Richard Miniter: Clinton's Grand Failure

YESTERDAY I asked Chris Wallace if he was surprised. Wallace is the Fox News host who has become the talk of Washington for simply asking Bill Clinton if he thought he did enough to stop Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks.

The former president had exploded in a rage at Wallace's question, alleging a conspiracy by America's most watched cable news outfit. He leaned deep into Wallace's personal space, jabbing his finger in his face. And it lasted minute after embarrassing minute. Yes, Wallace was surprised by both the intensity and the answer.

Clinton's performance, his defenders say, was planned in advance to stiffen his party's spine and teach it how to fight back. Was it planned? "Absolutely not," Wallace told me. Off camera, during the interview, he said he saw Clinton's public relations man waving his arms, demanding that the interview be terminated immediately. At the end of the interview, Clinton was still visibly angry and threatened to fire his PR man if he ever had to endure another interview like that one.

Why is this worth thinking about? Every Bush policy that arouses the ire of the anti-war set - the Patriot Act, renditions, detention without trial and pre-emptive war - is a departure from the Clinton years. Where Clinton and Bush policies overlap - air attacks on terrorist infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, seizure of terrorist bank accounts, using police to arrest suspected terrorists - there is little friction. Should America return to Clinton policies or soldier on with Bush's? While finger-pointing is pointless, this debate is important because it is about the future as much as the past.

Where Clinton and Bush policies overlap - air attacks on terrorist infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, seizure of terrorist bank accounts, using police to arrest suspected terrorists - there is little friction.

When did Clinton explicitly authorize the killing of Bin Ladin? Before the 1998 cruise missile attack?

BTW almost all Congressional Republicans backed Clinton's response at the time.

And both Bush and McStain publicly supported Xlinton in his little U.N. expedition to Bosnia. Another colossal failure of both the U.N. and the Xlinton gang.

Since you weren't here at the time, I thought I'd mention FReepers were in absolute opposition to the policy. Including supporting the soldier who refused to wear the U.N. helmet and was ultimately courtmartialed. And we were right. Our country should never have operated under the corrupt U.N. to sustain and strengthen Muslim narco-terrorists in eastern Europe, the processing and distribution center for all that Afghan opium.

The Welch Report

"President Clinton´s order to U.S. troops to wear a U.N. uniform was extremely controversial, unpopular, and alleged to be illegal and unconstitutional. House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Delay sponsored a bill to prohibit the wearing of a U.N. uniform by U.S. service personnel. This bill was a reaction to the case of U.S. Army soldier Michael New, who had refused to wear a U.N. uniform and was court-martialed and discharged for bad conduct by Clinton.

Such a bill was considered unnecessary under President Bush because he – and the Republican Party – had made it absolutely clear that he would never order U.S. troops to serve under U.N. command. "I will never place U.S. troops under UN command," candidate Bush said in his speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, November 19, 1999. The 2000 Republican Party Platform declared that "American troops must never serve under United Nations command."

It has gone mostly unnoticed that in 2002 Bush forced U.S. soldiers to serve the U.N., wearing the blue helmet and shoulder patches and serving under a Bangladeshi general. No doubt McCain was supporting. And the Xlintons are laughing.

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