Posted on 09/28/2006 4:37:19 PM PDT by SJackson
Clinton fires back, and it's about time By John Nichols
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=100674&ntpid={TOP2_NTPI2}
Regular readers of this column will know that it maintains no great affection for former President Bill Clinton.
A Democratic Leadership Council stalwart, Clinton got elected president by promising health care and education for all and then proceeded to give the country fiscal conservatism and a corporate-sponsored free trade agenda.
But there has never been any doubt that Clinton was more serious about combating terrorism than his successor, George W. Bush.
The fact that Bush's supremely political presidency treats "homeland security" as a slogan rather than a necessity is the fundamental flaw in the current commander-in-chief's deeply flawed tenure. And his handlers are well aware of the problem.
AP photo Former President Bill Clinton responds to host Chris Wallace during a taping of an interview for last week's "Fox News Sunday." That's why they have worked so hard, along with their amen corner in the media, to create the false impression that Clinton and the Democrats were somehow more responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon than Bush and his gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Unfortunately, the so-called "leaders" of the opposition party have done a lousy job of challenging the spin job ... until now.
Clinton used an appearance with "Fox News Sunday's" Chris Wallace to challenge the lies of the Bush administration and its media acolytes. The interview got to the heart of what's wrong not with the Bush presidency but with a media that covers that presidency from the on-bended-knee position.
Clinton recognized that Wallace, one of the more competent members of the Fox team, was under pressure to mouth the Republican talking points that the network uses as its reference points. And the former president pounced on that vulnerability.
When Wallace started in on the "Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and al-Qaida out of business when you were president?" line of questioning, Clinton leapt.
"OK, let's talk about it," the former president began. "I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn't do enough claimed (in the 1990s) that I was obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding bin Laden when they didn't have a single meeting about bin Laden for the nine months after I left office."
Despite Wallace's stumbling attempts to interrupt him, Clinton went year-by-year, incident-by-incident, initiative-by-initiative through his anti-terror efforts.
Wallace finally asked: "Do you think you did enough, sir?"
Clinton replied: "No, because I didn't get him."
Wallace chirped, "Right."
Clinton countered, "But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. ... So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me."
Stung, Wallace was again interrupting. But Clinton held firm. "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you've asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' "
"We ask plenty of questions," sputtered Wallace.
"Tell the truth," Clinton shot back, before revealing that he had Wallace's number. "You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because (Fox owner) Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you'd spend half the time talking about (climate change). You said you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion-plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care."
Truer words have rarely been spoken on a nationally televised "news" program.
Love Bill Clinton or hate him, but understand that his appearance on "Fox News Sunday" was one of those rare moments in recent American history when a target of our drive-by media shot back.
John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times. E-mail: jnichols@madison.com Published: September 28, 2006
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Editorial: Condoleezza Rice is lying An editorial
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=100684&ntpid=0
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a politician, not a diplomat.
That fact was confirmed once more when the woman who is supposed to be setting a sound foreign policy course for the nation busied herself this week in the supremely political endeavor of trying to counter former President Clinton's charge in a Sunday interview with Fox News that the Bush administration did not make a serious effort to counter terrorist threats prior to Sept. 11, 2001.
In particular, Clinton pointed out that he and his aides left the Bush administration a comprehensive anti-terror strategy that was not considered or implemented.
Rice ran to the conservative New York Post newspaper and declared: "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida."
AP photo Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice That is a definitive statement.
The problem for Rice, and for America and the world, is that the statement is definitively false.
Former terrorism czar Richard Clarke, who served under Clinton and Bush, has detailed his attempts to communicate to Rice and others the seriousness of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. And there is no debate about the fact that, in the first week of the Bush presidency, Clarke delivered the comprehensive strategy paper to which Clinton referred.
There is little debate that Rice failed to respond appropriately to that document, let alone implement its recommendations.
Unfortunately for Rice, her failure to act does not erase the reality that Clinton was speaking the truth.
Maybe in Supermans Bizarro World. But here on Earth? Hardly.
L
Just incredible. Maybe he would serve his country well to shut up.
you forgot the hurl tag
:<(
The ex impeached President cliton speaking the truth???????
That is a new one.
An obvious dead giveaway that destroys the author's column.
MOONBAT ALERT
Is this guy series?
Clinton Tough on Terror: A False Legacy
Now, when does Jimmuah Cahtah come clean and explain his own secret CIA actions in Afghanistan, months BEFORE the Soviet Invasion?
That says it all.
Excellent.
What planet is this idiot from?
This has got to seem ludicrous even to rabid leftists!!
Unless he is of course talking about terrorists like Christians, and right wingers, then he is just wacko!
He and Janet kept that little Cuban out, suicide bomber material if I've ever seen it. And the Waco kids, they won't be blowing themselves up at the local mall.
"An obvious dead giveaway that destroys the author's column."
Not really. The author explains that the reason he dislikes Clinton is that Clinton was too much of a right winger.
You forgot the Barf Alert...
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