Posted on 08/15/2005 8:08:34 PM PDT by wagglebee
Ex-president Bill Clinton now says he would have taken out Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks – if only the FBI and CIA had been able to prove the al-Qaida mastermind was behind the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
"I desperately wish that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole," Clinton tells New York magazine this week. "Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early."
"I don’t know if it would have prevented 9/11," he added. "But it certainly would have complicated it.”
Despite his failure to launch such an attack, Clinton said he saw the danger posed by bin Laden much more clearly than did President Bush.
"I always thought that bin Laden was a bigger threat than the Bush administration did," he told New York magazine.
With this Weldon revelation hitting the fan.......She must be REALLY p**** at Bill.
Always said...Bill would be the one who sticks it to her.....Ah, sweet revenge.
In the end, Bill knows that no one gives a damn about him. He served a cause and that's it and that's how he played it.
Jamie Goerlich (sp?) constructed the wall after Waco so Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Dick Morris would be able to claim they were just "Three Blind Mice", On the threat of Terrorism. As far as North Korea, it was Sandy Burger, Madeline Albright and Slick Willy who became the next three blind mice.
Bill Clinton is a pro at claiming he was unaware, or he wasn't sure what the definition of the word "IS" was. For 8 years Bill Clinton used this defense whenever he would explain why he dodged a national security challenge
The only way I would believe this is if bin Laden was the name of a woman he met in Chappaqua.
Klintoon, a two bit piece of White trash.
Clinton may say he loves his new civilian life, loves his new house in Chappaqua. But that doesn’t mean he’s mentally decamped from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “I thought that if I had six more months,” he tells me, “I could make peace in the Middle East. I’d have figured out what was really keeping Arafat from saying yes.”
What was it?
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “But I think I would have. And I think I’d have gotten more help from the other Arabs, a couple of whom he told he was gonna take the deal.
“I also wish,” he continues, “I desperately wish, that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early. I don’t know if it would have prevented 9/11, but it certainly would have complicated it.”
The sentiment sounds both sincere and self-justifying—both a regret and a preemptive exercise in legacy protection.
The gaffes and conflicts of Clinton’s administration, self-created and not, also still plainly cling, still sting, and so does the criticism he continues to endure, even if it’s for more highbrow policy choices. When I ask Sandy Berger how often he talks to Clinton, he answers, “Usually when he sees something critical of his foreign policy in the newspaper and wants to revisit it.”
Similarly, when I ask Clinton what his first February as a civilian was like—he’d said in My Life that Februarys make him miserable—he launches into a screed about his frustrations over media coverage of his final days in office.
“I was really mad about the setup I got on the way out the door,” he says, referring to (in retrospect) a completely inane dispute about whether the Clintons had left the White House with furniture that was rightfully theirs.
“It was totally bogus, totally manufactured, totally false. The people running the White House suggested we take the furniture, and I said, ‘Well, I’ll pay for it, it has sentimental value . . . ’ ” The story goes on and on, for what seems like ten minutes at least. “The whole thing was just one more lie,” he says, giving his cigar clipper an emphatic snap. “I was really angry.”
Did he call the Washington Post, which broke the story, to explain?
“No, I didn’t call them,” he says. “After the way they, you know . . . they were an extension of the special counsel’s office.”
And then, before I know it, he’s off and running on a related topic: “And the same thing was true about the pardon deal . . . ” Another ten minutes about Marc Rich follows.
This is the Clinton you just want to shake: the defensive Clinton, the one who can’t concede he might have had a hand in his own undoing—perhaps not in these particular instances, but in the bullheaded, fingers-in-the-ears manner he attempts to bat them away.
Then again, Clinton had the peculiar misfortune of presiding over an era of prosperity—one he helped usher in, no less—which often gave a bored White House press corps little to do but write process stories, inconsequential little play-by-plays about what was happening behind the scenes, rather than policy outcomes. Their bellicosity, combined with Clinton’s relentless indignation, produced some pretty foul chemistry.
=============================
Gawd .. I'm cracking up here ... he was wewwy wewwy MAD!
Clinton Administration score:
One dead camel, one dead janitor, one dead
Vince Foster, one dead Ron Brown, hundreds
of anxthrax resisting court martials of servicemen
and -women. . . .
Bin Laden score:
After the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, which killed six and injured 1,000, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.
After the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed five US military personnel, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.
After the 1996 al-Khobar towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured 200 US military personnel, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.
After the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Africa, which killed 257 and injured 5,000, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.
After the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured three US sailors, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.
Maybe if Mr Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 7,000 more people would be alive today.
(Bin Laden's score courtesy of Snopes.com)
What a lying pack of slug sh*t! INDEED.
Sheesh. His level of gall is indeed only equal to his arrogance and other excesses, it seems.
So glad he's NOT in the WhiteHouse but we MUST pray and work to keep SHRILLERY ANTOINETTE de Fosterizer de Machiavelli de Marx
OUT of the White House, too.
