If you're nostalgic for 1998, this is a good week for you. Poor Hillary
Clinton, now a U.S. senator, is defending her husband, now an
ex-president, after the latter's bad behavior, namely his outburst on
"Fox News Sunday." The Associated Press reports:
"I think my husband did a great job in
demonstrating that Democrats are not going
to take these attacks," Hillary Clinton
said Tuesday. "I'm certain that if my husband
and his national security team had been
shown a classified report entitled 'Bin
Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United
States' he would have taken it more
seriously than history suggests it was
taken by our current president and his
national security team."
First of all, did Mr. Clinton really do "a great job in demonstrating
that Democrats are not going to take these attacks"? It seemed to us
that he looked not tough but desperate. He was not strong and resolute;
he was lashing out from a position of weakness.
Second, the 9/11 commission reported that on Dec. 4, 1998, President
Clinton received a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Ladin
Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks." [1]
It is unfair to condemn Clinton with 20/20 hindsight, but history is
unfair. Like James Buchanan and the Civil War or Herbert Hoover and the
Depression, Clinton will take the blame for inaction while a crisis
mounted. True, George W. Bush didn't do much better during his first
eight months in office, but he had the remainder of his terms to make up
for it. As someone who is obsessed with his own legacy, Clinton knows all
this deep down, which is why he snapped in that interview. In a way you
have to feel sorry for the guy.
[1]: http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm
--
"Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike
military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces.
Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States,
and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around
the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors
or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons."
-- Bill Clinton, Dec. 16, 1998
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