Cut the partisanship: Give Clinton a break, and Bill, you do the same for Bush

Bill Clinton is defending his failure, in eight years as president, to eliminate Osama bin Laden. He says in a new Fox News interview, “At least I tried. So I tried and failed.”

It’s sad that Clinton has to reopen the bin Laden file, a record so embarrassing that former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger went to the National Archives on Sept. 2 and Oct. 2, 2003, and stole top-secret papers documenting Clinton’s inaction. Berger later destroyed the documents.

Now, asked by reporter Chris Wallace about the missed chances to halt bin Laden, Clinton points his famous index finger and says:

“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. Same people.

“At least I tried. That’s the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers that 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.”

Move on. Look, I’m willing to give Clinton a pass on his failure to kill or capture bin Laden when he had the chance. The threat looks so much bigger and clearer in hindsight. To me, the larger mystery is why he didn’t do more to catch Abdul Rahman Yasin.

Yasin was the man who mixed the chemicals for the first attack on the World Trade Center. That blast killed six people on Feb. 26, 1993. When Clinton left office on Jan. 20, 2001, Yasin was free and living in Iraq.

I’d leave Clinton alone on bin Laden and 9-11. Most of the criticism is partisan politics. Considering bin Laden’s distance from the U.S. and our perpetually sketchy intelligence on al Qaida, any president might have taken the same approach. And Bush didn’t stop bin Laden either.

Sucker punches. But I also would like Clinton to quit making President Bush’s job harder with his little cheap shots. Greta Van Susteren asked Clinton about Hugo Chavez calling Bush a devil, and this was the reply:

Clinton: He [Chavez] shouldn’t have said that. … It makes him look small and it undermines his effectiveness and president of Venezuela. He’s trying to tap into this big anti-American feeling that’s out there. Some of it always exists because of our size and power. Some of it has been fueled by disagreement with our policies in Iraq, plus our unilateral withdrawal from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty, the International Criminal Court and a lot of other international efforts.

Hold it. Was that supposed to be a defense of Bush against Chavez’s thuggery? Clinton says Chavez shouldn’t have called Bush a devil, but then Clinton recites the angry Democrat’s party line on why the world should hate us. How does a statement like that help Bush attract other nations to help us out on the many huge problems of our time? Clinton simply feeds nations like France, Germany and Russia excuses to do nothing, or at least to do nothing good.

(Omitted facts. By the way, wasn’t it Clinton who signed the Iraq Liberation Act on Oct. 31, 1998? OK, that was just saying we were for Iraq’s liberation, but doing nothing about it. And by the way, Bush stepped out of the Test Ban Treaty to consider stockpiling smaller nuclear weapons. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing in itself. As for the Kyoto protocol, we were never in it to pull out of it. On July 25, 1997, when Clinton was president, the Senate voted 95-0 not to even consider it. Funny how Clinton forgot. And Clinton himself would not have subjected Americans to the whims of an International Criminal Court.)

It’s obvious that Clinton was tossing out those misleading talking points simply to score political points for the Democratic Party. It was a partisan cheap shot disguised as a generous helping hand. And every time he takes that kind of sucker punch, Clinton sets back the work of our diplomats. He should know better.

The world is full of hopes and fears right now. In Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, there are vile people playing to our worst fears. It’s best if we Americans stop the purely partisan attacks and work together toward our highest hopes.

Frank Warner

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SEE ALSO: Bill Clinton with Chris Wallace: The meltdown.

Comments

[Neo]

On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol, but in the following two years it was never sent to the Senate for ratification. Why not ? Guess that 95-0, a truly bipartisan, vote was the reason.

[Christopher Taylor]

The problem is, President Clinton didn't really try and is out - shockingly - lying to rewrite his story to seem better than it really was. It's pathetic, he's more woeful every year.

[Neo]

The same traits, youth and impetuousness, that got Bill Clinton in trouble while in office continue to plague him in his post-Presidency, making Bill Clinton Bill Clinton's worst enemy.

Clinton would be best if he let sleeping dogs lie. Instead he just can't stop himself when it comes to defending his "legacy."

Clinton points us to Richard Clarke's book for the truth, but as Tom Maguire notes ..
Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam delivered "War in a Time of Peace - Bush, Clinton, and the Generals" in May of 2001. Although he covered Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, there is not a hint of a mention of Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. That suggests that, in all his digging and interviewing on the topic of Clinton at war, Halberstam never uncovered Clinton's war on terror, or did not experience Clinton's people pounding the table and emphasizing its importance.

Clinton would be best if he let sleeping dogs lie.

[jj mollo]

Clinton will be on Meet The Press at 1PM this afternoon. Should be interesting.