Right or wrong, former President Clinton has been an advocate of free trade in the Americas for a long time, so it is not a surprise to find him endorsing the DR-CAFTA agreement. It was during his time as President that NAFTA (which was also supported by then former President George H. Bush) was approved. As we can see, sometimes, Republicans and Democrats do agree on things, with the exceptions of idiots on the extreme corners of both parties.
Example: despite recent lies in this respect during a recent speech by presidential adviser Karl Rove, pretty much everyone in the US political spectrum agreed to go into Afghanistan and kick some Taliban butt, as the case was clear that these were the headquarters of Al-Qaida and those fanatics had planned and executed the attacks of 9-11. Quite a different thing with the case for invading Iraq, where reasonable people on both parties questioned the wisdom of a going after Saddam at a time when the fight against the terrorists might have been better focused elsewhere. Some on both parties disagreed on strategic grounds, others on ideological grounds, others on economic grounds, others on legal grounds, etc. The fact that so many friendly nations internationally, as well as unquestionably patriotic, but rational individuals citizens within the nation disagreed with invading Iraq shows that serious questions remained in making a case for that war. Extremists, and some reasonable people think George W. is one, just because they are on "our side" are no less an extremist and dangerous to the world.
That digression having been stated, it is not either immoral nor illegal for a private citizen (even a special private citizen like a former president of a free, capitalist country to speak out on any issue. They can, and should, speak out on behalf of issues they favor, for whatever reason. They can cash on it too, as long as they declare the source of that income. If he hides it then he might have an ethical and/or legal problem, on top of whatever political problem he may have created for himself.
Another digression: during the recent PRD administration- the now infamous, but then wunderkind head of Baninter and the List?n Diario, Ram?n B?ez Figueroa paid Bill Clinton to come to Casa de Campo to address the meeting of the Sociedad Interamericana de la Prensa, which is trade group of hemispheric newsmedia outlets. Does that make Clinton part of the Dominican banking scandal? Of course not.
Oversimplifying logic and similarly biased conclusions as displayed on some posts of this thread, do not clarify nor answer HB's reasonably simple observation, instead they murk the waters with innuendo and ad hominem mudslinging against someone (be it Clinton, Bush or Carter) that they either dislike or like. If I understood the original post, it should be irrelevant whether we like or hate Clinton to try to answer the question posted by our revered guru from Santiago, Mr. HB.
- Tordok
), my post was also said in fun. That's why I made the reference to Margaret Trudeau, whom at the time, was more well known in the US than her Prime Minister husband, Pierre.