As always, It's all about Clinton

[Mr. Intenseone]

RUSH: I think the implosion that I have been predicting in the Democratic Party happened yesterday. It's been effervescing there, bubbling up underneath the surface for a long time, and I think they just all came unhinged and unglued yesterday. I've noted that the only prominent Democrat out there defending Clinton is another raving lunatic, Howard Dean, who I predict will be institutionalized shortly after this election in November for a sickness that he's had for oh so long. Greetings, my friends, and welcome. It's great to have you with us. Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, three straight hours today. The telephone number, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address is Rush@eibnet.com.

 Wow. That interview with Bill Clinton yesterday? Can you imagine how Paula Jones must have felt? Kathleen Willey? ''Purple rage''. That is how George Stephanopoulos described Clinton's anger in his book when Clinton and Stephanopoulos were both in the White House. It was such an innocuous question, even though Chris Wallace did suggest that it was generated by viewers, people in e-mail. I think that's actually one of the things that set Clinton off if indeed he was set off. The idea that he was blindsided by this is a bit absurd. He knew he was going on Fox, and he knows what the ground rules are. He's a former president.

Nothing's really out of bounds or off limits for these kinds of things. I think, you know, rather than this being a meltdown, I think Clinton's been waiting for this ever since he first heard that I supposedly helped write The Path to 9/11. I think he's been waiting to explode, and this was the question in public that he had been waiting for. I think he's very proud of what he did yesterday. I think Clinton thinks he hit a home run, even though no Democrats are out there defending him. You gotta remember: Clinton's a pathological liar. His only truth is what he says. The real truth, reality, is not his. His reality is what his memory is, what he constructs it to be.

You could see very plainly how thinly created, how thin the foundation is of his legacy. It all hinges on a mainstream media that covers for him and continues to promote the legacy. But when it came to it yesterday, he could only cite Richard Clarke as a "factual asserter" to make his case. He couldn't cite the 9/11 Commission, admitting that it was a political document -- and we know why it was a political document. The Democrats in that committee were there to hide the lapses of the Clinton administration. I think what happened yesterday on Fox News Sunday. I got the transcript today Saturday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, and I was just -- you know, in one way, I was stunned, such an apparent loss of control, such a horrible PR blunder and mistake by the people whose reputation for PR greatness is unsurpassed. The timing of this could not be any worse.

But what we say yesterday is that with Bill Clinton it's all about him. He doesn't really care about the impact on the Democratic Party, except maybe for Hillary, and certainly not this election cycle. He's concerned about himself. He's concerned about his legacy. It also illustrates my point, and I've been making this for years. One of the reasons the Democrats smear people -- and that's what Clinton did yesterday, he smeared "neocons." Here's a former president. He may have used the term before, but I'm not aware that he has. "Neocons" is something that kook Democrats, the liberal blogosphere fringe, some in the Drive-By Media use, but we got the earthy Bill Clinton. We got what he really thinks about his political enemies and so forth.

He thinks everything is a vast right-wing conspiracy, as does Hillary. It seems to be one of the pages, one of the old pages in their playbook that they keep going to, sort of like this New York Times story yesterday about the National Intelligence Estimate that basically said what? I mean, it's been mischaracterized as well. They pull a couple of quotes from it, the New York Times, and try to portray that the whole estimate said what their small little analysis of it said, but it's really nothing new. It's just opening the book, the playbook, to an old page, and in this case "Bush is creating the terrorists." Well, that's really working, isn't it? I am dumbfounded here at how they're so predictable. Everything that they do is predictable.

I got a note from somebody today said, "Well, I think this is the equivalent of the New York Times story the week before the election in 2004 about all these newly found, unexploded weapons and ammunition and so forth, which was an old story, at least a year-and-a-half-old story. They tried to turn the elections on that," and I said, "No, this is campaign season. The intelligence community is going to keep leaking," and I told Snerdley today, I said, "You know, the problem with this is not what the Democrats are saying and doing with these leaks. It's the fact that the leaks are happening. If it is true -- that the intelligence community, CIA, DIA, wherever they are, if it's true -- that that they are more interested in destroying a sitting president than they are doing their jobs, then we have a fundamental problem in the intelligence community.

The way the Democrats spin this is really of no concern to me because we've heard it all before: Bush lied people died. Bush created terrorists there were no terrorists prior 9/11 blah, blah, blah, and yet we got Bill Clinton out there saying yesterday he was "obsessed with bin Laden" and the Republicans were mad at him for being obsessed with bin Laden -- and that's a lie! Extensive research over the weekend can't find any example of any Republicans being anything other than supportive of Clinton with his missile strikes, with his warnings of Saddam Hussein. More on that as the program unfolds. But I tell you, for the last 50 years, the Drive-By Media gave no challenge to liberal Democrats. Whatever they asserted, whatever they believed, whatever their policies were, were fawningly promoted -- for the most part. There are obviously exemptions to this.

During the same 50 years, conservatives opposing all of this were routinely challenged, questioned, laughed at, made fun of, impugned, and forced to defend their policies -- and in the process, learned how to do so in a persuasive way. What we saw yesterday is that Bill Clinton and the Democrats cannot handle tough questions, and that wasn't even a tough question. As I say the thing Clinton didn't like about it was that Chris Wallace cried, "I'm getting e-mails from viewers, Mr. President," and of course Clinton is a liberal Democrat, doesn't want to hear what people think. He's trying to change their minds, and I think that's part of what set him off.

