Bill Clinton Craps Out
I speak for dice shooters everywhere when I say that Bill Clinton has seriously dissed the honorable game of craps .
When he went on the Charlie Rose show last week and tried to scare the Bejeezus out of the American people by claiming that to nominate Barack Obama would be to "roll the dice" with the country, he grossly distorted the odds.
Clinton's fear-mongering remark reveals much greater experience in rolling around in the hay than rollin' dem bones.
To be precise, rolling the dice is one of the very best bets you can make in Vegas, or anywhere else. Depending on how much a given casino allows you to put down as odds behind your basic pass line bet, on every roll of the dice the house has a razor-thin advantage of only about one-half to one-and-one-half percent. Indeed, in the most liberal of casinos that allow 100x odds, the house advantage drops to an invisible 0.02 percent.
That means a roll of the dice, to use Clinton's term, is for all practical purposes an even-money 50-50 bet. Which, as I said, makes it a damn good bet.
If Clinton had really wanted to spook us, he would have instead implied that voting for Obama was not a roll of the dice but rather a "spin of the wheel." Roulette is a veritable cash vacuum cleaner for any casino, offering a 5.36 percent advantage to the house -- four to 15 times riskier than a friendly game of dice. Worse, any spin of the notorious Wheel of Fortune offers as much as as a staggering 24 percent house advantage, perhaps a hundred times more dangerous than trying to toss an innocent eeyo-eleven at the craps table.
Even the most generous of slot machines offer an edge to the house 3-4 times greater than craps.
All that to say any 50-50 bet, like craps, is a great bet. And Bill Clinton's use of this particular metaphor ought to allow us to compare the risk of rolling the dice to that of electing Hillary. Is she really better than a 50-50 chance not to embroil us in another war? Not to fail again on health care? Not to succumb to the power of special interest lobbies? Are you convinced enough to put some money down?
I'll let you decide which level of risk you're more comfortable with.
I, for one, would rather roll the dice.
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Thanks for this take on the "dice roll". I'll take 50/50 odds in Vegas over the wheel odds any time.
Poor Bill, he can't even get his analogies straight particularly when he is off the rails like he was on the Charlie Rose show.
The prospects of another Clinton era is just too frightening ~ it would be business as usual for big business and those of us who aren't in the Clinton picture for their "successful leadership" Let's hope the American people don't buy this and let the world know we are really ready to make changes in the way we view the world the hard work ahead to undo all the damage done over the past eight years including the NAFTA treaty and the Kyoto Treaty burn.
Yep, Obama threatens the dynasty. See, Bill has brought out Bush senior out of desperation and has proven what we have always been suspicious about. Are the Clintons Democrats or Republicons. Why this close association of families? They should remind us of the God Father and the Dons.
The Clinton's and the Bush's should take their families and go live in Saudi Arabia where most of their money comes from and leave us all alone. These two families are sickening to watch.
The truth can be a frightening thing. An Obama presidency should scare the bejeezus out of you. The last time we voted for the nice guy was in 2000!!! Frightenin
I read other people comments and this is what makes me sadest of all..how so many people are BRAINWASHE
Dyanasty: Of the last 28 years 20 were Republican Presidents.
Since George Washington 70% of the $9Trillion debt accrued $6.3Trilli
Bush2 HAS SPENT OF $1.3Trilli
DESPITE THIS, Mathews, Russert and Obama trashed Social Security the Bush way.
"The" War
With shoddy reporting in the lead up to Iraq, reporting in the lead up to our elections is ten times worse.
Democrats who voted to give Bush any authority regardng Iraq did so AS A UNITED FRONT TO INTIMIDATE SADAM INTO ALLOWING THE INSPECTORS IN.
They made their **CONDITIONS** FOR THAT VOTE CLEAR ON THE SENATE FLOOR. I SAW IT LIVE.
Once The inspectors were in IN 2003 Clinton and others EXPRESSED OPPOSITION to going in.
Yet, AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK FOR YEARS, TIM RUSSERT REPEATED The lie "But John Kerry voted for "the" war.
President Clinton lied about an affair and betrayed his wife, but was also impeached by a bunch of Republican adulterers.
This is NOT a reflection of him, But A REFLACTION OF THE RUTHLESS REPUBLICANS who are looting our treasury with tax cuts that 30% went to 130,000.
Democrats don't haven't great PR, but beleive in the workig for the greater good. Republicans equate this with Communism. and have, for decades) been trying to destroy FEMA, Consumer Products Safety, EPA...for DECADES, now comming home to roost.
