[quote]JeffR wrote:
It won’t change my sentiment that if he was guilty of these things then he should be punished.[/quote]
He never denied the allegations in court, so everybody is pretty sure he is guilty.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
If Arnold was guilty, I wouldn’t support that other clown. I’d vote a write in Conservative first.[/quote]
Who? There were no GOP primaries – which CA Conservative would you write-in for?
The debate gets real stupid when some people ahve to pull out, “but he got a blow job!!!” as a defense mechanism for a discussion based on an interview that had NOTHING to do with that.
Doesn’t anyone think it odd that “conservatives” think about DICK so much?
It’s funny that there are two non-Americans and two Republic of California citizens defending Clinton.
Republicans Backed Clinton?s Bin Laden Strike
September 25, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It’s like the Wizard of Oz. It is a great opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to finally peer behind the curtain and see the real side, the dark side of someone like Bill Clinton. Quite a revealing little scene with Chris Wallace. And among other things, it is a reminder why character matters most in a president. Clinton’s one of those people, we’ve all met them, turn most aggressive and enraged when what’s being said about them is true. It was fascinating to watch, no question about it, but there’s nothing in it that surprised me. I’m a Clintonologist and have been for many, many moons. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Mike, it’s going to be really hard for me to not shout stop after every five or six words here. I’m going to try to be disciplined, but that’s how often lies occur in this appearance. Try to listen to this whole thing at once, this first bite we have is a minute 14. We may do a start and stop analysis of it thereafter. Question: Wallace says, “When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of e-mail from viewers, and I’ve got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question. ‘Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and Al-Qaeda out of business when you were president?’”
CLINTON: I’m being asked this on the Fox network.
RUSH: Stop the tape. I’m sorry, can’t help myself. The first thing out of his mouth in response to this question is, I’m being asked about this on the Fox network. If this doesn’t illustrate the Democrats know who their friends are, and that there is a difference in the media. I know this is just an observation, folks, and you all know it, but so do they, is the point. And that’s what makes this outrageous. Clinton knows he gets soft coverage. He knows he gets fawning coverage, so many female reporters, “Oh, please why not me, Mr. Clinton, instead of Barbra Streisand? Why not me in the White House?” Clinton says, (doing impression) “You seen her boobs? She showed up at my thing without a bra, you’re asking me why you’re not there? (Laughing) Get a clue.” Here’s the rest of the bite.
CLINTON: ABC just had a right-wing conservative run their little pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me directly contradicting the 9/11 Commission report. And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say I didn’t do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden, all –
RUSH: All right, all right, all right, hold it. Stop, stop the tape. Let’s share with you some research here. All of the conservative Republicans who now say I didn’t do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden? Well, let’s see, the next line, too.
CLINTON: President Bush’s neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They –
RUSH: Stop the tape. All right, exhaustive research indicates, folks, that there was nothing but total Republican support for getting bin Laden. The people did a thorough NexisLexis search over the weekend. A thorough LexisNexis search identified absolutely no instances of high-ranking Republicans ever suggesting that Clinton was obsessed with bin Laden or that he did too much to apprehend him prior to the bombing of the USS Cole in October of 2000. Quite the contrary, Republicans were typically highly supportive of Clinton’s efforts in this regard.
As a little background here from the AmericanThinker.com, prior to the August '98 US embassy bombings in Africa, there is hardly any mention of bin Laden by Clinton in American news transcripts, prior to 1998, even though bin Laden declared war on the United States in 1996, after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Clinton didn’t even – maybe a couple sentences in his Saturday radio address which followed the bombing on February 26th of '93 – he didn’t want to deal with it. He told New York it was a local law enforcement issue, you people handle it, wanted nothing to do with it. No mention, hardly any mention of bin Laden by President Clinton in American news transcripts. And for the most part, the first real discussion of bin Laden by Clinton or by any US politicians for that matter began after the embassy bombings in 1998 and escalated after the American retaliation in Afghanistan a few weeks later.
“At the time, the former president was knee-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, so much so that the press was abuzz with the possibility that Clinton had performed these attacks to distract the American people from his extracurricular activities much as in the movie Wag the Dog.” But that begs the question, why did this possibility even get raised? It’s because of Clinton’s own behavior with Monica Lewinsky. It wasn’t made up by a right-wing conspiracy, and it wasn’t made up by a bunch of enemies out to get him. It was a direct offshoot and result of his behavior. “Were there high-ranking Republicans that piled on this assertion? Hardly. As the Associated Press reported on the day of the attacks, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) said the following on August 20, 1998: ‘Well, I think the United States did exactly the right thing. We cannot allow a terrorist group to attack American embassies and do nothing. And I think we have to recognize that we are now committed to engaging this organization and breaking it apart and doing whatever we have to to suppress it, because we cannot afford to have people who think that they can kill Americans without any consequence. So this was the right thing to do.’”
There was Republican support for this, as I have drummed into people’s heads constantly, and yet Clinton is out there convinced that Republicans were angry at him because he was obsessed with bin Laden. “Gingrich was not alone in his support. CNN?s Candy Crowley reported on August 21, 1998, the day after cruise missiles were sent into Afghanistan: 'With law makers scattered to the four winds on August vacation, congressional offices revved up the faxes. From the Senate majority leader [Trent Lott], ‘Despite the current controversy, this Congress will vigorously support the president in full defense of America?s interests throughout the world.’ Crowley continued: ‘The United States political leadership always has and always will stand united in the face of international terrorism.’” Those are the words of Jesse Helms. Well, we know that’s not the case anymore. The United States political leadership does not stand united in the face of international terrorism today under President Bush’s watch.
"The Atlanta Urinal Constipation, same day: ‘Our nation has taken action against very deadly terrorists opposed to the most basic principles of American freedom,’ said Sen. Paul Coverdell, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ‘This action should serve as a reminder that no one is beyond the reach of American justice.’ Former vice president Dan Quayle was quoted by CNN on August 23, 1998: ‘I don?t have a problem with the timing. You need to focus on the act itself. It was a correct act. Bill Clinton took?made a decisive decision to hit these terrorist camps. It?s probably long overdue.’ Were there some Republican detractors? Certainly. Chief amongst them was Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana: ‘I think we fear that we may have a president that is desperately seeking to hold onto his job in the face of a firestorm of criticism and calls for him to step down.’
“Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) also questioned the timing at first. However, other Republicans pleaded with dissenters on their side of the aisle to get on board the operation, chief amongst them, Gingrich himself. As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Speaker felt the ‘Wag the Dog’ comparisons were ‘sick’: ‘Anyone who saw the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, anyone who saw the coffins come home, would not ask such a question,’ said the House speaker, referring to the 12 Americans killed in the embassy bombings. In fact, Gingrich did everything within his power to head off Republican criticism of these attacks as reported by the Boston Globe on August 23, 1998: ‘Indeed, Gingrich even saw to it that one of his political associates, Rich Galen, sent a blast-Fax to conservative talk radio hosts urging them to lay off the president on the missile strikes, and making sure they knew of Gingrich?s strong support.’”
Even in the end, both Specter and Coats got on board the operation. “After reviewing intelligence information collected on bin Laden, Specter said: ‘I think the president acted properly.’”