 Do you remember at any time in the last five years President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, or any Republican acting the way Bill Clinton did on Fox News Sunday: losing it, intimidating the interview, getting in their space, pointing fingers, jabbing fingers at Chris Wallace's notes? Wallace said, "I felt like a mountain was falling down on me." Remember when Hillary debated Rick Lazio, and Lazio walked over and presented her some papers, "You can't invade her space! Why, that's sexist. You're trying to intimidate the girl! You can't do that."

Clinton yesterday couldn't wait to set forward on that chair and jab his finger -- very, very unusually long fingers, by the way, too. I think I'm starting to understand why liberal women have a fascination with this guy, but nevertheless -- jabbing that finger in an intimidating fashion, those eyes on the verge of madness. Chris Wallace held ground out there, but can you imagine how Juanita Broaddrick felt? The only thing he didn't say when he left is, "Hey, Chris, better put some ice on that lip." I understand when he walked out he was still exploding, and this time at his staff. Apparently he thinks he got set up. But you don't see Republicans respond this way to some of the most vile, mean-spirited, hard-hitting questions ever, and yet Clinton does because he's not used to it.

It's a big mistake to react that way, ladies and gentlemen, because all it's going to do is focus attention on what he said. The biggest mistake they've made is acting upset about the movie, The Path to 9/11, and Clinton can't help it because it's all about him. It's not about the Democratic Party, and it's not about the future of the country or even the safety of the country. It's about his legacy, and he knows that he doesn't have anything major that happened in his administration -- in terms of war, foreign policy -- that's going to create such greatness in his electrician, so he's gotta rewrite history about how he was "obsessed with bin Laden."

At any rate, we got a lot to do. We've got the audio sound bites. We've got some other things, a lot of research that I've done here to try to set all this straight. He's going to regret having done this. This is not the way they wanted to do this -- and keep a sharp eye, because I still don't think a whole lot of Democrats other than Dean are out there defending him. But in spirit of bipartisanship, ladies and gentlemen, and in the spirit of reaching out to those on the other side of the aisle, demonstrating fairness and understanding: I think we should all admit before we get started with all this that we need to about kind. President Clinton did protect us from those who threatened us greatly.

The Branch Davidians.

[Mr. Intenseone]

You people should be thanking me, I'm pulling this off Rush's member site!

[24KT]

No wonder all you ditto heads are so screwed up! 

what the hell kind of moron pays money to read Limbaughs crap?   

[Hedgehog]

You people should be thanking me, I'm pulling this off Rush's member site!

Thank you.

Have you seen the interview with Clinton yourself yet?

Watch it here and judge for yourself:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215445,00.html

YIP
Zack

[Mr. Intenseone]

Thank you.
im
Have you seen the interview with Clinton yourself yet?

Watch it here and judge for yourself:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215445,00.html

YIP
Zack

I not only watched it, but I heard it again on one of our LA talk shows, Larry Elder, and like I said yesterday, the press is tearing him up point by point not only by the public but by people who were actually in the White House during that time....he's an obvious pathalogical lier!

Clinton is the one who got owned in that interview not Wallace!

[Hedgehog]

I think Clinton thinks he hit a home run, even though no Democrats are out there defending him. You gotta remember: Clinton's a pathological liar. His only truth is what he says. The real truth, reality, is not his. His reality is what his memory is, what he constructs it to be.

Limbaugh needs to show where Clinton lied in the Sunday interview. Otherwise, it has little relevance to start calling him a "pathological liar".

YIP
Zack

[Mr. Intenseone]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215779,00.html

[Hugo Chavez]

Wallace falsehood: said in Clinton interview that he asked Bush admin officials "plenty of questions" about failure to catch bin Laden
Summary: During his interview with former President Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Clinton why he failed to "do more" during his presidency to put Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden "out of business," a question, Clinton said, Fox News "do[esn't] ask the other side." Wallace denied the charge, responding, "That is not true."
In a taped interview with former President Bill Clinton that aired on the September 24 edition of Fox News Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Clinton why he failed to "do more" during his presidency to put Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden "out of business." Clinton responded with a vigorous defense of his administration's anti-terrorism policies, noting that he instituted a "comprehensive anti-terror strategy" during his tenure in the White House and that many conservatives had accused him at the time of being "too obsessed with finding bin Laden." He then told Wallace: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you've asked this question of. ... Tell the truth." Wallace replied, "Have you ever watched Fox News Sunday, sir? ... We ask plenty of questions." Clinton later stated, "[Y]ou people ask me questions you don't ask the other side," to which Wallace responded, "That is not true." In fact, in dozens of interviews over the past five years with senior Bush aides, Wallace and former host Tony Snow have repeatedly failed to ask pressing questions regarding the Bush administration's efforts to pursue Al Qaeda in the eight months prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and in the years since.

