the Centrist

      As the mild mannered Centrist and award winning journalist, Chris Wallace of Fox News,  began his Sunday interview with former President Bill Clinton He had no idea he was about to become the target of the resurrected “vast right winged conspiracy”.  Wallace asked Clinton the obvious: why he didn’t do more to capture or kill bin Laden?  Clinton got down right nasty, using his infamous finger to point, touch, and intimidate.  
        Later Wallace stated: “The President was clearly stung by any suggestion that he had not done everything he could to get bin Laden … I still have no idea what set him off.”
      The idea that this was not a rehearsed response is ludicrous.  Journalist Bill Crystal feels that Clinton is trying to intimidate any others from asking questions on bin Laden, after all if he attacks mild mannered Chris Wallace, who is safe?  Many, including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingreich agree.
      Perhaps it is pertinent to review what I consider the precipitating factors.  It was just last week that the Democrats were in danger of losing their momentum, as well as their base, to win back Congress.  The 5^th anniversary of 9/11 and the success of the Bush initiatives were front and center.  So when the Venezuelan Dictator called Bush ‘satan’ on the floor of the United Nations, arch enemies Democratic Representatives Rangel and Pelosi came to “their presidents’ defense … as if to say: ‘you can’t say that about my President, only we can’ … as they so oft have done.  Another indication that this was planned was the leaking of a top secret document to that bastion of fairness, the New York Times.  The secret was revealed on the eve of a Democratic investigation into the Iraq War which quoted a few pages of a 600 page study.  The leaked pages in effect said that the War in Iraq caused the jihadists to get angry and fight us … in Iraq.  Go figure, the New York Times parroting only the part of the report that supports the talking points of the Democrats in the upcoming election.  When the more of the summary was released it concluded that we must stay and win in Iraq.
      While it is true that some will dismiss the former President’s tirade as simply “Clinton temper” … I have learned never, ever, underestimate Bill Clinton.  He can think on his feet and has the uncanny ability to ignore his mistakes … something rare in any personality.  He once said there is no such thing as bad publicity, but more importantly, he had the courage and resiliency to prove it.  The interview was artful, but without a doubt, spin.  It was entertaining, but inaccurate.  It appeared to be spontaneous, but obviously rehearsed.
      The details of Somalia were conveniently forgotten.  The military had asked for tanks before “Blackhawk Down” but were refused.  In fact Clinton deployed more tanks against the Americans in Waco than in all of the Somalia campaign.  He stated nobody had ever heard of bin Laden before Somalia … but in the late eighties it was Col. Oliver North who had first warned us of him and his plan during his Senate testimony.  Bin Laden had also gone public after the Gulf War stating that American troops were desecrating Islamic land by being deployed to Saudi Arabia.  He was responsible for the first attack of the Twin Towers … attacks which the Clinton Administration treated as a legal problem rather than a threat to national security.  Moreover, his justice department indicted bin Laden in 1998. 
      He referred to Richard Clark as the greatest expert on counter terrorism, but never quoted Clark’s assessment on himself … one which was not without criticism.   Clark blamed Clinton for not sustaining the attack on bin Laden because he couldn’t convince either the FBI or the CIA to back his plan. He doesn’t mention that his Foreign Relations Chief, Sandy Berger, smuggled original top secret documents the day before his testimony to the 911 Commission.  It was Berger’s veto which was responsible for not capturing or killing bin Laden when he was offered to that Administration on at least 3 occasions.  Clinton minced no words as he blamed the Bush Administration for not getting bin Laden in their first 8 months, ignoring the fact that he had 8 years and failed.  He mentioned that he wanted to sanction an attack on Afghanistan but neither the FBI nor the CIA would approve the attack.  He doesn’t mention that those vital agencies were not allowed to share information, because of the wall placed between them by his Assistant Attorney General and 911 Commission person, Jamie Gorelic.  When Clinton claimed that Afghanistan is only 1/7 as important to the Bush Administration as Iraq, he did not mention that NATO had agreed to take over that task.  History records that it was the Clinton Administration that raised Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Saddam as a higher priority than bin Laden.  But the 500 pound gorilla in the room is ever present.  The Bush Administration has prevented any further attacks on America since 9/11/01.  They have accomplished this feat mainly by utilizing offensive military actions and tearing down the wall erected by Gorelic (the Patriot Act). Thus, while the Clinton Administration refused to recognize the threat and subjected America to at least 4 attacks as well as Oklahoma City Bombing … with still no explanation for the eyewitnesses sighting of the ‘Middle Eastern looking man’ who accompanied Timothy McVeigh, Bush has chosen to do everything in his power to protect Americans.  I agree that there is plenty of blame both administrations for 911, but what is obvious to me is that the entire week was calculated spin, and ended with the Democratic WMD, the most potent weapon of the left, William Jefferson Clinton.