“As for ‘neocons,’ one so-called high-ranking member, Richard Perle, wrote the following in an August 23, 1998, op-ed published in the Sunday Times: 'For the first time since taking office in 1993, the Clinton administration has responded with some measure of seriousness to an act of terror against the United States. This has undoubtedly come as a surprise to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist believed to have been behind the bombing… So Thursday?s bombing is a small step in the right direction. More important, it reverses, at least for now, a weak and ineffective Clinton policy that has emboldened terrorists and confirmed that facilitating terror is without cost to the states…” Go back to the top of cut three, Mike, re-cue the thing. Now that you’ve heard all of the evidence of how the Republicans, the neocons, supported this, urged all of their supporters to get behind it on the basis that the country comes together in times of war, in times of attacks on American citizens internationally, Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday claimed that Republicans were obsessed with his obsession with bin Laden, claimed that he was obsessed with bin Laden, were being critical. Here from the top the whole bite now.
CLINTON: I’m being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative running their little pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say I didn’t do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden, all of President Bush’s neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden, they had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left –
RUSH: Stop the tape. How many times did Clinton meet with his CIA – what was it Jim Woolsey said? Had one meeting in eight years, one personal meeting in the Oval Office with the CIA director, with Jim Woolsey, and after that very few meetings with Tenet. You know, it’s absurd, too, to compare what he didn’t do in eight years to what the Bush administration did or didn’t do in eight months. He also is lying about turning over a terrorist program. He quotes Richard Clarke. If you read Richard Clarke’s book, Richard Clarke’s book does not back up a lot of what Clinton asserted.
CLINTON: All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much, same people.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Folks, it’s just pathological. You know, it is just pathological. The guy has told himself this lie that he believes to be the truth. Pathological liar, tells lies to himself to believe them, and he firmly believes this, make no mistake. In his mind, he’s not lying, he’s telling the absolute truth. He really believes that all these neocons are out there saying he was too focused on bin Laden.
CLINTON: – trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993, the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down –
RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Trying to get him to withdraw from Somalia? And after Republicans tried to force him out of Somalia, Black Hawk Down episode happened the next day?
CLINTON: – refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations. Okay, now let’s look at all the criticisms. Black Hawk Down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al-Qaeda was a going concern in October of '93.
RUSH: Not the point, but they did in '95 when they intercepted all these plans to blow up airplanes from the Pacific Rim to the west coast of California and the United States over the Pacific Ocean. And besides, this is not the point, that nobody had heard of bin Laden, nobody knew of Al-Qaeda. Mr. President, the American people who watched ABC one night saw an interview with bin Laden in '95 or '96 in which he said that he was ginned up and encouraged by our reaction to the situation on the ground in Somalia. So even if nobody knew about it in '93 or '94 whenever it happened, we all heard about it in '95. There’s simply no excuse here. To try to say that nobody knew about bin Laden, and nobody heard about it, nobody is making that claim, this is not presidential. Bin Laden himself said during your presidency, sir – Nobody is making this up. Right-wingers and neocons are not making up the fact that bin Laden drew conclusions from our exit in Somalia. Bin Laden said it. Now, you can try to rewrite history and reconstruct it, but it’s a mistake bringing all this up because there’s a new media out there, sir, and it’s not going to go well for you.
END TRANSCRIPT
[quote]doogie wrote:
It’s funny that there are two non-Americans and two Republic of California citizens defending Clinton.[/quote]
What’s funny is that people look for any way to avoid the topic at hand instead of actually using their brains to talk about the real topics at hand.
It’s easier to be a willing dupe than actually think criticially, isn’t it? Are supposedly masculine men supposed to take the easy road? Are they supposed to let other people do all their thinking for them?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
The debate gets real stupid when some people ahve to pull out, “but he got a blow job!!!” as a defense mechanism for a discussion based on an interview that had NOTHING to do with that.
[/quote]
The debate gets real stupid when a California liberal declares Clinton to not be a pansy.
[quote]vroom wrote:
JeffR wrote:
If Arnold was guilty, I wouldn’t support that other clown. I’d vote a write in Conservative first.
If?
I don’t see you using this word when you talk about allegations concerning Clinton.
Why might that be?[/quote]
C’mon Vroom, you know better than this- it’s because as a Democrat Clinton is obviously morally bankrupt, while as a Republican, Arnold has morals coming out his ass.
DUH!
Since when is Rush Limbaugh a reliable source of info? We might as well use O’Reilly. Or, hell, isn’t Howard Stern a good source too? I mean, at least he has big titties on his show often instead of simply his own obesity.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_092506/content/stop_the_tape_2.guest.html
In Reality, Richard Clarke’s Book Indicts Clinton
September 25, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, let’s move on to the Richard Clarke aspect of all this. Richard Clarke seems to be the single source authority for Bill Clinton’s version of his unwavering and tireless efforts to get Osama bin Laden and to fight terrorism in general, efforts that caused criticism, he says, from Republicans that he was obsessed. Well, we’ve blown that one out of the water. Here is Wallace’s question: “The 9/11 Commission. This is what they did say, not what ABC pretended they said. They said about you and President Bush, and I quote, ‘US government took the threat seriously but not in the sense of mustering anything like the kind of effort that would be gathered to confront an enemy of the first, second, or even third rank.’”
CLINTON: Do you think Mr. Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden? He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H. W. Bush; he was loyal to him. He worked for me and he was loyal to me, he worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him. They downgraded him and the terrorist operation. [sic] Read his book and read his factual assertions. Not opinions, assertions. He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies, we probably nearly got bin Laden. The CIA was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said he did a good job, setting up all these counter terrorism things. The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.
RUSH: Well, we’re getting close here to Clinton and the famous (impression), “Ha-ha-ha! What do you mean the buck stops here? The buck never got here! I mean, look at Janet Reno, that Waco thing was her deal.” It’s classic with Bill Clinton: the buck never got here. (summarized) “So George Tenet did this, wouldn’t do that. I authorized all this, but those guys wouldn’t go get him, what am I supposed to do? They didn’t have the guts to do it I’m sitting there and I’m saying, well, did everything I can, tried hard. At least I tried. Maybe I failed, but I tried. They didn’t even try.” Here’s an account from Richard Clarke’s book. You interpret this for yourself.
"Because of the intensity of the political opposition that Clinton engendered, he had always been heavily criticized for bombing Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, for engaging in Wag the Dog tactics to divert attention from a scandal about his personal life. For similar reasons he could not fire the recalcitrant FBI director who had failed to fix the bureau or to uncover terrorists in the US. He had given the CIA unprecedented authority to go after bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, but had not taken steps when they did little or nothing because Clinton was criticized as a Vietnam War opponent without a military record, he was limited in his ability to direct the military to engage in anti-terrorist commando operations they didn’t want to conduct.
“He had tried that in Somalia. The military had made mistakes and blamed him. In the absence of a bigger provocation from Al-Qaeda to silence his critics, Clinton thought he couldn’t do anymore.” During 1996 he was really popular, even during the Lewinsky business, and the so-called pro-Clinton Richard Clarke here even makes the claim that Clinton was unwilling to use whatever powers he had at president to go after this because of limitations he himself imposed on his own past.