Here is a list of senior Bush administration officials interviewed on Fox News Sunday since September 11, 2001. (White House press secretary Tony Snow previously hosted the program. Wallace succeeded him in December 2003.):

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; 9/10/06
National Security adviser Stephen Hadley; 8/6/06
Rice; 7/16/06
Rice; 6/4/06
Rice; 5/21/06
Rice; 3/26/06
Rice; 12/18/05
Hadley; 12/4/05
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld; 11/20/05
Rice; 10/16/05
Rumsfeld; 6/26/05
Rice; 6/19/05
Hadley; 5/15/05
Then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card; 5/1/05
Rumsfeld; 3/20/05
Hadley; 3/13/05
Vice President Dick Cheney; 2/6/05
Rice; 1/30/05
Rice (then-National Security adviser); 10/10/04
Rice; 6/27/04
Rice; 6/6/04
Rice; 4/18/04
Rumsfeld; 3/28/04
Card; 12/7/03
Rumsfeld; 11/2/03
Rice; 9/28/03
Rice; 9/7/03
Rice; 7/13/03
Rumsfeld; 5/4/03
Rumsfeld; 3/30/03
Rice; 2/16/03
Card; 1/26/03
Rumsfeld; 1/19/03
Rice; 11/10/02
Rice; 9/15/02
Card; 6/9/02
Rice; 5/26/02
Cheney; 5/19/02
Rice; 5/5/02
Card; 4/14/02
Rice; 2/3/02
Cheney; 1/27/02
Rumsfeld; 11/11/01
In the March 28, 2004, interview with Rumsfeld, Wallace did press him on whether the Department of Defense should have "been thinking more about" terrorism prior to 9-11 and asked him to respond to the "basic charge that, pre-9-11 ... this government, the Bush administration, largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda." Referring to Rumsfeld's testimony before the 9-11 Commission regarding the Defense Department's anti-terrorism efforts, Wallace remarked, "t sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."

But beyond this exchange, the Fox News Sunday interviews listed above have almost entirely ignored several key questions regarding the Bush administration's efforts to pursue bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Why did the White House not respond more forcefully to the August 6 CIA memo warning of an impending bin Laden strike against the United States?

On August 6, 2001, the CIA delivered a now-famous "Presidential Daily Brief" (PDB) to Bush entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." The memo stated that, although the FBI had "not been able to corroborate" a 1998 report that bin Laden was seeking to "hijack a U.S. aircraft," "FBI information since that time indicate[d] patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

The administration appears to have done little in response to the August 6 PDB. The 9-11 Commission stated in its report that it "found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States" -- this despite the fact that "[m]ost of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented."

News of the August 6 memo first broke on May 18, 2002. During Cheney's appearance on Fox News Sunday the following day, Snow brought up the memo and asked him, "Why didn't we connect the dots?" But in their subsequent interviews with Bush administration officials, Wallace and Snow repeatedly failed to ask them if they regretted not reacting more forcefully to it. Wallace even avoided questioning Rice about it days after she discussed the memo during her testimony before the 9-11 Commission, as the weblog Think Progress noted.

Why did the Bush administration demote Richard Clarke?


Former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke left the White House in January 2003, shortly after being demoted by the Bush administration. He subsequently criticized the administration's response to the alarming intelligence delivered prior to 9-11. During the September 24 interview, Clinton said that Clarke was "loyal" to former presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. Clinton then noted that despite Clarke's loyalty, the Bush administration "downgraded him and the terrorist operation," which prompted Clinton to ask Wallace, "I want to know how many people you asked, 'Why did you fire Dick Clarke?' " Clinton later said: "This country only has one person who's worked against terror, from the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents on 9-11. Only one: Richard Clarke."

In his numerous interviews with Bush administration officials, Wallace mentioned Clarke only once, as Think Progress noted, in the March 28, 2004, interview with Rumsfeld. But in that interview, Wallace failed to question Rumsfeld on Clarke's demotion.

Why didn't the Bush administration do anything in response to the bombing of the USS Cole?


During the interview, Wallace asked Clinton about the "attack on the Cole" and why, "after the attack," the Clinton administration "didn't do more." Wallace was referring to the USS Cole bombing on October 12, 2000, roughly three months before Clinton left the White House. Clinton noted that he didn't have much time to respond to the bombing and asked Wallace: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' "

As Think Progress noted, no Bush administration official has ever been asked about the administration's lack of response to the Cole bombing by a host of Fox News Sunday -- this despite the fact that the FBI and CIA did not certify that bin Laden was responsible for the attack until early 2001.

Why did Bush not heed the CIA's call for more troops to help catch bin Laden at Tora Bora?

In an April 17, 2002, article on bin Laden's escape from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in late 2001, The Washington Post reported that the Bush administration's "failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge." The article noted that several "[a]fter-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States." Further, the Post quoted a senior counterterrorism official saying, "We [messed] up by not getting into Tora Bora sooner and letting the Afghans do all the work. ... We didn't put U.S. forces on the ground, despite all the brave talk, and that is what we have had to change since then."

But in their subsequent appearances on Fox News Sunday, senior Bush aides did not face any questions regarding the Bush administration's decision-making at Tora Bora.

In 2006, investigative reporter Ron Suskind shed even more light on the incident in his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006). Suskind disclosed that CIA officer Henry "Hank" Crumpton, the head of the agency's Afghanistan campaign at the time, had told Bush in late November 2001 that Pakistani and Afghan fighters were "definitely not" equipped to handle the mission and that "we're going to lose our prey if we're not careful." According to Suskind, Crumpton "strongly recommended the marines, or other troops in the region, get to Tora Bora immediately." But despite delivering this recommendation to Bush directly, the administration never committed more troops to the area, and bin Laden ultimately escaped.

