Tuesday, September 26, 2006
If not for term limits, we'd a had a "comprehensive anti-terror strategy".
Good for the Secretary: Rice Challenges Clinton on Terror Record
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenged former President Clinton's claim that he did more than many of his conservative critics to pursue Osama bin Laden, and she accused President Bush's predecessor of leaving no comprehensive plan to fight al-Qaida.”
On the whole, I think this Administration has been fairly good about not doing a lot of needless finger-pointing…even if many on the right have not been so reticent. While I thought Mr. Clinton embarrassingly over-reacted to Chris Wallace’s question, I do believe he was genuinely upset and not just staging his temper tantrum. The GWOT is, after all, going to be part of his legacy.
The most remarkable part of Mr. Clinton’s Sunday interview was alluded to here:
“Rice took exception to Clinton's statement that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for incoming officials when he left office.”
Now does anyone really believe that in the aftermath of 9/11 that the former Clinton administration officials who would have been involved in crafting such a plan (including Mr. Clinton) could have exercised the discipline required as individuals and as a group to not sing out about the plan in front of any camera with a power source? Are we to believe that such a plan would not have been leaked to the NY Times, Washington Post and Dan Rather? Why wouldn’t Mrs. Clinton, forever looking for all the National Security cred she can garner, have read the whole plan – chapter & verse – into the Senate Record; all the while strutting her stuff for CSPAN?
Instead, we’re to believe that all it took was a simple question by Chris Wallace to get the former President to reluctantly expose the existence of the plan.
In the alternative, maybe Mr. Clinton mistakenly left it in some Whitewater billing files, in which case…
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenged former President Clinton's claim that he did more than many of his conservative critics to pursue Osama bin Laden, and she accused President Bush's predecessor of leaving no comprehensive plan to fight al-Qaida.”
On the whole, I think this Administration has been fairly good about not doing a lot of needless finger-pointing…even if many on the right have not been so reticent. While I thought Mr. Clinton embarrassingly over-reacted to Chris Wallace’s question, I do believe he was genuinely upset and not just staging his temper tantrum. The GWOT is, after all, going to be part of his legacy.
The most remarkable part of Mr. Clinton’s Sunday interview was alluded to here:
“Rice took exception to Clinton's statement that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for incoming officials when he left office.”
Now does anyone really believe that in the aftermath of 9/11 that the former Clinton administration officials who would have been involved in crafting such a plan (including Mr. Clinton) could have exercised the discipline required as individuals and as a group to not sing out about the plan in front of any camera with a power source? Are we to believe that such a plan would not have been leaked to the NY Times, Washington Post and Dan Rather? Why wouldn’t Mrs. Clinton, forever looking for all the National Security cred she can garner, have read the whole plan – chapter & verse – into the Senate Record; all the while strutting her stuff for CSPAN?
Instead, we’re to believe that all it took was a simple question by Chris Wallace to get the former President to reluctantly expose the existence of the plan.
In the alternative, maybe Mr. Clinton mistakenly left it in some Whitewater billing files, in which case…