That’s why character in a president matters.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I checked the e-mail, and I knew this was going to happen, and I know that most of the people writing this complaint are Clintonoids, can’t you let go of it? You wouldn’t have a show if it weren’t for Bill Clinton. Why do you have to keep harping on all this? Even though those questions do come from Clintonoids, let me explain something to you, folks. Why is this important? Let’s take a look at Somalia. Let’s review what we’ve already heard from President Clinton on our sound bites today from the interview yesterday. He essentially said hey, don’t blame Somalia on me. I mean, nobody ever heard of bin Laden in '93, nobody heard of Al-Qaeda, nobody thought they were behind all that. Why, why, there’s not a person in the world that made that association. Don’t blame that on me.
Well, the bottom line is, that two years and three years later we did because that’s when Jon Miller had interviews with bin Laden, and bin Laden, on ABC, was on the network telling the world and everybody (summary): “We saw that behavior, that cut-and-run out of Somalia. American people can’t take casualties. That inspired us. It motivated us and taught us a lot.” The reason that’s important is because the Democrats are trying the same strategy in Iraq, folks. If given power, they will create another Somalia situation in Iraq.
The John Murthas, the John Kerrys, the whole Democratic Party or that bunch of them that wants to pull out of Iraq, if you think Somalia led to bad things, if we pull out of Iraq, it’s just going to embolden them even further. You know, history is always a great teacher, and this goes beyond Clinton. You know, the problem with Clinton is that all this only concerns him and his legacy and his narcissistic self-absorption. But this really is about the country. It’s the way we fight the war on terror and the way we’re going to come together on it, the way we did come together all through the nineties when Clinton was launching these attacks. By the way, he only did one, and we talk about all this wag the dog stuff. He only did one.
It’s not as though he had a lifetime of attacking terrorists. He did one! He launched these missile attacks that turned out to be an aspirin factory in the Sudan, and these missiles in Afghan camps where bin Laden was supposedly hiding out. He only did it once. I mean, it’s not as though there was a presidential policy about this, but the even back then as we documented already in the first hour today, Republicans were wholly supportive. Clinton lied blatantly on television yesterday saying Republicans were mad at him and saying he was obsessed with bin Laden, why didn’t he get on to other things. We’re now discussing his constant references, 11 times in this interview, to Richard Clarke as the sole authority, Richard Clarke had it right, and go read his book. So here is audio sound bite four again from the top.
CLINTON: Do you think Mr. Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden? He worked for Ronald Reagan, he was loyal to him. He worked for George H. W. Bush, he was loyal to him. He worked for me, and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him. They downgraded him and the terrorist operation. Read his book and read his factual assertions, not opinions, assertions.
RUSH: All right, stop, stop, stop. I’m trying to here, but I can’t get through a whole bite without stopping this stuff. All right, vigorous attitude about bin Laden, worked for Reagan, blah, blah, they downgraded him and the terrorist operation. Read his book, read his factual assertions, not opinions, assertions. Well, we did. The name of Clarke’s book is “Against All Enemies,” and if you turn to page 234 of Richard Clarke’s book, you can read this, which sort of contradicts Clintons claim that you just heard that Richard Clarke had been demoted and then later fired. Here’s Clarke writing: "I had completed the review of the organizational options for homeland defense and critical infrastructure protection that Secretary Rice had asked me to conduct.
“There was agreement to create a separate senior White House position for critical infrastructure protection and cybersecurity outside the NSC staff. Condi Rice and Steve Hadley assumed that I would continue on the NSC, focusing on terrorism and asked whom I had in mind for the new job that would be created outside the NSC. This is basically Internet. I requested that I be given that assignment, to the apparent surprise of Condi Rice and Steve Hadley.” Now, Clinton has asked us to look at the Richard Clarke book, not the 9/11 report. The 9/11 Commission report, which was used as a primary source for the Path to 9/11, portrayed Clarke getting called in and being summarily demoted by Condoleezza Rice.
That is why Clinton thinks it happened because he read the report and he probably did watch the movie. Yet he cites to us Clarke’s book as the foremost authority, cites the book 11 times, says go read Richard Clarke. They fired him and they demoted him. Well, we now know that Richard Clarke was not demoted, he asked to be transferred, his own admission – and the 9/11 movie got this wrong, apparently, if Clarke is right. If Clarke’s book is right, that whole scene where Condi brings him in and tells him, we’re doing a new thing here, Dick, and we’re sending you over here to this new Internet thing we’ve got, to study terrorism and Clarke looked dumbfounded, couldn’t believe he was being moved. In his own book, let me read it to you again: "There was agreement to create a separate senior White House position for critical infrastructure protection and cybersecurity, outside the NSC staff where Clarke was currently working.
“Condi Rice and Steve Hadley assume that I would continue on the NSC, focusing on terrorism, and asked whom I had in mind for the new job that would be created outside the NSC. I requested that I be given that assignment, to the apparent surprise of Condi Rice and Steve Hadley.” So if he was demoted, he requested it! Now, Clinton also implied in what you just heard that Clarke was demoted prior to 9/11, and so did the movie, The Path to 9/11. But if you go to page 239 of Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, you’ll read the following. “Roger Cressey, my deputy at the NSC staff, came to me in early October,” that would be after September, “after the time I had intended to switch from the terrorism job to critical–” After the time I had intended.
He wasn’t demoted, he wasn’t shoved out of the way. He asked to go there, and he was getting ready to go there in October, after 9/11. But he says I couldn’t make the move because the switch had been delayed by September 11th. So the Bush administration kept Clark at the NSC, according to Clarke, beyond the period he had planned on being there. Did I stop this or is there more? Okay, well, let’s hear the rest of it.
CLINTON: – took vigorous action after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden. The CIA was run by George Tenet that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to. He said he did a good job, setting up all these counterterrorism things. The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.
RUSH: That’s just… We didn’t have anything 'til Clinton got there. We didn’t have a good economy. We didn’t have right tax policy. Nobody had health care. Do you realize, folks, this country was just a bunch of savages roaming the plains before Clinton got there? We didn’t have anything in place. He launched one attack, one attack, and the most comprehensive terror policy we’ve ever had, Bush administration. Yeah, he’s probably telling me to wipe that smirk off my face. That wasn’t a “smirk,” Mr. President, that was a look of total incredulity by Chris Wallace who couldn’t believe the behavior he was seeing in a former president. One more bite here. Again I’m going to do my best to get through this without stopping it. I haven’t managed to pull that off yet today, but I’m going to keep on. In this bite, Clinton goes off on this tangent about how he drew up plans to go into Afghanistan, but everybody stopped him. I mean, he really wanted, but everybody out there stopped him.
CLINTON: If you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this. After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to –
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait! I’m sorry. So Bush did something right? We needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, Clinton couldn’t do that, but Bush was able to after 9/11. Now, we’d been hit long before 9/11. Clinton couldn’t get basing rights in Uzbekistan, but Bush could, and yet Bush is the incompetent here?
CLINTON: To certify that bin Laden was –
RUSH: Stop the tape. Stop the tape. What he’s saying here is the CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there.
