C-SPAN: Christopher Hitchens: On Bill Clinton (1993)

Source:C-SPAN– British-American Socialist writer Christopher Hitchens, on C-SPAN in 1993.

Source:The New Democrat

“Christopher Hitchens Interview For the Sake of Argument”

From Hitch Archive

“Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Buchanan spoke on current events in Washington politics, including the performance of the Clinton administration to date, and the reaction of Western countries toward the civil war in Bosnia. The correspondents responded to callers’ comments criticizing the Clinton administration. Credit to C-SPAN.”

Source:C-SPAN– Left-Wing political writer Christopher Hitchens, on CSPAN in 1993.

From C-SPAN

“Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Buchanan spoke on current events in Washington politics, including the performance of the Clinton administration to date, and the reaction of Western countries toward the civil war in Bosnia. The correspondents responded to callers’ comments criticizing the Clinton administration.”

Source:C-SPAN– Pat Buchanan and Chris Hitchens on CSPAN, in 1993.

From C-SPAN

This is certainly an interesting combo to have Chris Hitchens and Pat Buchanan, on the same show.

Hitchens, a self-described Democratic Socialist and Pat Buchanan, would be what’s called today an Alt-Rightist: someone who tends to be against free trade, multiculturalism, non-European immigration and perhaps immigration in general. Anti-internationalism when it comes to foreign policy and not believing that America should be involved in other countries human rights crisis’s and civil wars.

And then you have Socialist Chris Hitchens, who believes that the big central government, should decide what people need to live well. And that the central government should be responsible for a lot of those services. But tends to break away from Socialists when it came to foreign policy and did believe America and Europe, could play a positive role in seeing that people who live under authoritarian regimes, can break away from authoritarianism and even use military force to break those authoritarian regimes.

Hitchens was in favor of America and Europe, being involved in the Balkans in the 1990s. Buchanan was against that. They weren’t two men that even though one was clearly on the Left, Far-Left even and the other was on the Far-Right, that you could assume that either would automatically take a certain position on a certain issue.

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C-SPAN: ‘The Contenders- Ross Perot Preview’

Source:CSPAN– Political historian Carl Cannon.

“C-SPAN continues its series “The Contenders” LIVE on Friday, December 9 at 8:00 p.m. ET with Ross Perot. In this clip, Presidential Historian Richard Norton Smith, Goucher College History Professor Jean Baker and Washington Editor of Real Clear Politics Carl Cannon discuss Perot. More information on the series can be found here:CSPAN.”

From CSPAN

Ross Perot not that he ever had a real shot at being elected President of the United States, but his style of politics and what he believed in and the people he represents and spoke for, represents how Independent, Center-Right political candidates can get elected in America.

And I put Ross Perot on the Center-Right in American politics because he is a true fiscal Conservative who believes in fiscal responsibility, not running up debt and deficits, as well as being a national security, as well as deficit hawk.

Ross Perot believes in limited government and that everything that government does has to be limited to what we need it to do, not what we want it to do. And that all government including entitlement programs have to be efficient and affordable. But someone who was tolerant to moderate on social issues. Who didn’t push those issues and didn’t believe the Federal Government should be involved in them in most cases and would probably leave the states to deal with them.

Perot was sort of an Eisenhower or Ford Republican whose philosophy was based around accountability. And limiting government to doing the things that we need it to do and do those things well. Who represents roughly forty percent of the country and how people of this mindset could do well in the future especially if they put together one party that represents this whole movement.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on WordPress.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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BookTV: Robert C. Byrd- ‘Child of the Appalachian Coalfields’

Source:BookTV– U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) talking to CSPAN’s Brian Lamb in 1989.

“In 2005, Sen. Robert Byrd (1917-2010) appeared on Book TV to talk about his memoir, “Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields.” The book covers Sen. Byrd’s life from his childhood years in Stotesbury, WV, through to his election to an eighth term in the U.S. Senate in 2000 (he was re-elected in 2006 for a ninth term). This event was hosted by the National Archives in Washington, DC.”

From BookTV 

Robert Byrd certainly had his flaws like once being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, which he later renounced, but what I respect most about Senator Byrd was his knowledge of the United States Congress and Constitution. Which is what missed most about him in Congress today.

Senator Byrd was a self-taught Appalachian West Virginian, who literally had to work for everything that he ever received in life. The definition of someone who comes from nothing is almost someone who comes from Appalachia. Perhaps especially West Virginia which might be the poorest and most underdeveloped state in the union, despite its beauty and natural resources, like coal.

You can say all you want about his Far-Right KKK bigotry of his early years and even into his fifties, which will always be part of his legacy, but he was a lot more than that and a very effective and excellent legislature.

Bob Byrd was a classical legislature and member of Congress, who viewed his role as either a Representative, or Senator, or Senate Leader, as his job to represent West Virginia the state he loved and represented for 56 years in Congress, to represent his state, because his state had so little.

What other Congressional members , the media and public, would call pork, Senator Byrd saw those infrastructure projects and pork, as tools to advance the state that he loved and represented in Congress, again for 56 years: six in the U.S. House and 50 in the Senate. Twelve years as Democratic Leader in the Senate alone. Six as Majority Leader and six as Minority Leader.

And Byrd was also what I could call at least a Classical Progressive: someone who didn’t want government to do everything for everybody (which is how Socialists tend to feel) but use government to help people in need and help people could couldn’t help themselves.

Even with Robert Byrd’s KKK membership and beliefs that minorities weren’t equal and not deserving of the same rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution in his early career in Congress, Bob Byrd was always a Progressive. Not that progressivism is about bigotry, because of course it isn’t, but he always believed that government could be used as a force for good not to manage people’s lives for them, because again he wasn’t a Socialist.

Senator Byrd as a West Virginia Progressive, believed government could be used to help people in need in and outside of West Virginia. And use to empower people to get themselves on their own feet. With things like infrastructure, education, job training and a real safety net for people who truly need it. People who didn’t have the skills and education to financially support themselves. Who needed short-term assistance to get those skills and help them get those skills. So they could eventually make it on their own. So in this sense at least, Senator Byrd was one of the best Progressives to ever serve in Congress.

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C-SPAN: U.S. Senator Robert Byrd- On The 1964 Civil Rights Laws (2009)

Source:CSPAN– U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) talking to Brian Lamb about his votes against the civil rights laws in 2009.

“Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) explains why he would change his vote on the 1964 civil rights laws. This excerpt is from a Nov. 2005 interview C-SPAN conducted for the 2006 documentary The Capitol. On 11/18/09 Sen. Byrd becomes the longest-serving member of Congress.”

From CSPAN

Senator Byrd seems to be at least trying to put part of the blame for his votes against the civil rights laws in Congress on Dixiecrats that he served with in Congress. I might be over cynical here, but you can understand if you are someone who follows Congress and government and politics in general as much as I do for my cynicism.

In the second part of this interview Senator Byrd talks about losing his grandson and imagined if his grandson was African-American and was in some type of car crash in some area where there were no hospitals that treated African-Americans and probably other racial minorities. I think that’s the Robert Byrd that we can respect here and give him credit for growing up and maturing as a U.S. Senator, at least when it comes to the civil rights laws in America.

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