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 dont 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.
Mr. BBL replies: Clinton is not a bum, he is trailer trash, a bum still has some dignity.
Coulda Woulda Shoulda ping!
Passing by my local newstand and seeing old Slick Willie's face on the cover of NY Magazine made me realize that these people are never going away.
Pre-emptive strike against the Able Danger revelations.
What a lying POS
Not true, as a Widow, Hillary would gather much sympathy in a run for the President.
Of course Janet Reno would have to stand in as her other half then.
I did not need to see that again.
I see that whoever wrote this article is still wearing the kneepads and I bet has given Slick Willie far more Lewinskies, than just this article.
Clintons Shipped Furniture Year Ago
White House Usher Doubted Ownership
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2001; Page A01
President Bill Clinton and his wife started shipping furniture from the White House to the Clintons' newly purchased home in New York more than a year ago, despite questions at the time by the chief usher about whether they were entitled to remove the items.
The day before the items were shipped out, White House chief usher Gary J. Walters said he asked whether the Clintons should be taking the furnishings because he believed they were government property donated as part of a White House redecoration project in 1993, during Clinton's first year in office.
But Walters was told by the White House counsel's office that the items he asked about -- which included an iron and glass coffee table, a painted TV armoire, a custom wood gaming table, and a wicker center table with wood top -- were "personal gifts received by the Clintons prior to President Clinton's assuming office."
Personal property brought to the White House by an incoming president does not have to be disclosed on financial reports. As a result of the counsel's determination, the furnishings were sent on to the Clintons' new home in Chappaqua. They were not listed among the controversial gifts Clinton revealed, the day before he left office this year, that he and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), had taken with them.
However, government records show that the gifts that concerned Walters did not arrive at the White House until after the Clintons moved in. At least one of the items, a Ficks-Reed wicker table, was logged in at the White House on Feb. 8, 1993. Joy Ficks, the widow of the manufacturer, told The Washington Post last week it was meant for the White House, not the Clintons, and she thought it would stay there.
The Clintons' interior decorator, Kaki Hockersmith, had been soliciting gifts for the White House redecoration project even before the 1993 inauguration, according to some of those she approached. Walters said he understood she was telling donors that the furnishings were for the executive mansion rather than the Clintons personally.
"As far as we were concerned, they were government property," Walters said of all the gifts obtained for the $396,000 redecoration project.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A51211-2001Feb9¬Found=true
See also:
Clintons Will Pay for Half of Gifts (The Washington Post, Feb 3, 2001)
Who Said You Can't Take It With You? (The Washington Post, Jan 26, 2001)
Clintons Take Away $190,000 in Gifts (The Washington Post, Jan 21, 2001)
Who are Americans going to believe, an Impeached President who admitted to not taking Bin Laden when given, or a whole bunch of dedicated military who were hunting up terrorist before 9-11?
I think the military will get the respect if and when they all come forward.
The left won't be able to get away with vilifying these men should they come forward.
================================
Either way, Clintons health, as far as I can tell, is basically restored, though his aides still beg him to slow down. Hes not jogging, but he walks four or five miles when he can, and he goes to bed very, very late (on this trip, he never retires before four in the morning).
His schedule, which borders on lunacy, is quasi-presidential: He and Hillary have basically given up on connecting each weekend, though they speak every day by phone. (The one conversation I overheard sounded . . . utterly normal. Sorry. He was describing a golf course he glimpsed in Dar es Salaam.) When in Europe, he also tries to pop in on Chelsea, whos doing a health-care consulting project in the London office of McKinsey & Company. (They spoke four times the day of the second London subway bombings. Clinton, sounding more like a dad than a man who used to receive daily intelligence briefings, said the terrorists were just trying to spook Londoners.)
Clintons Harlem office continues to hum. He receives 14,000 pieces of mail a month; the job offers keep rolling in. (Recently, he got three separate offers to do movie cameos, all declined.) He still gives three or four paid speeches per month, at anywhere from $150,000 to $250,000 a pop, though his aides say the money he receives from poorer countries goes into his foundation.
Protocol dictates that former presidents, especially ones of a recent vintage, cant spend much time in Washington. So Clinton keeps up mostly by phone: with John Podesta, his former chief of staff, who now runs a think tank; Rahm Emanuel, a former policy aide whos now chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; his former campaign advisers; Berger; and, naturally, his wife.
But with the exceptions of Emanuel and senators Christopher Dodd and Ted Kennedy, he doesnt chat very much with members of Congress, unless they want his campaign advice. (For this, they call him all the time.) Clinton didnt leave Democrats with a new sense of mission and direction, a legacy they could build on, says Robert Reich, the presidents former Labor secretary and one of his less bashful critics. There was no Clinton doctrine, no Clinton approach to foreign or domestic policy. But he is one of the best political strategists in America. So how does he use his skills to the utmost? Beyond doing what hes been doing, I only see him getting his wife elected president. ==================================
Enchante, southack, backhoe ... CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS -- THE SHRILLERY SHILL PAC!!
So Clinton keeps up mostly by phone: with John Podesta, his former chief of staff, who now runs a think tank; Rahm Emanuel, a former policy aide whos now chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; his former campaign advisers; Berger; and, naturally, his wife
Remember Linda Tripp..She worked at the Pentagon and I believe she was still there when Able was active. She had a high security clearance. Maybe she found Monica as a way to expose Clinton without violating secrets of her position. Maybe that was an underlying motive.
"...WORRIED about GORELICK GATE and BERGER BURGLAR GATE hitting the big media....."
It won't so don't get your hopes up. Most of that has been known for years and the MSM L/MSM will not make their own look bad.
Unless they have a way to spin it that it is a conservative or republican caused it all to happen. It is already happening.
They ignore it and will continue to.
The Clinton's without the hippie generations, could never have gotten power like they did.
We also see God being torn out of anything in public by laws, a sign of perhaps the end of good times. We shall see how it goes, but I wish us the best...
He's absolutely insane! Will nobody rid us of this slimeball?
It was one of the paintings that Alberto Gonzales had to FORCE the Clintons to return. (The Secret Service LOVE to point out to visitors that those are "the paintings the Clintons took." -- The other one is a oil painting of just the torch of the Statue of Liberty, which I cannot find on line as I don't know the correct name.)
It's Not Bill's Fault Pingggggggggggggggg!
Grrrrrr
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...our old GUILD posts would add even more.:-)
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