CLINTON: – while I was there, they refused to certify. So that meant I would have to send a few hundred Special Forces in helicopters, refuel at night. Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9/11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is, anybody that wants to say I didn’t enough, you read Richard Clarke –
RUSH: Well, we’ve done that, too, and it doesn’t bear you out, Mr. President. We try not to gloat here over the implosion of political enemies, and I’m trying not to the that, but once again, you know, CIA, FBI, refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there? Bin Laden declared war on us in 1996. You said you were obsessed with bin Laden. How in the world does this play? You were obsessed with bin Laden, but you couldn’t get the CIA or FBI to certify that bin Laden was responsible?
Why were you upset with bin Laden, then, if nobody could certify that he was involved? Do you understand how convoluted and pathological this is? “They refused to certify, so that meant that I would have had to send a few hundred Special Forces, helicopters, refuel at night, even the 9/11 Commission didn’t recommend that.” What did Richard Clarke recommend, Mr. President? Seems to me the foremost authority is with you! Here again what we have, the buck never got there. “Hey, you can’t blame me! I mean, I tried, but I – I – I – I just couldn’t, and they didn’t certify, so I couldn’t do it.” Mansour Ijaz, Los Angeles Times, has written of the attempts that Sudan made to offer bin Laden to Clinton. The idea that nobody would certify this is just pathological.
END TRANSCRIPT
[quote]doogie wrote:
It’s funny that there are two non-Americans and two Republic of California citizens defending Clinton.[/quote]
I’m sorry, are you tryign to assert that I’m less than a US Citizen?? Believe you men, if Cali could leave this mess, I’d be all for it.
…you fuckers would be crippled without California.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_092506/content/stop_the_tape_3.guest.html
Former CIA Agent Scheuer: Clinton Is Lying
September 25, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’re going to switch gears here and go to CBS Early Show today, the cohost Harry Smith talked to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer. Now, we’ve talked about Scheuer in the past. Keep in mind Scheuer is no fan of Bush, no fan of the Bush administration, and no fan of the war in Iraq, but he was involved in one of these CIA missions to get bin Laden. Harry Smith, I’m sure, thinks he’s doing a piece here to defend Clinton against this neocon, vast right-wing conspiracy assault on their beloved fearless leader on Fox on Sunday. The question is, “President Clinton basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify?”
About that, and talking about presidential and character. I mean, we’ve all heard about how rotten and dumb and lightweight George W. Bush is, have you ever heard him blame his administration? He stands and he bucks them up, he supports them, he doesn’t dump on them. Only a man who is obsessed with himself in a narcissistic way and knows that he’s telling lies to himself, ends up believing his lies. Only a guy who knows he didn’t do anything serious in his administration is trying to create the impression after the fact that he did, would dump on his own department head, his own cabinet, CIA, FBI, as though he was powerless. Richard Clarke wrote about that, too. The reason Clinton was powerless was because he had a little aversion to the military because of his Vietnam experiences, his letter that he wrote to Colonel Holmes, Lewinsky situation. Clinton was handcuffed in his own mind. He was handcuffed by his previous behavior. He was in a straitjacket, he couldn’t operate without threatening the approval rating and the legacy and so forth. Clarke makes this point clear, that that was Clinton’s attitude. So now you gotta dump on the FBI, you gotta dump on the CIA, and now after those people are gone and they can’t react to it, it is classic childish CYA, and it certainly is not presidential.
Here’s the whole question. “President Clinton basically laid the blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. Does that ring true with you, Michael Scheuer?”
SCHEUER: No, sir, I don’t think so. Former president seems to be able to deny facts with impunity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sandy Berger and Mr. Richard Clarke refused to kill him. That’s the bottom line. And every time he says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA especially, and the men who risked their lives to give his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden.
RUSH: Harry Smith stunned at this, says, “Is the Bush administration any less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?”
SCHEUER: There’s plenty of blame to go around, sir, but the fact of the matter is the Bush administration had one chance that they botched, and the Clinton administration had eight to ten chances that they refused to try. At least at Tora Bora our forces were on the ground. We didn’t push the point. But it’s just – it’s an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them.
RUSH: Remember, this is no friend of George W. Bush speaking, Michael Scheuer, former CIA agent. He’s saying Clinton didn’t even try, and yet the famous bite from that interview yesterday with Clinton losing it, purple rage, eyes bugging out, pointing that finger at poor little Chris Wallace, had – (interruption) what? CBS. CBS is in the on the conspiracy to get Clinton along with ABC. Don’t forget, I’ve been a commentator on CBS, so I have connections to CBS as well as the writer of the movie 9/11 and ABC. So my fingerprints are very, very deep on this, in this conspiracy to get Clinton.
But he says here Clinton didn’t even try. Clinton blew up yesterday, said at least I tried, I tried and failed, but they didn’t even try, not once in eight months did they even try. Here’s Scheuer saying he didn’t even try.
END TRANSCRIPT
[quote]doogie wrote:
The debate gets real stupid when a California liberal declares Clinton to not be a pansy.[/quote]
It also gets real stupid when people let their hatred for Clinton get in the way of rational thought.
While I don’t like Bush, I do believe that he thinks he is doing the right thing. I do however think his decisions are tragically unwise and are having horrible consequences for all kinds of world issues involving the US.
Now, I highly suspect that looking into policies and discussing decisions and strategies is a much more appropriate way to discuss presidents, past and present.
However, if you can simply hate Clinton and dismiss him with insults and trumped up bullshit from Rush, that obviously is a much more important analysis.
By the way, the last point, just because I was too lazy to look at that tripe, calls Clinton to task for something he already agreed to. Clinton said that certainly Osama drew conclusions from the pullout, but that when the event happened it was not attributed to Osama.
He didn’t say that Osama wasn’t out there, or that he wasn’t watching and forming opinions, but that nobody pinned the events on him at that time. It’s so frustrating to watch you suck back that dog piss and think it actually means something.
Be a man. Go out and find real sources of information to listen to… and don’t take entertainment like Rush for anything more than the fictional entertainment it is meant to be. Sigh.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_092506/content/stop_the_tape_4.guest.html
Childish Clinton Caught with His Socks Down
September 25, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, now, back to Clinton. I’m going to try to get through this (laughing) without stopping the tape, Mike. Chris Wallace says, “Do you think you did enough, sir?”
CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.
WALLACE: Right.
CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridicule me for trying. [sic] They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried, so I tried and failed.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Now, that was the segment that people have seen where he just lost it. I mean, if you saw that segment, that’s where he lost it. That’s when that finger was jabbing Chris Wallace’s papers – a long finger, by the way, just inches away from his nose, leading up on the front edge of the chair. Something else I noticed, I’m sure some of you did, too, somebody needs – and I’m serious. We’re talking about a former president. It’s really bad form to wear socks that are too short when you’re sitting down and your slacks are a little high on your calf up there, and you’ve got pasty white ankles and thighs, don’t even have a golf tan under there, it’s distracting. Some people actually thought Clinton was wearing white socks, in the e-mail, and I had to write 'em back, “No, not socks. He was wearing black socks. They’re just too short.”
