Sept. 26, 2006
Bill Clinton Strikes Back
The Nation: Former President Shoots Back At The 'Drive-By' Media
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In this handout photo provided by Fox News Sunday, former President Bill Clinton responds to Chris Wallace. (AP Photo/Fox News Sunday, M.Simon)
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Regular readers of this column will know that it maintains no great affection for former President Bill Clinton. A Democratic Leadership Council stalwart, Clinton got elected president by promising health care and education for all and then proceeded to give the country fiscal conservatism and a corporate-sponsored free trade agenda. His missteps handed control of Congress to Newt Gingrich and the radical right, rendering the Democratic party largely dysfunctional at the legislative level to this day.
But there has never been any doubt that Clinton was more serious about combating terrorism than his successor, George W. Bush. Clinton actually worried about threats to the United States, while Bush dismissed warnings at precisely the moment when the threats were most serious. And, as the intelligence community now confirms, Bush's failure of focus and practice have made the Americans more vulnerable.
The fact that Bush's supremely political presidency treats "homeland security" as a slogan rather than a necessity is the fundamental flaw in the current commander-in-chief's deeply flawed tenure. And his handlers are well aware of the problem. That's why they have worked so hard, along with their amen corner in the media, to create the false impression that Clinton and the Democrats were somehow more responsible for the 9-11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon than Bush and the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Unfortunately, the so-called "leaders" of the opposition party have done a lousy job of challenging the spin job ... until now.
Clinton used an appearance with "Fox News Sunday's" Chris Wallace to challenge the lies of the Bush administration and its media acolytes. The interview, which was broadcast over the weekend, got to the heart of what's wrong not with the Bush presidency but with a media that covers that presidency from the on-bended-knee position.
Clinton recognized that Wallace, one of the more competent members of the Fox team, was under pressure to mouth the Republican talking points that the network uses as its reference points. And the former president pounced on that vulnerability.
When Wallace started in on the "Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President?" line of questioning, Clinton leapt.
"Okay, let's talk about it," the former president began. "I will answer all of those things on the merits, but I want to talk about the context (in) which this (discussion) arises. I'm being asked this on the Fox network … ABC just had a right-wing conservative (program) on "The Path to 9/11" falsely claim that it was … based on the 9/11 Commission Report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission Report. I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn't do enough claimed (in the 1990s) that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush's neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn't have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say that I didn't do enough said (then) that I did too much. Same people."
By now, Wallace was sputtering: "I understand...," "with respect, if I may, instead of...," "But Mr. President..."
But Clinton was on a roll.
Despite Wallace's stumbling attempts to interrupt him, Clinton went year-by-year, incident-by-incident, initiative-by-initiative through his anti-terror efforts.
By John Nichols
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National Security Archive by the National Security Council, bears a declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."
Two days after Rice's March 22 op-ed, Clarke told the 9/11 Commission, "there's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options -- but all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in February."
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Clarke asked on several occasions for early principals meetings on these issues, and was frustrated that no early meeting was scheduled. No principals committee meetings on Al Qaida were held until September 4th, 2001.
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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm
RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/
There's something mighty Freudian about that...
And we still have two more years of Moe Howard in the Oval Office. God, help us!
1. Start fight with father over hitting trash can while drunk;
2. Get drunk;
3. Stay drunk for 20 years;
4. Join Texas National Guard to avoid Vietnam duty;
5. Leave Texas National Guard early to avoid completion of obligation;
6. Get drunk;
7. Start failing businesses using Daddy's friend's money;
8. Sell stocks early (Harkin business failing) and get slap on wrist from SEC for insider trading (sound familiar);
9. Get drunk;
10. Successfully run for gov of Texas so he can screw up Texas;
11. Unsuccessfully run for US President so he can screw up the US;
12. Get bailed out by brother Neal's state and right-wing supreme court and be appointed as president;
13. Plan a war with Iraq to avenge father's failings;
14. Act like a moron who can't read or speak proper English;
15. Ignore warnings that allow al Qaeda to attack US;
16. yada yada yada...
1. Confabulate with Monica
2. Confound Congress
3. Cuckold Hillary
4. Conspire Cover-up
5. Contrive Plausibilty
6. Contraindicate Culpability
7. Collect Contributions
8. Cancel Capitolism
9. Concoct Contrition
10. Capture Bin Laden
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