Since Suskind's book release in June, Wallace has interviewed both Rice and Hadley, but he did not ask either of them about this revelation.


From the September 24 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of emails from viewers, and I gotta 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?

There's a new book out, you may -- I suspect you've already read, called The Looming Tower, and it talks about the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

CLINTON: OK, let's just cut the --

WALLACE: Let me -- let me -- may I just finish the question, sir? And after the attack, the book says that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is always 20/20 --

CLINTON: No, let's talk about it.

WALLACE: But the question is why didn't you do more? Connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let's talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative run their little Pathway to 9-11 [sic] 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 claimed 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 office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much -- same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993, the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations. OK, 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 growing concern in October of 1993.

WALLACE: I understand -- I --

CLINTON: No, wait. No, wait. Don't tell me this. You asked me why didn't I do more to bin Laden. There was not a living soul -- all the people who are now criticizing me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer, but you can't --

WALLACE: I'm perfectly happy to.

CLINTON: All right. All right, secondly --

WALLACE: Bin Laden says --

CLINTON: But -- bin Laden may have said that --

WALLACE: Bin Laden says it showed the weakness of the U.S. --

CLINTON: But it would have shown the weakness if we'd left right away, but he wasn't involved in that. That's just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohammed Adid, a Muslim warlord murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission. We had no mission -- none -- to establish a certain kind of Somali government or keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic.

WALLACE: But Mr. President --

CLINTON: There was no Al Qaeda --

WALLACE: With respect, if I may, without -- instead of going through '93 --

CLINTON: No, no, you asked it. You brought it up.

WALLACE: May I --

CLINTON: You brought it up.

WALLACE: -- may I ask a general question and then you can answer? The 9-11 Commission, you -- which you talk about -- and this is what they did say -- not what ABC pretended they said.

CLINTON: What did they say?

WALLACE: They said about you and President Bush and I quote: "The U.S. 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: That -- first of all, that's not true with us and bin Laden.

WALLACE: Well, I'm talking about what the 9-11 Commission says.

CLINTON: Let's look at what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?

WALLACE: Yes, I do.

CLINTON: You do, don't you?

WALLACE: I think he has a variety of opinions and loyalties --

CLINTON: That's right.

WALLACE: -- but yes, he has a vigorous opinion.

CLINTON: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let's look at the facts. 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. Now, look what he said. 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.

WALLACE: Well, wait --

CLINTON: I authorized -- now, wait a minute --

WALLACE: You launched a few -- you threw a few cruise missiles.

CLINTON: No, no. I authorized -- I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. 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.

Now 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 certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So, that meant I would have had to send a few hundred Special Forces in, in helicopters and 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: If anybody wants to say I didn't do enough, you read Richard Clarke's book.

WALLACE: 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 ridiculed 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.

So, you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit-job on me, but what I want to know --

WALLACE: Now, wait a minute, sir, I asked a question. You don't think that's a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But 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?" I want to know how many people you asked, "Why did you fire Dick Clarke?" I want to know how many people you asked about this.

WALLACE: We asked -- we asked. Have you ever watched Fox News Sunday, sir?

CLINTON: I don't believe you asked them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of --

CLINTON: You didn't ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris

WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there's plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is 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-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care. But,

WALLACE: President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you'll see half the questions were about that. I didn't think this was going to go off on such a tear.

CLINTON: You launched -- it set off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side.

WALLACE: That -- sir, that is --

CLINTON: And Richard Clarke -

WALLACE: That is not true.

CLINTON: Richard Clarke made it clear in his testimony --

WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the -- about the Clinton Global Initiative?

CLINTON: No, I want to finish this now.

WALLACE: All right. Well, it's up to you.

CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you launched -- you falsely accuse me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaeda existed then, and --

WALLACE: Did they know in 1996, when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998?

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: When he bombed the two embassies? Did they know in 2000, when they hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has 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, and I don't think this is useful.

But you know, we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of -- sort of dismissive theme, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you've got that little smirk on your face. 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. The entire military was against sending Special Forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was president. And so I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time, they had three times as much time to deal with it and nobody ever asks them about it. I think that's strange.

WALLACE: 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 I thought none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things, I always get these clever little political eels where they ask me one-sided questions, and the other guys another set. And it always comes from one source. And so -- and so --

WALLACE: I just want to ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative, but what's the source? I mean, you seem upset, and I -- and I --

CLINTON: I am upset, because --

WALLACE: -- and all I can say is, I'm asking you in good faith because it's on people's minds, sir. And I wasn't --

CLINTON: Well, there's a reason it's on people's minds. That's the point I'm trying to make. There's a reason it's on people's minds because they've done a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression. This country only has one person who's worked against terror, from the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents on 9-11. Only one: Richard Clarke.

And all I can say -- anybody is -- you want to know what we did wrong or right, or anybody else did? Read his book. The people on my political right, who say I didn't do enough, spent the whole time I was president saying, "Why is he so obsessed with bin Laden? That was 'Wag the Dog' when he tried to kill him." My Republican Secretary of Defense -- and I think I'm the only president since World War II to have a Secretary of Defense from the opposite party -- Richard Clarke, and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden and came closer apparently than anybody has since.

WALLACE: All right.

