spunkmaster

Clinton asserted, ?There is not a living soul in the world who ? was paying any attention to it or even knew terrorists associated with al Qaeda was a growing concern in October of ?93.? Clinton seems to have forgotten that al Qaeda was identified as the group behind the February 1993 attack on the World Trade Center that killed six while injuring over a thousand. Later, Clinton?s national-security adviser Anthony Lake was quoted as saying that it was after this attack that he first heard the name Osama bin Laden. He said he then briefed Clinton about bin Laden. Rep. Bill McCollum (R., Fla), chairman of the House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare wrote several letters to Clinton, beginning in 1993, warning him about bin Laden. Apparently, both these gentlemen are zombies, bereft of living souls.

In 1993, Clinton downplayed the WTC bombing, treating it as a law-enforcement issue and not an act of war. He was so intent on minimizing what might be seen as a failure that, when he visited New York City shortly after the attack, he didn?t even bother to stop by the blast site. If no one was ?paying any attention? to al Qaeda, Clinton was doing the opposite of alerting them.

In the interview, Clinton used rhetorical devices he has often employed. These included:
1. The declaration that he had tried to do something while others hadn?t and that he?d been ridiculed for trying;
2. The claim that he had a ?plan,? here to destroy bin Laden and al Qaeda that would have worked perfectly if others had only been wise enough to do what he told them to do;
3. The invocation of how hard he had worked on the problem and how this was more than anyone else did or is now doing;
4. The announcement that he wasn?t going to criticize Bush followed by a savage criticism;
5. Shifting the blame to others, here the ?entire military,? the CIA, and the FBI, for not giving him the go ahead to get bin Laden;
6. Playing fast with numbers, such as claiming Bush had ?three times as much time to deal with it [bin Laden and al Qaeda]?;
7. And the flat statement that if he were still president (serving his fourth term?), he would be doing so much better than Bush.

These are all rather tiresome, simple-minded devices that, if employed by any other politician not so favored by the media, would provoke parodies. Are we to feel sorry for him because he worked hard but ineffectually and with horrific consequences? Wasn?t he the boss of the entire military, the CIA, and the FBI? Weren?t they supposed to jump when he yelled ?Frog?? How does eight months become three times greater than eight years? And what was that ?comprehensive anti-terror strategy? he left behind in the White House? Can we see a copy? Probably not. Clinton?s own national-security adviser Sandy Berger told the 9/11 Commission ?there was no war plan that we turned over to the Bush administration during the transition. And the reports of that are just incorrect.? Lest, this be thought the product of a mistaken Berger, Richard Clarke, the man Clinton invoked over and over as an authority, said the same thing to reporters in 2002: ?There was no plan on al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.?


http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...ViNWU0MDBhNTE=

__________________