Posted on 06/21/2004 10:46:53 PM PDT by kattracks
In an effort to counter the growing perception that President Clinton forfeited America's best chance to arrest Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks, "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather aired new footage Monday night of Clinton strenuously denying that the government of Sudan ever offered to extradite the al Qaida mastermind.
In a segment initially edited out of Sunday night's "60 Minutes" broadcast, Clinton tells Rather, "To the best of my knowledge it is not true that we were ever offered [bin Laden] by the Sudanese, even though they later claimed it. I think it's total bull." In more remarks deleted from the original broadcast, the ex-president claimed:"Mr. Absurabi, the head of the Sudanese government, was a buddy of bin Laden's. They were business partners together. There was no way in the wide world this guy who was in business with bin Laden in Sudan was going to give him up to us."
During Sunday night's telecast, the portion of Clinton's comments on the Sudanese offer aired by CBS was far more abbreviated.
"I don't believe that is true," he said. "There was a story, which is factually inaccurate, that the Sudanese offered bin Laden to us. As far as I know, there is not a shred of evidence of that."
The Clinton-CBS publicity machine racheted up denials about the Sudanese offer after talk radio stations from coast-to-coast aired audiotape on Monday of a Feb. 2002 speech where Mr. Clinton admitted that Sudan had indeed offered him bin Laden, but that he turned the offer down.
"At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America," the ex-president explained, in comments recorded exclusively by NewsMax.com.
Clinton's characterization of the Sudanese story as "bull" was first reported Thursday by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, based on his interview with Mr. Rather.
But "60 Minutes" spokesman Kevin Tedesco insisted to NewsMax later in the day that Clinton never uttered the word "bull," explaining instead that the Mr. Rather had attributed the word to Mr. Clinton erroneously.
"Clinton never used the word 'bull.' That was Dan Rather's word. Clinton never said that," Tedesco said.
"60 Minutes" declined NewsMax.com's offer to share its recording of Clinton admitting he had turned down the Sudanese offer, and instead let Clinton's denial stand unchallenged.
In a March staff report issued by the Sept. 11 Commission, commission investigators said that every Sudanese official interviewed about the bin Laden offer confirmed the story, while every Clinton official they spoke to denied it.
In his own April 9 interview with the Commission, Mr. Clinton said he'd been "misquoted" in reports claiming that he had confirmed the bin Laden offer.
9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said two days later that at the time of Clinton's interrogation, he was unaware that staffers had obtained a videotape of Clinton's 2002 speech where he detailed the Sudanese offer.
Mr. Clinton's expanded denials were posted to the CBS News web site after the Monday's "CBS Evening News" broadcast.
Listen to the recording that was too hot to handle for "60 Minutes."
Where have we heard that before?
CBS is rapidly going from being politically biased to being journalistically corrupt. Here we have the impeached one himself accidentally on tape admitting what turned out to be a major blunder, and Dan Rather covers his ears with both hands, yelling, "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT."
Both the New York Times and The Associated Press gave about the worst book reviews imaginable to Clinton's 950-page yawn-a-thon, yet Dan Rather rated it five stars, LOL!
I may be the lone wolf, but I think this book tour is the start of his conquest to become the next Secretary General of the UN. Its the only way he retain any sort of power that will disrupt and maim the lives of his fellow human beings.
Dan Rather and CBS have a vested interest in the sucess of clinton's book. CBS and clinton's publisher are subsidiaries of Viacom.
But Rather would be just as corrupt without any Viacom connection. I remember a couple of years ago when Rather went on The O'Reilly Factor and stated that he considered Bill Clinton to be "an honest man." And, of course, Rather got in a lot of hot water once after he attended a Democratic Party fund-raiser. Rather is just a left-wing liberal who covers for Clinton any chance he gets.
Interesting that every Freeper and conservative talk show host in America was aware of the videotape, but I'm not surprised Kerrey hadn't heard of it. But then I wouldn't be surprised if Kerrey couldn't find his @ss with both hands.
He still has time to be elected President again.
But that's unconstitutional! you say. Well, you're right about that. But here's what I'm thinking.
Many Republicans want a constitutional amendment to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger (or any other naturalized US citizen who has been here a very long time) to be eligible to be president. Democrats, knowing what that's about, will never support that.
Many Democrats want the two-term limit for the presidency lifted. (Really. Go back and look while Clinton was president and see how many times that proposal was made in Congress.) No Republican is likely to support that.
Combine the two, and you've got an amendment that might just pass, and Bill will certainly get behind it.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky?"
Well .. Monsoor Ijaz says that at least 3 offers were made, because Monsoor was involved in 2 of them and was aware of the 3rd.
Now .. why would I believe an impeached rapist ..??
""factually inaccurate...not a shred of evidence..."
"Where have we heard that before?"
WJC said:
Theres not a single, solitary shred of evidence that I did anything wrong or that his [Marc Richs] money changed hands,
When questioned about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the Whitewater investigation, Clinton told reporters, There has not been a single shred of evidence of anything dishonest Ive ever done in my public life.
Parsing this correctly translates it to: "There is more than one piece of shredded evidence."
I received several hundred pages worth of hits covering such topics as the Sudan/Osama deal, Monica Lewinsky, Rose Law Firm, FBI files, the LORAL ballistic missile guidance technology transfer authorization to China, Vince Foster, stolen embroidered bath towels from a US Navy aircraft carrier by Clinton staffers, White House travel office, White Water, Paula Jones, that dead Starbucks girl, Mena airport, Branch Davidians, Ron Brown, OKC bombing, TWA Flight 800, and on and on and on.
If we're taking requests for catch phrases we never want to hear again after 2004, I humbly submit 'Shred of Evidence'.
... Oh, and several of my hits turned up Hillary's shredding of evidence in the White House.
... counting the minutes till dan rather is off the payroll as a clinton / dem crazy policy / castro / etc. shill ...
BUMP!
Fox News should seize the moment and play the audio of Clinton's admission, while re-interviewing Monsour Ijaz, and let the chips fall.
BUMP
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