CLINTON: And then, you guys try to create the opposite impression when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's findings and you know it's not true. It's just not true. And all this business about Somalia --the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day -- the same exact crowd.

WALLACE: All right.

CLINTON: So, if you're going to do this, for God's sake, follow the same standards for everybody --

WALLACE: I think we do, sir.

CLINTON: -- and be fair.

WALLACE: I think we do.

[Mr. Intenseone]

Why are you reposting it........I've heard his spin twice!

[Hugo Chavez]

Why are you reposting it........I've heard his spin twice!

What, this spin??? 

Wallace falsehood: said in Clinton interview that he asked Bush admin officials "plenty of questions" about failure to catch bin Laden
Summary: During his interview with former President Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Clinton why he failed to "do more" during his presidency to put Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden "out of business," a question, Clinton said, Fox News "do[esn't] ask the other side." Wallace denied the charge, responding, "That is not true."
In a taped interview with former President Bill Clinton that aired on the September 24 edition of Fox News Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Clinton why he failed to "do more" during his presidency to put Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden "out of business." Clinton responded with a vigorous defense of his administration's anti-terrorism policies, noting that he instituted a "comprehensive anti-terror strategy" during his tenure in the White House and that many conservatives had accused him at the time of being "too obsessed with finding bin Laden." He then told Wallace: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you've asked this question of. ... Tell the truth." Wallace replied, "Have you ever watched Fox News Sunday, sir? ... We ask plenty of questions." Clinton later stated, "[Y]ou people ask me questions you don't ask the other side," to which Wallace responded, "That is not true." In fact, in dozens of interviews over the past five years with senior Bush aides, Wallace and former host Tony Snow have repeatedly failed to ask pressing questions regarding the Bush administration's efforts to pursue Al Qaeda in the eight months prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and in the years since.

Here is a list of senior Bush administration officials interviewed on Fox News Sunday since September 11, 2001. (White House press secretary Tony Snow previously hosted the program. Wallace succeeded him in December 2003.):

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; 9/10/06
National Security adviser Stephen Hadley; 8/6/06
Rice; 7/16/06
Rice; 6/4/06
Rice; 5/21/06
Rice; 3/26/06
Rice; 12/18/05
Hadley; 12/4/05
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld; 11/20/05
Rice; 10/16/05
Rumsfeld; 6/26/05
Rice; 6/19/05
Hadley; 5/15/05
Then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card; 5/1/05
Rumsfeld; 3/20/05
Hadley; 3/13/05
Vice President Dick Cheney; 2/6/05
Rice; 1/30/05
Rice (then-National Security adviser); 10/10/04
Rice; 6/27/04
Rice; 6/6/04
Rice; 4/18/04
Rumsfeld; 3/28/04
Card; 12/7/03
Rumsfeld; 11/2/03
Rice; 9/28/03
Rice; 9/7/03
Rice; 7/13/03
Rumsfeld; 5/4/03
Rumsfeld; 3/30/03
Rice; 2/16/03
Card; 1/26/03
Rumsfeld; 1/19/03
Rice; 11/10/02
Rice; 9/15/02
Card; 6/9/02
Rice; 5/26/02
Cheney; 5/19/02
Rice; 5/5/02
Card; 4/14/02
Rice; 2/3/02
Cheney; 1/27/02
Rumsfeld; 11/11/01
In the March 28, 2004, interview with Rumsfeld, Wallace did press him on whether the Department of Defense should have "been thinking more about" terrorism prior to 9-11 and asked him to respond to the "basic charge that, pre-9-11 ... this government, the Bush administration, largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda." Referring to Rumsfeld's testimony before the 9-11 Commission regarding the Defense Department's anti-terrorism efforts, Wallace remarked, "t sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."

But beyond this exchange, the Fox News Sunday interviews listed above have almost entirely ignored several key questions regarding the Bush administration's efforts to pursue bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Why did the White House not respond more forcefully to the August 6 CIA memo warning of an impending bin Laden strike against the United States?

On August 6, 2001, the CIA delivered a now-famous "Presidential Daily Brief" (PDB) to Bush entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." The memo stated that, although the FBI had "not been able to corroborate" a 1998 report that bin Laden was seeking to "hijack a U.S. aircraft," "FBI information since that time indicate[d] patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

The administration appears to have done little in response to the August 6 PDB. The 9-11 Commission stated in its report that it "found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States" -- this despite the fact that "[m]ost of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented."

News of the August 6 memo first broke on May 18, 2002. During Cheney's appearance on Fox News Sunday the following day, Snow brought up the memo and asked him, "Why didn't we connect the dots?" But in their subsequent interviews with Bush administration officials, Wallace and Snow repeatedly failed to ask them if they regretted not reacting more forcefully to it. Wallace even avoided questioning Rice about it days after she discussed the memo during her testimony before the 9-11 Commission, as the weblog Think Progress noted.

Why did the Bush administration demote Richard Clarke?


Former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke left the White House in January 2003, shortly after being demoted by the Bush administration. He subsequently criticized the administration's response to the alarming intelligence delivered prior to 9-11. During the September 24 interview, Clinton said that Clarke was "loyal" to former presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. Clinton then noted that despite Clarke's loyalty, the Bush administration "downgraded him and the terrorist operation," which prompted Clinton to ask Wallace, "I want to know how many people you asked, 'Why did you fire Dick Clarke?' " Clinton later said: "This country only has one person who's worked against terror, from the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents on 9-11. Only one: Richard Clarke."

