Posted on 06/21/2004 8:39:16 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
9-11 Ken Starr's fault? On NBC's Meet the Press, after endorsing Bill Clinton's disgust for Ken Starr ("He makes a very strong case for Starr's abuse of power") and agreeing with Clinton's view of himself more as victim than perpetrator ("My feeling is, that in the end on all this stuff he's more sinned against than sinner"), Time magazine's Joe Klein gave credibility to Clinton's claim that but for the Lewinsky scandal Clinton would have fired FBI Director Louis Freeh, who had proven incompetent in the battle against terrorism. Klein suggested "we might have had a better shot at rolling up those al-Qaeda cells if Bill Clinton had been free to fire Freeh."
In Time itself, Klein called Clinton's case against Starr "powerful."
On Meet the Press, recalling Time's interview conducted last week with Clinton, upon the release of his lengthy tome, My Life, Klein picked up on a finding of the 9-11 Commission about Freeh's supposed poor job on counter-terrorism and expounded, during a roundtable segment: "One of the other things that Clinton told us was that he would have fired Louis Freeh as FBI Director if it hadn't been for the media and for the fact that we would have associated that firing with the investigation of the Lewinsky scandal. Now, that is incredibly damning because from what I can understand, the FBI was entirely incompetent, not doing anything in terms of counter-terrorism over those years. And so in some ways, you could say that we might have had a better shot at rolling up those al-Qaeda cells if Bill Clinton had been free to fire Freeh."
Of course, there would have been no need to fire Freeh if Clinton hadn't hired him. Clinton nominated Freeh in 1993. And what evidence is there that Clinton had any knowledge of Freeh's supposedly bad management on counter-terrorism?
In fact, though Clinton did make the claim that Klein conveyed, his comment to Time magazine was in the "if I had known" form, so he didn't know and therefore would have had no reason to replace Freeh on counter-terrorism grounds. From the Time magazine interview in the June 28 edition:
On why he never fired FBI Director Louis Freeh
If I had known that when we tripled the counterterrorism funds none of it was put into improving the data processing and interconnecting with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, if I had known that the Executive Order I signed fairly early in my Administration ordering the CIA and the FBI to exchange high-level people and cooperate more hadn't been done, I might have done so.
But since the FBI chief gets a presumptive 10-year term, I didn't feel what I thought was outrageous treatment of us, particularly by him personally, was worth replacing him, because all of you [in the media] would have said, Well, he's doing it because he's got something to hide, and I didn't have anything to hide. I knew there was nothing to Whitewater, I knew there was nothing to the Paula Jones case -- Ken Starr could have as many FBI agents as he wanted doing whatever they wanted to do.
END of Excerpt
For the Time interview in full, available only to subscribers: http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101040628/story.html
Quotes by William Jefferson Clinton:
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Bill Clinton (February 4, 1998)
"If (Saddam) accepts (the UN Resolutions to disarm), force will not be necessary. If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences." - President Bill Clinton (February 17, 1998)
"Well, he (Saddam) will conclude that the international community has lost its will (if they do not act). He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal." - President Bill Clinton (February 17, 1998)
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors." - President Bill Clinton (February 17, 1998)
Ah, the media's never-ending crusade to salvage Bubba's precious legacy.
Time for Louis Freeh to write a tell-all book.
Didn't the Klintoon's fire all the U.S. attorneys when he took office? So now he's saying he can't get Freeh to resign to "spend more time with his family"?
Anything that Freeh might write would be better than that offered by Klein. Klein has done his best to prove the old argument that those who write historical novels are of common mind.
Even if Clinton's (and Klein's) assertions are true, it merely underscores why sexual shenanigans like those of B.J. Clinton can ultimately undermine national security. Defenders of the Toon ("he only lied about sex") used to snicker when conservatives would suggest scenarios whereby a Prez in a compromising position could do this. Well, apparently, the Lewinsky thing accomplished exactly that (at least according to Clinton and Klein
freeh should never have gotten the job. I would read his tell all book though.
Why didn't Clinton fire Freeh? "Because I couldn't."
What a small man.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20040621.asp
Hold on a moment while I laugh my @ss off . . . The disgraced lawyer who lost his license to practice is accusing the prosecutor in this case of "misconduct"? LOL!!!
"One of the other things that Clinton told us was that he would have fired Louis Freeh as FBI Director if it hadn't been for the media and for the fact that we would have associated that firing with the investigation of the Lewinsky scandal."
I agree with Mr. Klein on this one, but my conclusion is different than his: This is precisely why Bill Clinton should have resigned -- because his ability to function as president was effectively compromised.
What about suggesting... "if Bill Clintoon had been anything but a morally bankrupt self-serving rat and paid enough attention to keep his barrel out of the dirt he could have fired freely....." or something like that... :)
I don't think that it is just the legacy that the press is trying to salvage, I think, at this point, that they are also trying to salvage the very expensive, but boring, book that is attempting to salvage the legacy.
"Klein suggested "we might have had a better shot at rolling up those al-Qaeda cells if Bill Clinton had been free to fire Freeh."
Again, the "kids" are no longer in control. Thank God.
Stupid us! We forgot that nothing is ever Bubba's fault.
...it will be the 8 years of Bill Clinton sandwiched between the 8 years of Reagan and GW Bush (YES he will get 8 years) that will expose the evidence of HOW the media was trying to run itself as another branch of government...
During Clinton's 8 years...Bill decided to replace the "Judical Branch" with the "Media Branch"...and the media doesn't enjoy it's demotion since GW has re-aligned government back to its intended functions...
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