Posted on 09/23/2006 1:49:25 PM PDT by Brian Mosely
The liberal website Thinkprogress has published a rough transcript of Bill Clinton's interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, and it appears to be even more contentious than the brief clip that has been released shows. Here are some excerpts from Clinton's angry defense of his conduct of the war on terrorism, beginning when Wallace asked him "Why didn't you do more, connect the dots and put [al Qaeda] out of business?"
I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the Fox network…[note — these ellipses are in the Thinkprogress transcript]. ABC just had a right wing conservative on the 'Path to 9/11' falsely claim that it was based on the 911 commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. 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….
I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet who President Bush gave the medal of freedom to and said he did a good job.. The country never had a comprehensive anti terror operation until I came to office. If you can criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this, after the Cole I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack search for Bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred special forces in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now the 9/11 Commission was a political document too. All I’m asking is if anybody wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book…
At least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t….. {ellipses in the Thinkprogress transcript]. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… [ellipses in Thinkprogress transcript] So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me….
I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now I never criticized President Bush and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that think Afghanistan is 1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re so clever…
Clinton's answers raise many points that call for answers. More tomorrow.
I would like to add just a few, though, "Why did you turn down Sudan's offer to give us Bin Laden". (We already know what his answer to that one is)
The follow-up should be, "Did you not consider the WTC bombing, embassy bombings in Kenya/Tanzania, attack on two US diplomats in Islamabad, Khobar Barracks bombings, crimes against the US by Bin Laden"?
One last topic, what are your comments about your former military aide's, (Lt Col 'Buzz' Patterson) two books about your negligence on national security matters (Reckless Disregard, and Dereliction of Duty)? If his claims are false, why hasn't he been sued or prosecuted?
constructing false realitys are the pillars that hold this man up.
You are very correct. He has lived his life in fantasyland and in that 'land' he is king and the king can do no wrong.
placemarker
The audio of Fox News Sunday is available for free from iTunes as a podcast.
The audio of Fox News Sunday is also available for free from iTunes as a podcast.
the democrats are much more rabid and passionate in spewing their hate, anger and venom.
You will see a conspicuous lack of "gotcha" questions from Tim Russert tomorrow.
I'm surprised Clinton didn't unzip his fly and order Wallace to " kiss it."
.....
Well, you're half right, BJ.
He really meant to say "I failed to try".
It's been recently getting more play, but the idea is that Republicans eventually benefit from media bias because it makes them work harder.
Every time Clinton masturbated in the Oval office sink he thought about how he was going to kill bin Laden. Thwack him over the head with a used cigar - - something like that.
It reminds me of Billy Dale. They could have dismissed Billy Dale and said "nice to see ya" and would have gotten bad press for one day. But they didn't want that. They needed to be perfect.
Yep; just like his hero, the little peanut farmer from Georgia. I only wish it would be sooner than later for both idiots.
Poor Clinton, he always "worked hard" for the American people. Funny how there is so much evidence that shows that he did NOTHING to take out the terrorist when he was given the chance . He is lying again.
We do know that he discussed military matters at least once--which was cited during the impeachment investigation.
He DID discuss military matters with Congressman Sonny Calahan (Alabama), Armed Services Committee--while he was being 'serviced' by Monica under the desk.
Class act. Also shows great respect for our military.
Reverse zoom FX
Very creative
Well done potlatch
Thank you devolve. I did it the hard way, composite, composite, etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.