In his numerous interviews with Bush administration officials, Wallace mentioned Clarke only once, as Think Progress noted, in the March 28, 2004, interview with Rumsfeld. But in that interview, Wallace failed to question Rumsfeld on Clarke's demotion.

Why didn't the Bush administration do anything in response to the bombing of the USS Cole?


During the interview, Wallace asked Clinton about the "attack on the Cole" and why, "after the attack," the Clinton administration "didn't do more." Wallace was referring to the USS Cole bombing on October 12, 2000, roughly three months before Clinton left the White House. Clinton noted that he didn't have much time to respond to the bombing and asked Wallace: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' "

As Think Progress noted, no Bush administration official has ever been asked about the administration's lack of response to the Cole bombing by a host of Fox News Sunday -- this despite the fact that the FBI and CIA did not certify that bin Laden was responsible for the attack until early 2001.

Why did Bush not heed the CIA's call for more troops to help catch bin Laden at Tora Bora?

In an April 17, 2002, article on bin Laden's escape from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in late 2001, The Washington Post reported that the Bush administration's "failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge." The article noted that several "[a]fter-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States." Further, the Post quoted a senior counterterrorism official saying, "We [messed] up by not getting into Tora Bora sooner and letting the Afghans do all the work. ... We didn't put U.S. forces on the ground, despite all the brave talk, and that is what we have had to change since then."

But in their subsequent appearances on Fox News Sunday, senior Bush aides did not face any questions regarding the Bush administration's decision-making at Tora Bora.

In 2006, investigative reporter Ron Suskind shed even more light on the incident in his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006). Suskind disclosed that CIA officer Henry "Hank" Crumpton, the head of the agency's Afghanistan campaign at the time, had told Bush in late November 2001 that Pakistani and Afghan fighters were "definitely not" equipped to handle the mission and that "we're going to lose our prey if we're not careful." According to Suskind, Crumpton "strongly recommended the marines, or other troops in the region, get to Tora Bora immediately." But despite delivering this recommendation to Bush directly, the administration never committed more troops to the area, and bin Laden ultimately escaped.

Since Suskind's book release in June, Wallace has interviewed both Rice and Hadley, but he did not ask either of them about this revelation.


From the September 24 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of emails from viewers, and I gotta 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?

There's a new book out, you may -- I suspect you've already read, called The Looming Tower, and it talks about the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

CLINTON: OK, let's just cut the --

WALLACE: Let me -- let me -- may I just finish the question, sir? And after the attack, the book says that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is always 20/20 --

CLINTON: No, let's talk about it.

WALLACE: But the question is why didn't you do more? Connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let's talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative run their little Pathway to 9-11 [sic] 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 claimed 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 office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much -- same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993, the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations. OK, 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 growing concern in October of 1993.

WALLACE: I understand -- I --

CLINTON: No, wait. No, wait. Don't tell me this. You asked me why didn't I do more to bin Laden. There was not a living soul -- all the people who are now criticizing me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer, but you can't --

WALLACE: I'm perfectly happy to.

CLINTON: All right. All right, secondly --

WALLACE: Bin Laden says --

CLINTON: But -- bin Laden may have said that --

WALLACE: Bin Laden says it showed the weakness of the U.S. --

CLINTON: But it would have shown the weakness if we'd left right away, but he wasn't involved in that. That's just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohammed Adid, a Muslim warlord murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission. We had no mission -- none -- to establish a certain kind of Somali government or keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic.

WALLACE: But Mr. President --

CLINTON: There was no Al Qaeda --

WALLACE: With respect, if I may, without -- instead of going through '93 --

CLINTON: No, no, you asked it. You brought it up.

WALLACE: May I --

CLINTON: You brought it up.

WALLACE: -- may I ask a general question and then you can answer? The 9-11 Commission, you -- which you talk about -- and this is what they did say -- not what ABC pretended they said.

CLINTON: What did they say?

WALLACE: They said about you and President Bush and I quote: "The U.S. 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: That -- first of all, that's not true with us and bin Laden.

WALLACE: Well, I'm talking about what the 9-11 Commission says.

CLINTON: Let's look at what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?

WALLACE: Yes, I do.

CLINTON: You do, don't you?

WALLACE: I think he has a variety of opinions and loyalties --

CLINTON: That's right.

WALLACE: -- but yes, he has a vigorous opinion.

CLINTON: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let's look at the facts. 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. Now, look what he said. 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.

WALLACE: Well, wait --

CLINTON: I authorized -- now, wait a minute --

WALLACE: You launched a few -- you threw a few cruise missiles.

CLINTON: No, no. I authorized -- I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. 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.

Now 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 certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So, that meant I would have had to send a few hundred Special Forces in, in helicopters and 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: If anybody wants to say I didn't do enough, you read Richard Clarke's book.

WALLACE: 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 ridiculed 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.

So, you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit-job on me, but what I want to know --

WALLACE: Now, wait a minute, sir, I asked a question. You don't think that's a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But 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?" I want to know how many people you asked, "Why did you fire Dick Clarke?" I want to know how many people you asked about this.

