Terrorism, A Clinton Priority?

Media Research Center ^ | March 30, 2004 | L. Brent Bozell III

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Tom Brokaw was playing government watchdog the other night, interviewing Condoleezza Rice right in the middle of the "NBC Nightly News." Now the evening anchors almost never do interviews during their newscasts, so you have to assume that Brokaw had something very important to ask. But how could you take Brokaw’s questioning seriously after watching him swallow whole Richard Clarke’s rotten-egg notion that fighting terrorism was Job One in the Clinton years?

The Brokaw transcript read like this: "Mr. Clarke said today that terrorism was the highest priority of the Clinton administration. It was important to you, but it was not the highest priority. Any student, I think, of the early days of your administration might have thought that China, Russia, Iraq, missile defense systems, were probably higher on the president's agenda."

Rice could have responded by falling out of her chair with laughter. Terrorism, the highest priority of the Clinton administration?

Or she could have responded with a list of the real Clinton foreign policy priorities:

1. Maintaining Clinton’s approval ratings. This would include ineffective military strikes on terrorist targets and pharmaceutical factories, transparently timed to shift the news media’s attention away from inconvenient topics like impeachment and lying under oath about sexual sloppiness.

2. Building Clinton’s legacy and his chances for a Nobel Peace Prize. This would include ruling out any U.S. response to the killing of Americans on the U.S.S. Cole, since it might have jeopardized Clinton’s end-of-term Middle East "peace" partnership with Yasser Arafat.

3. Globe-trotting apologies for everything America has done in its history, real or imagined. This correlates to number 2, see: Nobel Prize, pandering for.

4. Broadening "national security" to include panicked theorizing about global warming from cattle flatulence and other imminent threats. Al Gore told him Earth was hanging in the balance.

5. Fighting the bad guys with that intimidating tool, the treaty designed to ban weapons and weapons testing. Let’s not forget how this exercise in Realpolitik affected North Korea. They signed a treaty with Clinton to end weapons development in exchange for aid, which it began violating with impunity about two minutes later.

6. Shaping military-technology export policy to fit the demands of campaign contributors, both domestic and the illegal foreign kind.

At the very least, the National Security Advisor could have reminded Mr. Brokaw that President Clinton was so anti-anti-terrorism that he let members of the Puerto Rican terror group FALN out of prison in 1999. (This group was best known for their bombing of New York’s historic Fraunces Tavern in 1975, killing four and wounding 60.) The move was so politically tin-eared that the Senate voted 95-2 to call Clinton’s clemency "deplorable." Interestingly enough, Tom Brokaw didn’t cover that vote.

In November of 1999, a White House memo surfaced showing Clinton counsel Charles Ruff was urged to add his support for FALN clemency to help Al Gore’s political aspirations: "The VP’s Puerto Rican position would be helped" by the clemency. Brokaw didn’t cover that story, either.

The utterly partisan and selective scrutiny of Brokaw and others on the supposed inattention and failures of Bush’s anti-terror policy in comparison to Clinton’s is thoroughly unfair and logically contradictory. How do you hold Team Bush more accountable for eight months in 2001 (a large chunk of which unfolded without top officials in place during the confirmation process) than the Clinton gang was for eight years of pussyfooting?

How, after punishing the Bush White House for years for supposedly squashing civil liberties and generally acting too aggressively in the War on Terror, can you turn around and completely bash their failure to pass the Patriot Act or attack Afghanistan sooner?

This increasingly partisan 9-11 Commission issue is being played up by the TV news elite as a way to make the American people forget the Bush administration’s record in dismantling al-Qaeda. They can bash Bush for what he did before 9-11, and then bash what he did after 9-11, and then bash how he portrays 9-11 in his campaign ads. But they cannot simply suggest to the American people in this very political season that the war on terror hasn’t resulted in any victories worth noting.

But worse than this shooting bullets at Bushies from every direction is the annual compounding of historical ignorance on the real Clinton record. Not only did the networks avoid the dithering failures and craven political calculations as they unfolded, but now they’re repainting the Clintonistas as vigilant comic-book heroes who make Bush look weak and apathetic by comparison. That’s not just prevarication. That’s hallucination.

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Let us not forget Clinton's Bin Laden-gate - Mother of all Scandals!

[South40]

Clinton spent more time and money prosecuting Bill Gates than he did terrorists.

He pardoned them too.

[Spok]

He was big on sexual gratification, too.

[broadsword]

Absolutely! NO president has spent so much time and effort terrorizing women. None! If one president even...

Wait...

Oh!

Nevermind.

[Steve_Seattle]

We need to remember that - whatever Rice's priorities were - the job of investigating terrorism falls with the FBI and CIA; THAT is where the ball was dropped. And we knew that more than a year ago.