What you saw there was Clinton showing a little leg. Who knows who he thought was in the audience? This was the portion where he just lost it, and this is when we knew, this is when it was confirmed that the movie got to him and that the truth is undermining his lie and his alternative reality that his entire legacy and existence has been built on. I think President Clinton runs around telling himself lies and has done so for so long, he really believes this stuff, folks. He really thinks that he was the only one who really made a serious effort to get bin Laden, nobody else has. He came so close, and the country owes him a debt of gratitude, and he didn’t understand the neocons and the right-wingers are out there ridiculing him, or trying. Nobody’s ridiculing you, sir, for “trying.” We’re ridiculing you for lying about it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to keep the rhythm going because we put this together in sort of a timeline fashion in order to reply to the elements of Clinton’s comments as they occurred. We’re going to go back here to the previous sound bite. I did not get through the whole thing because I had to stop it. Chris Wallace here with the question,“Do you think you did enough sir?”
CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.
WALLACE: Right.
CLINTON: But at least I tried, that’s the difference in me and some including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridicule me for trying, they had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried, so I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy, and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.
RUSH: Stop the tape. He did not get demoted. We’ve quoted Clarke’s own book, he requested a change to the new cyberdivision, it didn’t even happen 'til after 9/11. Clarke was still at the National Security Council staff before 9/11 happen, he wasn’t demoted, he wasn’t fired. Clinton lying, sadly, again.
CLINTON: So you did Fox’s bidding on this show, you did your nice little conservative hit job on me.
RUSH: All right, stop the tape. Now, this is where it really began to get interesting to me. All this other stuff is typical Clinton, and so is this. Fox’s bidding on this show. This man is a former president, but he has been reduced here to a sniveling, whining baby who thinks that he has been set up. He’s a former president. He tried to broker Mideast peace, he was obsessed with bin Laden, he was dealing with some of the world’s biggest hooligans, and he’s allowed himself to get set up by Fox, by Chris Wallace and Fox News Sunday, and this is a conservative hit job on him that goes to what I’ve been saying. These people never get… These weren’t even hard questions, folks. That’s the thing about it. These are questions that he doesn’t get anywhere else. He’s protected, as are all the Democrats. They are protected. They’re not smeared by the mainstream media. They are protected. They are amplified. They are resurrected when they plummet. They are promoted. They are considered the smartest people in the world, the most accomplished, the most valuable. If it weren’t for these people fawning Clinton’s legacy wouldn’t have a chance anyway.
CLINTON: – set this meeting up because you’re going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch supported my work on climate change.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Now, this is juvenile. This is just juvenile. “You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Murdoch supported my work on climate change.” How many of you have stopped watching Fox News because Rupert Murdoch had a little fund-raising breakfast for Hillary? How many of you have stopped watching Fox because Rupert goes to Clinton’s little circle you-know-what here to raise and fleece money for hunger around the world. “We have all these domestic problems here in this country and I gotta feed the people of the world.” It’s just childish, folks, it is just literally, literally childish. You set this meeting, you agree to come on, sir. They extended an invitation. You agreed to come on. Set this meeting up because you’re going to get a lot of criticism from your network? What informs Bill Clinton on this? He is as much a kook fringe lib as everybody else out there in their blogosphere is what this means. He’s not this triangulator. I told you from the get-go, folks. He and Hillary are a team. He has to be the one to get the votes, so he tried to make himself out to be a moderate while Hillary was the hard-core leftist, but they both are, and they always have been, and Clinton is demonstrating that again.
CLINTON: Came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about – you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care. You falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia.
RUSH: Was there false accusation that aid and comfort was given to bin Laden? He’s running around with a guilt complex, I’m telling you, he’s got a lot of guilt and shame over this and he’s lying to himself about it and the last thing somebody who is lying can be confronted with is the truth, particularly pathological liar. You came here under false pretenses? (doing impression) “You told me that you were going to give me a softball interview and make me look good in the eyes of the world for raising all this money and caring about a bunch of damn poor people, and now you’re confronting me with this business about bin Laden.” This is just… Well, it’s beneath anybody who’s held the office of the presidency. Wallace then said, “But did they know in '96 when he declared war in the US? Did they know in '98 when he bombed these two countries? Did they know in 2000 when he hit the USS Cole?”
CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized to find him, for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody’s gotten since. And if I were still president, we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now, I’ve never criticized President Bush.
RUSH: Stop the tape. I can’t let this one go by. Never criticized the president? What, you mean, “on Sunday”? What about the previous five years? What about when you travel abroad and undermine the Iraq war policy? What about when you criticize the way the war on terror is being prosecuted? You’re doing it here. If I were still president, we’d have 20,000 troops down there somewhere. I issued a presidential finding for the CIA to kill him. They don’t think so. CIA doesn’t think so. FBI doesn’t think so. They never got the word to go forward from you, sir. This is actually sort of pitiful and pathetic. We’re watching a 60-year-old man here behave as an eight-year-old caught in a sandbox with the neighbor’s little daughter. Well, we are. I’m minding my own business here. I was just, you know, exploring my nudity, and she walked in on her own. What I was I supposed to do? All right, here’s the rest of this.
CLINTON: I don’t think this is useful. But you know, we do have a government that thinks that Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq, and you ask me about terror and Al-Qaeda with that sort of dismissive thing, and you’ve got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try, and I did everything I thought I responsibly could.
RUSH: Tried to do a lot: tried to cut taxes, tried to do this, tried to that. “Never worked harder” on all these things. You tried and tried and tried. Get that smirk off your face, look at that smirk. You think you’re so clever because you’re nailing me and so forth. That’s intimidating; that is threatening. I know it’s funny. It’s hilarious but it’s instructive here. This is a former president doing this stuff! Wallace tries to move on to the Clinton Global Initiative, says, “Can I ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative?”
CLINTON: You can.
WALLACE: I always intended to, sir.
CLINTON: No. You intended though to move your bones by doing this first, which is perfectly fine. But I don’t mind people asking me – I actually talked to the 9/11 Commission for four hours, Chris, and I told them the mistakes I thought I made, and I urged them to make those mistakes public. Because none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things, I always get these clever little political deals where they ask me one set of questions and the other guys another set, and it always comes from one source.
RUSH: Always comes from one source. I wonder who? Who is that one source? Probably the Mister Big on the vast right-wing conspiracy. Who is the Mister Big? He went on to say that they never ask these questions of the other guy. You’ve gotta be in utter denial. Never ask these questions to the other side? How many press conferences have there been where the Drive-By Media has demanded Bush admit he made mistakes in virtually every aspect of the war on terror and the war on Iraq? Never gets asked these questions. He gets asked constantly, “Why haven’t you gotten bin Laden? You’ve failed to get bin Laden. What are you doing to get bin Laden? The Democrats say the fact that you haven’t got bin Laden means the war on terror is a failure,” and he thinks the other side’s never asked this stuff!