WALLACE: We asked -- we asked. Have you ever watched Fox News Sunday, sir?

CLINTON: I don't believe you asked them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of --

CLINTON: You didn't ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris

WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there's plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is 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-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care. But,

WALLACE: President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you'll see half the questions were about that. I didn't think this was going to go off on such a tear.

CLINTON: You launched -- it set off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side.

WALLACE: That -- sir, that is --

CLINTON: And Richard Clarke -

WALLACE: That is not true.

CLINTON: Richard Clarke made it clear in his testimony --

WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the -- about the Clinton Global Initiative?

CLINTON: No, I want to finish this now.

WALLACE: All right. Well, it's up to you.

CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you launched -- you falsely accuse me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaeda existed then, and --

WALLACE: Did they know in 1996, when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998?

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: When he bombed the two embassies? Did they know in 2000, when they hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has 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, and I don't think this is useful.

But you know, we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of -- sort of dismissive theme, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you've got that little smirk on your face. 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. The entire military was against sending Special Forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was president. And so I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time, they had three times as much time to deal with it and nobody ever asks them about it. I think that's strange.

WALLACE: 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 I thought none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things, I always get these clever little political eels where they ask me one-sided questions, and the other guys another set. And it always comes from one source. And so -- and so --

WALLACE: I just want to ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative, but what's the source? I mean, you seem upset, and I -- and I --

CLINTON: I am upset, because --

WALLACE: -- and all I can say is, I'm asking you in good faith because it's on people's minds, sir. And I wasn't --

CLINTON: Well, there's a reason it's on people's minds. That's the point I'm trying to make. There's a reason it's on people's minds because they've done a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression. This country only has one person who's worked against terror, from the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents on 9-11. Only one: Richard Clarke.

And all I can say -- anybody is -- you want to know what we did wrong or right, or anybody else did? Read his book. The people on my political right, who say I didn't do enough, spent the whole time I was president saying, "Why is he so obsessed with bin Laden? That was 'Wag the Dog' when he tried to kill him." My Republican Secretary of Defense -- and I think I'm the only president since World War II to have a Secretary of Defense from the opposite party -- Richard Clarke, and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden and came closer apparently than anybody has since.

WALLACE: All right.

CLINTON: And then, you guys try to create the opposite impression when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's findings and you know it's not true. It's just not true. And all this business about Somalia --the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day -- the same exact crowd.

WALLACE: All right.

CLINTON: So, if you're going to do this, for God's sake, follow the same standards for everybody --

WALLACE: I think we do, sir.

CLINTON: -- and be fair.

WALLACE: I think we do.

[Hugo Chavez]

OUCH   hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahaha


Finally tonight, a special comment about President Clinton‘s interview.  The headlines about it are, of course, entirely wrong.  It is not essential that a past present bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster finally lashed back.  It is not important that the current president‘s portable public chorus has described his predecessor‘s tone as crazed.  Our tone should be crazed.  The nation‘s freedoms are under assault by an administration‘s policies can do us as much damage as al Qaeda.  The nation‘s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would have quit. 

Nonetheless, the headline is this:  Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years—he has spoken the truth about 9/11 and the current presidential administration.  “At least I tried,” he said, of his own efforts, “to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.  That‘s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now.  They had eight months to try, they did not try, I tried.” 

Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty and for us.  Action as vital and courageous as any of his presidency.  Action as startling and as liberating as any, by anyone, in these last five long years. 

The Bush administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.  The Bush administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.  The Bush administration did not understand the daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”  The Bush administration did not try. 

Moreover, for the five years, one month, and two weeks, the current administration and in particular the president has been given the greatest pass for incompetence and malfeasance in American history. 

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs, some of them 17 years old before Pearl Harbor.  President Hoover was correctly blamed for, if not the Great Depression itself, then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the stock market crash.  Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War, though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832. 

But for this president.  To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11, 2001 or the nearly eight months that preceded it. 

That hardly reflects the honestly nor manliness we expect of the executive.  But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now. 

Except for this:  After five years of skirting even the most inarguable facts that he was president on 9/11, he must bear some responsibility for his and our un-readiness, Mr. Bush has now moved on, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards rewriting history, and attempting to make the responsibility entirely Mr. Clinton‘s. 

Of course, he is not honest enough to do that directly.  As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him by proxy. 

Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

Consider the timing:  The very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is-not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.

The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted—promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless. 

And don‘t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for e-mailing you the question.

Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.

He told the great truth untold about this administration‘s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.  Mr. Clinton was brave.

Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still.  Had I, in one moment, surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.

The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.  Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with “The Path to 9/11.”  Of that company‘s crimes against truth one needs to say little.  Simply put:  Someone there enabled an authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr.

Bush‘s new and improved history.

The basic plot-line was this:  Because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.

The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the right wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.

Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden‘s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year?  For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?

That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie “Wag the Dog.”

Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton‘s judgment.

Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general

echoed Coats.

Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.

And of course, were it true Clinton had been distracted by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?

Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?

Who corrupted the political media?

Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us here?

Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time?”

Who distracted whom?

This is, of course, where, as is inevitable, Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.

The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.

But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it‘s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.

The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected president.

Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us “safe” ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted tower in Los Angeles wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack: You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.  You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.  Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be a textbook definition, sir, of cowardice.

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.  That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, gave us in the book “1984.”