Attacks on President and Senator Clinton are Republican Propaganda
Hillary Clinton is a really good and SMART person who care a lot about American standard of living...d
Bill Clinton came combed the budget line item by line item asking. "if I cut this who will it impact, go find out." Al Gore implemented it.
DON'T BE BRAINWASHED by the Republicans Media campaign. It's by design!
Dear Mr. Cooper.
Looks to me that the Republicans are now controlling the Democratic campaign.
Based on your exact same fraiming of what Clinton said, You obviously get your "news" (and "framing" of your messag) from Republican Chris Mathews..w
MSNBC has been running like an Opposition Party against the Democrats since before Chris Mathews gave the Switfboat Liars for the War in Vietnam 35 days and 10s of Billions in free advertising.
As for the matter of Obama. Obama as well as all of the Democratic candidates were doing well and we were all in love with them. Unil Obama was egged on to attack Hillary Clinton.
This went on for over a week prior to the last MSNBC debate.
Then during the debate Republican Tim Russert asked his USUAL out of context quotes using Republican Talking Points (as he always does of Democrats) of Hillary...
That debate ended with Chris and Tim TRASHING SOCIAL SECURITY THE BUSH WAY.
And for the following weeks every night Chris Mathews has been making erroneous assertions
about Senator and Hillary Clinton.
I know of what I speak. I am Media Trained and get my News live off of C-SPAN...W
Shame on you for using Republican Propaganda.
As for Obama, his allowing himself to be egged on by Chris Mathews -- to run on lies -- is not a sign of wisdom or that which inspired us about him in the first place.
And is it delusional not to consider the kinds of personal things immoral frauds like Mitt Romney will drudge up from Obama's own book.
The Associated Press has a great article entitled "Clinton '92 vs. Obama '08". It pretty much levels Bill Clinton for "rewriting history": http://ap.
Marc, like other "so-called" journalists you're spreading disinformation; it wasn't Bill Clinton who said "roll the dice" but Charlie Rose. Can you not get your facts straight? This is a cheap shot against Bill Clinton.
Hear, hear!
Obama is a smart guy with charisma, and after a few years experience in governing, I am sure will become a formidable force. But he is much too green and naive to be President of the United States just yet. When challenged he gets edgy, and he blurts out answers that are under developed. Obama is in no way ready to handle the pressure of the job nor is he able to negotiate the tricky terrain that the next president will face. It is going to take nothing short of an exorcism by the next President to undo the damage to this nation that the Bush White House and the GOP Congress have created. The next President will have to give everything they have to this country. It isn't going to be pretty. Obama is just not resilient enough or cagey enough, and he has a young family he has to steward. The next President will be someone who will work exclusively on getting the business of getting the country back on its feet, to the exclusion of all else. The party is over in the White House. Bush used up all the capital.
Uh - I dare any journalist on the Obama Post to write a substantive piece about Obama and how he has affected change. He talks about change and the best way to know about it is to find out whether he's done that in his Senate year, or as a State legislator. I see nothing about that at all...
How is talking about Clinton or speculations about Clinton's potential Presidency addressing WHY OBAMA? Why his policies? The campaigns started us all thinking about universal healthcare, and the people seemed to have wanted this for our country, and yet, according to Krugman and other notable analysts, Obama's plan is not Universal Healthcare. When did we throw out the goals we set for our country for rhetoric? Dodd, Richardson, Biden, even Clinton have a track record of creating change. Why Obama - and don't answer, because he's not Clinton.
Craps is my favorite casino game. Not only because of the odds you mentioned but also because, unlike black-jack you don't have to be "rain-man" to play well at it. It is a relatively easy game to play. The article makes some excellent points.
Am I crazy in thinking that bubba, the ultimate politician, is making these crazy statements about the war and hilary to sabotage her campaign?? The things he's been saying lately have been less than complimentary to her.
Call me crazy but thats what it sounds like to me.
What foreign policy experience did Clinton have before he became president? He was governor of Arkansas, not exactly the seat of foreign policy expertise. If Hillary's campaign goes down the drain, a good part of the blame can be layed at her husband's feet. He's made some ridiculous charges and not just about Obama but about his so-called non-support of the war in Iraq which was a lie.
it has become pretty clear to most of us by now that the Clintons are
OF the money
BY the money &
FOR the money
and also that "WE THE PEOPLE" are sick & tired of getting screwed by the political greedniks, corruptionistas and warmongers ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE
this is especially problematic for Hilly&Billy who are firmly in the pockets of the war/military industry and the medical/pharma industry
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