By the way, we looked that up, too. Here’s Chris Wallace talking to Donald Rumsfeld, March 28th, 2004. Quote: “I understand this is 20/20 hindsight. It’s more than an individual manhunt. I mean, what you ended up doing in the end was going after Al-Qaeda where it lived, pre-9/11, should you have been thinking more about that?” So there’s Chris Wallace criticizing Rumsfeld for not doing anything pre-9/11. “What do you make of Richard Clarke’s basic charge that pre-9/11, this government, the Bush administration largely ignored the threat from Al-Qaeda? Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority.”
Now, you may not remember any of those interviews in 2004 with Secretary Rumsfeld by Chris Wallace and that’s because Rumsfeld didn’t blow a gasket and act like a little kid when he answered the questions. But to say that Chris Wallace has never asked these questions before is absurd. Now, Bob Beckel was on Fox today, and he’s trying to make the most of this, and I don’t blame him, I feel a little sorry for him, too. He said what Clinton was doing here was giving Democrats a road map on how to deal with these silly charges Democrats are soft on terror. Bill Clinton was telling them how to go out there and do it.
Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Wallace reports that Clinton walked out of there in a rage and threatened to fire his staff if they set him up like this ever again and if they goofed up. I’m telling you, this was not a planned strategy. If you think this was sort of some grand liberal Democrat strategy that’s outsmarted everybody. You have got it wrong. You’re being too smart by half. This was the Bill Clinton, real Bill Clinton, and this was unmasking, this is taking the camouflage off, this was getting rid of the mask. There was nothing staged about this, there was nothing programmed or rehearsed about it. This was not a message to Democrats, because Bill Clinton, in those minutes of the interview yesterday, couldn’t have cared less about the Democrat Party or anybody but himself.
END TRANSCRIPT
Doogie,
Remember your use of Rush as an authority on “news” when in the future the conversation once again turns into the “infotainment vs news” discussion.
Some of the right wing out there, your dog piss drinking buddies, have claimed that hardly any retards out there actually believe “infotainment” is real news or actually factual.
Do you remember those discussions? Oops.
[quote]doogie wrote:
Republicans Backed Clinton?s Bin Laden Strike
September 25, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
[…]
END TRANSCRIPT[/quote]
Well, thank you for posting the partial transcript. It clearly shows how Rush completely distorted Clinton’s words AND conveniently “forgot” many of the Republican statements at the time, focusing on the very few that now seem convenient.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_092506/content/america_s_anchorman.guest.html
How Did Other Interviewers Treat Clinton Last Week?
September 25, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to give you a contrast here of how Clinton is treated elsewhere in the media. We put together a montage of Larry King, Meredith Vieira at NBC, Greta Van Susteren, on Fox, Tim Russert, and another guy at MSNBC – Keith Olbermann, all interviewing former President Clinton, just to contrast the treatment he has been used to for – well, since 1992, the presidential campaign '93.
KING: Now, the purpose of your initiative, overall, is to make the world a better place, right? How’s your health? Did you see the Al Gore movie?
VIEIRA: If you had a genie, what wish would you want granted? You have lots of intelligence. When the New York Times recently ran a front-page article about your marriage, do you think that was fair?
VAN SUSTEREN: How’s your new best friend, President Bush 41?
RUSSERT: What do you think is the biggest problem confronting our world, the biggest?
OLBERMANN: This was transcendent, these last three days, the number of people that you reached here and the convictions and the generosity. Here’s eight more schools in Kenya for me.
CLINTON: Oh thank you.
RUSH: “Thank you.” (Laughing.) These people all live in their own little world. It’s a circle.
END TRANSCRIPT
[quote]hspder wrote:
hedo wrote:
It’s callaed a Hyperlink. You do know what that is right? Otherwise your editorializing might be mistaken for fact. Or start typing.
Stop making an idiot out of yourself. There’s a hyperlink in my post. Click on it.
[/quote]
Hspder character,
Your hardly in a position to comment about intelligence.
How about the 9/11 commission…were they wrong too? I am sure you were a secret advisor, you know behind the scenes. Didn’t you have lunch with Tom Kean and lay out the entire situation for him but he was too dumb to realize it because he was a Republican.
Clicked on your link but I already have a copy of the book. Let me know if you can find something public where Clark contradicts the transcript I posted. I’d like to know if he really did and I am sure you know your reference citing a review is anemic at best.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5888
Bill Clinton, Bin Laden, and Hysterical Revisions
September 25th, 2006
Last week, former president Bill Clinton took some time out of his busy dating schedule to have a not so friendly chat with Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday. Given his rabidity, Mr. Clinton might consider taking a few milligrams of Valium the next time he allows himself to face ?fair and balanced? questions, assuming once wasn?t enough that is.
This wasn?t Mr. Clinton?s finest hour. In fact, it could be by far the worst performance of his career, which is saying a lot given that his acting skills were typically much more apparent than his policy-making acumen when he was in office.
From the onset, Mr. Clinton seemed ill at ease. This is understandable, as he didn?t see the normally comforting initials of the ?Clinton News Network? proudly displayed on the video cameras in front of him. But, this doesn?t absolve him of appearing before the American people as if he were Norman Bates just questioned about his mother.
On the other hand, maybe asking the former president anything of consequence these days will elicit such volatility, as the fireworks started as soon as Wallace brought up historically factual statements made in a new book, The Looming Tower. In it, author Lawrence Wright addressed how Osama bin Laden had indicated that when American troops pulled out of Somalia in 1993, he and his al Qaeda buddies saw this as an indication of American weakness.
Although this certainly couldn?t have been the first time he had heard this, it didn?t sit very well with Mr. Clinton, who lashed out in a fury akin to a president that had just been accused of having sexual relations with an intern:
I think it?s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn?t do enough, claimed 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. All the right wingers who now say that I didn?t do enough said that I did too much.
Republicans claimed that Clinton was obsessed with bin Laden? He did too much to try to capture the infamous terrorist leader?
Do the facts support such assertions, or is this the typical Clinton modus operandi: when questioned about your own mistakes, bring up Republicans, neocons, and conservatives ? the liberal equivalent of lions and tigers and bears?oh my ? and how it?s all some kind of a conspiracy the complexities of which only Oliver Stone fully grasps.
Historically this line of attack has worked quite well with an adoring interviewer that buys such drivel hook, line, and sinker. However, what Mr. Clinton and his ilk seem to forget regularly is a recent invention known as the Internet. It is indeed odd the former president is unaware of this, inasmuch as his vice president created it.
Regardless, this tool ? with the assistance of search engines and services such as LexisNexis ? allows folks to go back in the past to accurately identify the truth. Sadly, as has often been the case with the rantings of the Clintons, their grasp of the past is as hazy as their understanding of what the word ?is? means. At least that is the charitable interpretation.
Nothing but GOP support for getting bin Laden
With that in mind, a thorough LexisNexis search identified absolutely no instances of high-ranking Republicans ever suggesting that Mr. Clinton was obsessed with bin Laden, or did too much to apprehend him prior to the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. Quite the contrary, Republicans were typically highly supportive of Clinton?s efforts in this regard.
As a little background, prior to the August 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, there is hardly any mention of bin Laden by President Clinton in American news transcripts. For the most part, the first real discussion of the terrorist leader by the former president ? or by any U.S. politicians or pundits for that matter ? began after these bombings, and escalated after the American retaliation in Afghanistan a few weeks later.