The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.  We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.  Power is not a means; it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.  The object of persecution, is persecution.  The object of torture, is torture.  The object of power is power.”

Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the FOX ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln‘s State of the Union address from 1862.

“We must disenthrall ourselves.”

Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln‘s sentence.  He might well have.

“We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”

And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.

The free pass has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush. 

You did not act to prevent 9/11.

We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.

You have failed us-then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn‘t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, sir.  Are yours the actions of a true American?

I‘m Keith Olbermann, good night and good luck.

[Mr. Intenseone]

Why are you reposting it........I've heard his spin twice!

Three times now, get over it, Clintons getting owned by the public now and as for Olberman, he's a freaking communist sportscaster, I take him about as seriously as I take Jag!

[Hugo Chavez]

Three times now, get over it, Clintons getting owned by the public now and as for Olberman, he's a freaking communist sportscaster, I take him about as seriously as I take Jag!

And you're such an authority on America.... With your face permanently attached to Rush's bunghole.... AHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHHA... . Get real finally....

[Hedgehog]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215779,00.html

IMO, this article is biased towards Hillary. The main theme is how people associated with Hillary (Albright, Bill Clinton) aren't "soft" when it comes to fighting terrorists.

I believe the whole idea behind this interview, and the current agenda for FoxNews, is to present Hillary Clinton as someone who is tough AND smart when it comes to terrorism, war and foreign relations.

A fcuking setup by Murdoch.

Fox News is a disgrace to journalism. Fair and Balanced? My ass...


YIP
Zack

[24KT]

OUCH   hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahaha


Finally tonight, a special comment about President Clinton‘s interview.  The headlines about it are, of course, entirely wrong.  It is not essential that a past present bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster finally lashed back.  It is not important that the current president‘s portable public chorus has described his predecessor‘s tone as crazed.  Our tone should be crazed.  The nation‘s freedoms are under assault by an administration‘s policies can do us as much damage as al Qaeda.  The nation‘s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would have quit. 

Nonetheless, the headline is this:  Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years—he has spoken the truth about 9/11 and the current presidential administration.  “At least I tried,” he said, of his own efforts, “to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.  That‘s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now.  They had eight months to try, they did not try, I tried.” 

Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty and for us.  Action as vital and courageous as any of his presidency.  Action as startling and as liberating as any, by anyone, in these last five long years. 

The Bush administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.  The Bush administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.  The Bush administration did not understand the daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”  The Bush administration did not try. 

Moreover, for the five years, one month, and two weeks, the current administration and in particular the president has been given the greatest pass for incompetence and malfeasance in American history. 

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs, some of them 17 years old before Pearl Harbor.  President Hoover was correctly blamed for, if not the Great Depression itself, then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the stock market crash.  Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War, though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832. 

But for this president.  To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11, 2001 or the nearly eight months that preceded it. 

That hardly reflects the honestly nor manliness we expect of the executive.  But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now. 

Except for this:  After five years of skirting even the most inarguable facts that he was president on 9/11, he must bear some responsibility for his and our un-readiness, Mr. Bush has now moved on, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards rewriting history, and attempting to make the responsibility entirely Mr. Clinton‘s. 

Of course, he is not honest enough to do that directly.  As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him by proxy. 

Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

Consider the timing:  The very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is-not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.

The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted—promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless. 

And don‘t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for e-mailing you the question.

Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.

He told the great truth untold about this administration‘s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.  Mr. Clinton was brave.

Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still.  Had I, in one moment, surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.

The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.  Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with “The Path to 9/11.”  Of that company‘s crimes against truth one needs to say little.  Simply put:  Someone there enabled an authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr.

Bush‘s new and improved history.

The basic plot-line was this:  Because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.

The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the right wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.

Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden‘s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year?  For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?

That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie “Wag the Dog.”

Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton‘s judgment.

Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general echoed Coats.

Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.

And of course, were it true Clinton had been distracted by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?

Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?

Who corrupted the political media?

Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us here?

Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time?”

Who distracted whom?

This is, of course, where, as is inevitable, Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.

The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.

But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it‘s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.

The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected president.

Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us “safe” ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted tower in Los Angeles wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack: You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.  You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.  Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be a textbook definition, sir, of cowardice.

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.  That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, gave us in the book “1984.”

The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.  We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.  Power is not a means; it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.  The object of persecution, is persecution.  The object of torture, is torture.  The object of power is power.”

Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the FOX ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln‘s State of the Union address from 1862.

“We must disenthrall ourselves.”

Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln‘s sentence.  He might well have.

“We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”

And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.

The free pass has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush. 

You did not act to prevent 9/11.

We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.

You have failed us-then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn‘t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, sir.  Are yours the actions of a true American?

I‘m Keith Olbermann, good night and good luck.

I think I just had an orgasm!  

Give us a link. pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeze! 

[24KT]

Why are you reposting it........I've heard his spin twice!

I-One clearly doesn't know the difference between spin and a transcript.

I'm sooooo embarrassed for you.   

[24KT]

Found the link... thanks for nothing berserker    hrmph!


http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=9c610738-4147-4473-a432-e779a609bae3&f=00&fg=copy



Then too there is this analysis of the Clinton - Wallace interview denying it to be a Conservative hit job

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=7c3de2ed-ab76-4ae7-8967-46ee84607868&f=00&fg=copy