He sounds liek Carter when he left the WH
The correct spelling is Gorelick. I remember that because several years ago, some very witty FReeper commented on her name (before we knew the "correct" pronunciation), asking, "Is that a last name or a career move."
We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread already in progress.
Thanks.
I do believe Bill Clinton would say and make such an outrageous statement, one which is provably wrong, a lie. He is a man who has no sense of shame, is devoid of a conscience that indicates differences between right and wrong, he truly has no moral compass.
Apparently the Able Danger story has shaken the pols for Gorelick to have phoned Weldon's office twice and now this incredibly wicked lie from Clinton.
We are witnessing history unfold and perhaps revelations of high treason will be exposed. Remember there is the other hot scandal that will encompass and enfold the Clinton Machine: Food for Oil.
Bill coming out like this on this topic would be like an abortion doctor representing a right to life position.
This was simply crazy Howlin.
This is exactly what separates Clinton form GWB.
GWB's conviction to principle is what guides his decisions, and the best interest of the United States in the short and long run is how he formulates his response.
Clinton never made a decision based on principle, they were made strictly on what would promote his image and not the security of the Nation
Clintons cart off truckload of gifts ( Amount is called 'absolutely unprecedented")
Crime/Corruption News Keywords: CLINTON, GIFTS, BRIBERY,
Source: Detroit Free Press
Published: January 21, 2001 Author: KENNETH R. BAZINET
Posted on 01/23/2001 10:30:04 PST by MrMuse
By KENNETH R. BAZINET
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton and his wife accepted a massive amount of gifts last year, most of it in furniture, art, rugs and flatware that could fill much of their new mansion in Washington.
A member of a previous administration called the amount of gits carted off as "absolutely unprecedented ...I've never heard anything like it."
The final financial disclosure statement of the Clinton presidency also showed the couple's legal defense fund chipped in $1.05 million for attorney fees in 2000 as a result of various federal investigations faced by the administration.
The Clintons' assets, including investments, savings and income, were listed at $1 million to $5 million in the report, which requires presidents and their families to estimate their net worth.
The release of the disclosure statement Friday night was part of a day-long document drop at the White House as Clinton wound up his second term in office.
But it was the seven pages of gifts that the Clintons received last year that broke from the norm for the Clintons. The most they had ever reported before was $23,602 in gifts, in 1999.
By comparison, $52,853 in gifts in 1992 was the most President George Bush listed in his four annual disclosure statements.
The gift issue was so sensitive that Lori Krause, director of the White House Gift Office, advised the press staff who released the disclosure form to be cautious.
"Please keep in mind that the first family has stressed to my office their desire for privacy regarding the gifts they receive," Krause said in a White House memo.
Among the biggest gifts were two sofas, an easy chair and an ottoman valued at $19,900 from Steve Mittman of New York; china worth $4,920 from movie mogul Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw; two coffee tables and two chairs estimated at $7,375 from songwriter-philanthropist Denise Rich of New York, and $4,787 in flatware from husband-and-wife actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen.
The class of '68 at Georgetown University, the former president's alma mater, gave the Clintons a $38,000 basket set by artist Dale Chihuly, and Chihuly himself chipped in a glass sculpture worth $22,000.
The Clintons also were given a travel humidor, china cabinet and a copy of President Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech worth $9,683 from insurance magnate Walter Kaye, who lobbied to get Monica Lewinsky her White House internship.
Other gifts included a $5,000 rug from Martin Evans of Chicago, a sofa valued at $2,843 from Brad Noe of North Carolina, a cashmere shawl and flatware worth $5,767 from Morris Pynoos of Beverly Hills, Calif., and a painting listed at $3,000 from Joan Tumpson of Miami.
Actor Sylvester Stallone gave the president boxing gloves valued at $300, actor Jack Nicholson gave him a golf driver worth $350 and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns (PBS' "Jazz") forked over an $800 photo of Duke Ellington.
Lamps, more flatware, antiques, a portrait of Buddy the dog, television sets, a DVD player and a leather jacket were among the remaining gifts.
"It's almost enough to furnish an entire house," said one source who reviewed the list.
Sheila Tate, Nancy Reagan's White House press secretary, called the amount and value of the gifts "absolutely unprecedented."
"Now we know why they had to have such a big house," an incredulous Tate said.
"I've never heard anything like it," she added. "These are not the kind of gifts you take with you. It's usually a silver bowl with your name on it."
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
That is an out and out lie; the furniture in the White House is not OFFERED to past presidents; it belongs to US.
And if the Head Usher EVER did this, he'd be fired!
BTW, two of the paintings that the Clintons STOLE when they left -- well, to show you what a great sense of humor Bush has -- they are hanging on either side of the main door to the Oval Office (once they were returned to the White House -- you can thank Alberto Gonzales for that!)
Piece of work, indeed. Rewriting history before the ink is even dry.
"I desperately wish that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole," Clinton tells New York magazine this week. "Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early."
Sure, Bubba. Wasn't it Jamie Gorelick who made it impossible for the CIA and FBI to share information? And didn't she work for you? Nice try. Go back to molesting anything in a skirt.
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