without going broke.”