At the time, the former president was knee-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, so much so that the press was abuzz with the possibility that Clinton had performed these attacks to distract the American people from his extracurricular activities much as in the movie Wag the Dog.
Were there high-ranking Republicans that piled on this assertion? Hardly. As the Associated Press reported on the day of the attacks, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) said the following on August 20, 1998:
Well, I think the United States did exactly the right thing. We cannot allow a terrorist group to attack American embassies and do nothing. And I think we have to recognize that we are now committed to engaging this organization and breaking it apart and doing whatever we have to to suppress it, because we cannot afford to have people who think that they can kill Americans without any consequence. So this was the right thing to do. [emphasis added]
Gingrich was not alone in his support. CNN?s Candy Crowley reported on August 21, 1998, the day after cruise missiles were sent into Afghanistan:
With law makers scattered to the four winds on August vacation, congressional offices revved up the faxes. From the Senate majority leader [Trent Lott], ?Despite the current controversy, this Congress will vigorously support the president in full defense of America?s interests throughout the world.? [emphasis added]
Crowley continued:
?The United States political leadership always has and always will stand united in the face of international terrorism,? said the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee [Jesse Helms]. [emphasis added]
It was vintage rally around the flag, just as they did for Ronald Reagan when he bombed Libya, for George Bush when he sent armed forces to the Gulf.
The Atanta Journal-Constitution reported the same day:
?Our nation has taken action against very deadly terrorists opposed to the most basic principles of American freedom,? said Sen. Paul Coverdell, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ?This action should serve as a reminder that no one is beyond the reach of American justice.? [emphasis added]
Former vice president Dan Quayle was quoted by CNN on August 23, 1998:
I don?t have a problem with the timing. You need to focus on the act itself. It was a correct act. Bill Clinton took?made a decisive decision to hit these terrorist camps. It?s probably long overdue. [emphasis added]
Were there some Republican detractors? Certainly. Chief amongst them was Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana:
I think we fear that we may have a president that is desperately seeking to hold onto his job in the face of a firestorm of criticism and calls for him to step down.
Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) also questioned the timing at first. However, other Republicans pleaded with dissenters on their side of the aisle to get on board the operation, chief amongst them, Gingrich himself. As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Speaker felt the ?Wag the Dog? comparisons were ?sick?:
?Anyone who saw the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, anyone who saw the coffins come home, would not ask such a question,? said the House speaker, referring to the 12 Americans killed in the embassy bombings.
In fact, Gingrich did everything within his power to head off Republican criticism of these attacks as reported by the Boston Globe on August 23, 1998:
Indeed, Gingrich even saw to it that one of his political associates, Rich Galen, sent a blast-Fax to conservative talk radio hosts urging them to lay off the president on the missile strikes, and making sure they knew of Gingrich?s strong support. [emphasis added]
That?s the same Rich Galen, by the way, who is openly urging Republican congressional candidates to try to take political advantage of the president?s sex scandal in their television advertising this fall.
Sound like Republicans were complaining about President Clinton obsessing over bin Laden? Or, does it seem that Mr. Clinton pulled this concept out of his? hat in front of Chris Wallace, and ran 99 yards with the ball, albeit in the wrong direction?
Regardless, in the end, sanity prevailed, and both Specter and Coats got on board the operation:
After reviewing intelligence information collected on bin Laden, Specter said: ?I think the president acted properly.? [emphasis added]
As for ?neocons,? one so-called high-ranking member, Richard Perle, wrote the following in an August 23, 1998, op-ed published in the Sunday Times:
For the first time since taking office in 1993, the Clinton administration has responded with some measure of seriousness to an act of terror against the United States. This has undoubtedly come as a surprise to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist believed to have been behind the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and to the regimes in Afghanistan and Sudan who provide him with sanctuary and support.
Until now they, along with other terrorists and their state sponsors in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea, have manoeuvred, plotted, connived and killed with confidence that the United States would do little or nothing in retaliation.
So Thursday?s bombing is a small step in the right direction. More important, it reverses, at least for now, a weak and ineffective Clinton policy that has emboldened terrorists and confirmed that facilitating terror is without cost to the states that do it. [emphasis added]
Does that sound like a ?Bush neocon? claiming that Clinton was ?obsessed with bin Laden? to you?
In reality, the only person that appears to have said that Clinton was fixated with the al Qaeda leader was Richard Clarke, who stated the following on CNN on March 24, 2004:
Bill Clinton was obsessed with getting bin Laden. Bill Clinton ordered bin Laden assassinated. He ordered not only bin Laden assassinated but all of his lieutenants.
Well, at least somebody felt Clinton was obsessed with Osama. But Clinton referred to Clarke quite favorably during his tirade.
Moving forward, conservative support for Clinton?s Afghanistan attacks didn?t end in the weeks that followed. On October 25, 1998, high-ranking Republican senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said the following on CNN:
You?ve seen the great work of the FBI and the CIA in particular with regard to the Osama bin Laden matters.
Yet, maybe more curious than the delusion by Mr. Clinton that Republicans were claiming he was obsessed with bin Laden is the fact that he believes he was. After all, if Clinton had been so focused on this terrorist leader that Republicans would have thought it was over-kill, wouldn?t there be indications of this obsession in the record?
Quite the contrary, much as there is no evidence of any Republican expressing such an opinion, there is no evidence that anti-terrorism efforts were a huge focus of the Clinton administration. For instance, just five months after the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Africa, President Clinton gave a State of the Union address.
Think terrorism or the capture of bin Laden was a central focus to the supposedly obsessed former president? Hardly. In a one-hour, seventeen minute speech to the nation on January 19, 1999, this is all President Clinton had to say about such issues:
As we work for peace, we must also meet threats to our nation?s security, including increased danger from outlaw nations and terrorism. CLINTON: We will defend our security wherever we are threatened?as we did this summer when we struck at Osama bin Laden?s network of terror.
The bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania reminds us again of the risks faced every day by those who represent America to the world. So let?s give them the support they need, the safest possible workplaces, and the resources they must have so America can continue to lead.
We must work to keep terrorists from disrupting computer networks. We must work to prepare local communities for biological and chemical emergencies, to support research into vaccines and treatments.
Furthermore, twelve months later, even though he spoke for almost an hour and a half during his final State of the Union address on January 27, 2000, according to a LexisNexis search, the name Osama bin Laden was never mentioned. This appears almost impossible to believe given revelations that very morning about a connection between the individual apprehended trying to cross the Canadian border with explosives in December and bin Laden.
So much for obsession.
Sadly, this entire incident speaks volumes about how the press have given Clinton a pass for his transgressions, and, maybe more important, the danger of such negligence. When one watches this interview, it is easy to see a man that is unused to challenging questions from the media. After all, this is the first time that Clinton agreed to be on Fox News Sunday, and, as a result, he?s become so accustomed to the softballs fed to him by folks like Tim Russert and George Stephanopoulos that he feels it?s his right to not be challenged.
Just look at some of the disdain Clinton showed for his interviewer all because he was asked a question he didn?t want to answer:
You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because 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?You said you?d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don?t care.
Or, how about this wonderful statement by a former president:
And you?ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you?re so clever?
