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Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
it was probably sarcasm)
Posted on 12/28/2005 9:50:27 AM PST by areafiftyone
Broadcast veterans Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel agree that Bill Clinton would have gone into Iraq just like George Bush if he were still president in 2003.
Appearing on "Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Brokaw and Koppel also agreed that the press shouldn't be judged too harshly for not pursuing questions about claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
According to a transcript appearing in Editor & Publisher, Koppel defended the media’s treatment of the WMD claims:
KOPPEL: In large measure, when the president and his top people tell you, as they did, "Here's our perception of what exists. Here's our perception of the danger to the United States. Here's our perception of a relationship between this guy who has weapons of mass destruction and the group that just blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade Center," I don't know that reporters as a whole can sit there and say, "Oh, hokum. You know, it's just not true ... "
BROKAW: The French intelligence were sharing the same conclusions with the administration. I thought – I agree with you that I don't think that we pushed hard enough for vigorous debate. I think that on Capitol Hill that the debate was anemic, at best ...
RUSSERT: [Congress was] not questioning whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
BROKAW: No. No. No.
RUSSERT: That seemed to be a uniformly held belief.
BROKAW: Right. Yeah.
KOPPEL: Nor did the Clinton administration beforehand.
BROKAW: No.
KOPPEL: I mean, the only difference between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration was 9/11.
BROKAW: Right.
KOPPEL: If 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton's watch, he would have gone into Iraq.
BROKAW: Yeah. Yeah.
Bull Chips
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Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Bubba wouldn't even go after bin Laden or rescind the EO on assassination.
Let the rewriting of history continue.
Clinton probably would have gone to war against Iraq. After all, a war is a great thing for one's legacy and that was his priority. Better for Bill than his bombing of the Balkans.
Damn the luck. If only terrorists would've attacked the World Trade Center when Clinton was President.
Oh....wait a minute....
It would of depended on which way the wind was blowing......
We don't need conjecture to figure out what Clinton's reaction would be: After terrorists tried to blow up the WTC in '93 he did nothing.
Brokow and Koppel wouldn't know reality anymore now than they did when they were at the top of their game. They're just a bunch of never beens.
Shh...that's an inconvenient detail.
The MSM now senses Iraq is an asset for Bush so they want Clinton in on it. Nevermind Clinton's been on record talking out both sides of his mouth about he would/wouldn't have done the same thing.
We can answer this for the MSM. Clinton a) wouldn't have had the guts b) if he had done it he would have withdrawn when the first poll went South and left a bigger mess then existed before.
Lastly, only in an MSM bubble would they attempt to sell us a bill of goods that the only difference between the administrations was 9-11. I responded to this in anothe rthread on the same topic, won't go there again, but we can all spend hours detailing the differences between this administration dealing with domestic and foreign policy, treatment of their "political" enemies and basic characters of the occupants.
Nor did they react to the U.S.S. Cole and other terrorism on his watch. As well, their response to saddam was continued U.N. sanctions and letting our planes get shot at.
Koppel and Brokaw need to get out of their fictionial world and acknowledge Clinton was hit with challenges on lesser scale that give us insight into his response. Going to war against Iraq with the UN. balking at enforcing its own resolution never would have happened...unless he needed a distraction for another Monica. And even then he'd never have stuck by them once his latest scandel died down.
Damn the luck. If only terrorists would've attacked the World Trade Center when Clinton was President.
Oh....wait a minute....
Worth repeating!
Good one.
NO Dem would have gone into Iraq... that goes for Lieberman too.
Everybody's missing the point: for the last year, the media has been hammering President Bush by saying he misled the nation into an illegal war. Now two of its most familiar faces are saying their beloved Man From Hope would have done exactly the same thing.
In a single casual exchange, Brokaw and Koppel have swept away the entire "Bush Lied People Died" argument.
Breathtaking.
I remember reading how Clinton envied FDR, and wanting a war for his legacy as well. That explains Kosovo.
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