[ladyinred]

Clinton preferred the illusion that we were safe and prosperous during his administration. He ignored terrorism for that reason, and when he had to do something, it wasn't with the military which he detested, it was with the court system which he loves.

Considering Waco and Elian, I think he and his administration were terrorists. He also used the OKC bombing to his advantage, even boasting about it by blaming it on Rush and the Christian right, and IMO covered up a middle east connection to it. We all know how he blew it with Bin Ladin. I rest my case.

[Use It Or Lose It]

But how could you take Brokaw’s questioning seriously after watching him swallow whole Richard Clarke’s rotten-egg notion that fighting terrorism was Job One in the Clinton years?

Clinton ->Job One -> Swallow

[PGalt]

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

[Milligan]

I just finished reading 911-Commission on the web. How come the public knew very little about the terrorism problem during the Clinton Administration? If people were aware of this threat maybe we wouldn't have 9-11?

[ChadGore]

Terrorism, A Clinton Priority?

Febuary 26th, 1993: First World Trade Center Attack
Febuary 26th, 1993: Waco

Never have so many been so wrong about so much.

[ChadGore]

Febuary 26th, 1993: First World Trade Center Attack

Febuary 26th, 1993: Waco

Clinton had no problem rolling tanks, he just had a hard time pointing them.

[Jeeper]

Excellent point.

[Jeeper]

Nice post. Very very funny.

[CyberAnt]

What I don't like and I have a very big problem with is all the members of the 9/11 Commission who are all over the talk shows.

What the heck are they doing ..?? To me this is the same as the USSC judges going out to all the TV stations prior to making a decision.

This is disgusting! How on earth is this being allowed to take place?

I intend to send them an email and tell them that their PRIOR JUDGEMENTS IN DISCUSSING THIS CASE PUBLICALLY before it's conclusion are very telling.

I was particularly upset to see Ben-Venista on Chris Matthews spewing garbage about Dr. Rice.

I sure hope Fred Barnes is right - that Dr. Rice will blow them out of the water when she testifies. Somebody needs to shut these people up.

[FRgal4u]

There is still a trump card to play here...

the card is from Bush...

imagine the unthinkable -

Bush can come out have a 5 minute dialog with the American public (probably on the day of testimony in front of the 9/11 commission) - some sort of special speech in prime time -

using an example from the great communicator -

After October 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon. President Ronald Reagan held a news conference that December at which he said, "If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office and with this president. And I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good."

He also said that "more should be done to anticipate and prepare for a dramatic terrorist assault." ..

..

Bush can do the unthinkable - (I know this is very hard to swallow) - he come out and accept the blame, the responsibility, sorta like what Reagan did - and then refocus the whole issue of what are we going to do next?

Reason for that is #1) political shock value - how many politicians can utter the word, I take responsibility #2) Personal character - Bush is a very likeable president, people like him because of his leadership and honesty - again how many politicians can say - I take responsibility #3) reframing the issue of what to do next?

I bet the public (save the 40% in the angry left) really don't care for the blaming game on Bush, and by coming out to take responsibility, Bush will win a huge majority for the rest. The rest want to know how are you going to protect us, not blaming so and so. Remember the personal qualities of Bush standing on top of the ruins of wtc, we like him because he is decisive, he is honesty and he is trustworthy. All these qualities will undercut Kerry's character (vote yes before no blah blah)...

I do think if the media are overplaying this Bush bashing game, Bush can come out and put all these media thugs into shame. The Bush presidency is full of surprising moments - the 9/14/01 WTF megaphone, the 5/01/03 Aircraft carrier moment, the thanksgiving 03 moment..maybe a surprise moment in 2004 in the next few months is what we need to refresh our memories why we like this president over weasels like Clinton and Kerry.

jmho.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. with this group of dems - there is no way Bush can say he takes responsibility - just no way!

[Pagey]

But worse than this shooting bullets at Bushies from every direction is the annual compounding of historical ignorance on the real Clinton record. Not only did the networks avoid the dithering failures and craven political calculations as they unfolded, but now they’re repainting the Clintonistas as vigilant comic-book heroes who make Bush look weak and apathetic by comparison. That’s not just prevarication. That’s hallucination.

That is why I stopped watching the evening news in the 90's. They have no shame what-so-ever and it's horrible that the average American takes TV Nightly News for gospel. (I heard this: Bill Clinton for Secretary of State under John Kerry? Are these people living in some parallel universe? It will be the end of the world as we know it if that occurs. Oops I forgot, that happened on 9/11/01 thanks to Mr. Clintoon)

[NotchJohnson]

bump