Or this one:
So you did FOX?s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me.
Just imagine President Bush speaking this way to a member of the media when he is being grilled either during a press conference, or in the middle of any of his interviews since he became president. Or getting in the face of his interviewer and tapping on the host?s notepad that?s sitting on his lap.
Would this be acceptable? Not a chance. However, such was the behavior of America?s 42nd president. And, as much as he and his troops appear to be aggressively defending his actions to preserve his legacy, they have failed to recognize that such displays in front of a well-regarded member of the press will defeat their purposes no matter how much they try to rationalize them.
In the end, it?s not clear which is more surprising: Mr. Clinton once again lying to the American people and disgracing himself so, or that he didn?t realize that in his self-absorbed desire to revise history for the benefit of posterity, he was actually doing himself more harm than good.
Flashback: When Clinton Wagged His Finger at Peter Jennings; “Don’t Go There, Peter!”
Posted by Rich Noyes on September 25, 2006 - 14:57.
Bill Clinton?s diatribe against FNC?s Chris Wallace, who dared to question the ex-President about his failed efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, reminded some of the last time Clinton exhibited such vitriol. Back on November 18, 2004, in the midst of a quite positive ABC News prime-time special, “Bill Clinton: A Place in History,” about the dedication of the Clinton presidential library, Bill Clinton angrily wagged his finger at Peter Jennings, accusing ABC of conspiring with Ken Starr to ?repeat every little sleazy thing he leaked? during the investigation into Clinton?s perjury and obstruction of justice.
The late Peter Jennings, who was never accused of being a conservative, had committed the grave offense of asking Clinton about a survey of historian that had ranked him 41 of 42 presidents on ?moral authority.? As recounted by the MRC?s Brent Baker in a CyberAlert published the next morning, that set Clinton off on a self-indulgent discussion of how he and his supporters were supposedly victimized by Ken Starr ? and the news media.
Video clip (4:10): Real (3.1 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (2.5 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (1.1 MB). Read on for transcript of the segment.
As Baker noted at the time, ?In fact, a review of 1998 coverage would show ABC?s hostility to Starr. Instead of defending his coverage, however, Jennings moved on: ?I think somewhere you say that it was Nelson Mandela who taught you about forgiveness?? Jennings soon deplored how Clinton had to leave office after eight years: ?You’re 58 years old, and you had two terms. And like a world class athlete, you’re suddenly yanked off the mound. Somebody compared it to pulling Sandy Koufax out of a baseball game.??
But the similarity with Clinton?s eruption with Chris Wallace over terrorism is striking, particularly how he blamed the media for letting coverage of his scandals mar his moments of glory: ?When I got a standing ovation at the United Nations from the whole world, the American networks were showing my grand jury testimony. Those were decisions you made, not me.?
Here is a transcript of the 2004 exchange, which took place at the Clinton library and presidential center in Little Rock, Arkansas:
Peter Jennings: "Fifty-eight historians, as I think you may know, did this for C-SPAN. And they were all across the political spectrum. And they came out, in general terms, that you were 21st. And on public persuasion and economic management, they gave you a fifth. Pretty good."
Former President Bill Clinton: "Pretty good."
Jennings: "They gave you a 41st on moral authority."
Clinton: "They're wrong about that."
Jennings: "After Nixon."
Clinton: "They're wrong about that. You know why they're wrong about it? They're wrong about it."
Jennings: "Why, sir?"
Clinton: "Because we had $100 million spent against us and all these inspections. One person in my administration was convicted of doing something that violated his job responsibilities while we were in the White House, 29 in the Reagan/Bush years. I bet those historians didn't even know that. They have no idea what I was subject to and what a lot of people supported.
?No other President ever had to endure someone like Ken Starr indicting innocent people because they wouldn't lie, in a systematic way. No one ever had to try to save people from ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the people in Haiti from a military dictator who was murdering them and all the other problems I dealt with, while every day, an entire apparatus was devoted to destroying him. And still, not any example of where I ever disgraced this country publicly.
?I made a terrible public, personal mistake, but I paid for it many times over. And in spite of it all, you don't have any example where I ever lied to the American people about my job, where I ever let the American people down. And I had more support from the world and the world leaders and people around the world when I quit than when I started. And I will go to my grave being at peace about it. And I don't really care what they think."
Jennings: "Oh, yes, you do, sir."
Clinton: "They have no-"
Jennings: "No, excuse me, Mr. President. You care, I can feel it across the room."
Clinton: "No, no, I care-"
Jennings: "You feel it very deeply."
Clinton, raised his arm and menacingly pointed at Jennings: "You don't want to go there, Peter. You don't want to go there. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like. That's where I failed.
?You want to know where I failed? I really let it, it hurt me. I thought I believed in a, I thought I lived in a country where people believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, freedom of speech. You never had to live in a time when people you knew and cared about were being indicted, carted off to jail, bankrupted, ruined because they were Democrats and because they would not lie.
?So I think we showed a lot of moral fiber to stand up to that, to stand up to these constant investigations, to this constant bodyguard of lies, this avalanche that was thrown at all of us. And, yes, I failed once. And I sure paid for it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the American people, and I'm sorry for the embarrassment they performed. But they ought to think about the way the rest of the world reacted to it.
?When I, when I got a standing ovation at the United Nations from the whole world, the American networks were showing my grand jury testimony. Those were decisions you made, not me. I personally believe that the standing ovation I got from the whole world at the United Nations, which was unprecedented for an American President, showed not only support for me, but opposition to the madness that had taken hold of American politics."
I don’t get you americans.
I have no special sympathy for Clinton.
Most of your politicians and parties aren’t comparable to German ones, we have a slight different concept of liberals and republicans.
The interview was nice. Clinton’s wits and semantics were sharp as ever. He who claims otherwise must suffer from some form of lingual retardation. Of course he prepared himself in some way, so did the interviewer. Both are pros and know what to expect. Still, Clinton displayed a positive agressive stance throughout the interview. If someone claims he acted like a pussy, I feel confused. How can someone’s perception be so warped, especially as a TMan who appreciates an “Alpha Male” behaviour when he sees it?
What I also don’t understand is that so many guys still rip on the sex issue. (Which is totally unimportant for the interview, btw)
Why? Is it some kind of inferiority complex, because the current president is such a joke? Back then, we couldn’t understand how a country so progressive and modern would make such a fuss, even try an impeachment.
Read the sex forum, where practically anyone posts occasionally. Most TMen speak in a total different tone over there- strange. As wreckless already said: men and women cheat on each other and it’s not the end of the world. Again, especially when some guys can’t stress enough what an unhitable hag Hillary is.
Yet when you have so high standard for morale, it’s still OK with me - but why do you insist in protecting Bush at all costs?
His incompetence is breathtaking. Why is it so hard to say, “My, as a republican, it’s good to have not some lib on the presidential chair, but that Bush is a first class jackass”.
Again, I’m not a sympathizer of Clinton, but to say he didn’t do a great job back then just amazes us here in “old” Europe.
Before G.W.Bush, Europe loved America almost blindly. To hear an antiamerican statement was never a common thing.
With Bush and his gang, this changed so fast and radically it really saddens me.