Posted on 09/27/2006 12:17:59 PM PDT by LSUfan
1. The USS Cole was bombed on 12 October 2000. Clinton had over 4 months to respond, but I guess since he was trying to make nice with the Ayatollahs for his "legacy" and there were no bimbo eruptions, he saw no need to retaliate for the Cole.
2. The same George Tenet that this guy praises here is the guy who told President Bush that WMD in Iraq was a "slamdunk." So if this moron maintains that we went into Iraq under false pretences, the guy who he should blame is the guy whose praises he is singing right here.
Clinton knew for sure the middle of December that bin Laden paid for the Cole bombing.
Send him this link:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html
Ask him which time Clarke was lying.
BTW, that is an out and out lie; there was NO PLAN left.........there WAS a few pages of a Richard Clarke WISHLIST that had been around for years -- and Clinton didn't do anything about it at all; the Bush people did try to begin implementing some of Clarke's suggestion.
Why do they NEVER admit it was not Bush's JOB to avenge the Cole????
I wish I could find that quote I saw on Monday from Clarke's book, in which he says he asked to be transferred, much to Rice's surprise.
I think W would have in time. Remember that at the time in question, he was still trying to get his cabinet together.
If you will recall, 1996 and 2000 were election years. No way in hades was clintoon going to make waves come h*ll or high water.
"The USS Cole was bombed on 12 October 2000."
EXACTLY. It happened while Slick was in office. Their statement makes as much sense as Kerry referring to Viet Nam as "Nixon's War."
here's some ammo for you to shove up your friends arse....
tell your leftist buddy to read Dick Clarke addressing the media in 2002:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html
also; refresh his memory of the PDB Clinton ignored almost two years before the USS Cole bombing....something the liberal media barely touched on...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58615-2004Jul17.html
When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted."
BTW, that is an out and out lie; there was NO PLAN left.........there WAS a few pages of a Richard Clarke WISHLIST that had been around for years
The other lie in that quote is even less open to interpretation.
On 9/11 Richard Clarke was STILL in the exact same position Bill Clinton gave him. He wasn’t demoted later either. He left the position in a snit because he wasn’t made Grand Poobah of the newly created Homeland Security behemoth.
George Tenet?? Isn't he the former CIA Director that Clinton met with twice during his entire Administration??
And of course it is more important to ask the Bush administration about the Cole, and ignore the guy who should have responded in the first place!!
Let us not forget, that the first months of the new Bush Administration were just this side of chaos. Has everyone forgotten that the Clinonistas trashed the White House on the way out? How many computers did the new Administration have to purchase just to get essential operations set up because all of the "W"s had been pried off of the keyboards? Because of the Florida recount fiasco and subsequent legal challenges over the 2000 recount that went all of the way to SCOTUS, all at the behest of AlGore, there was no smooth turnover from the Clinton Corps to the Bush Transition Team.
We can keep detailing this stuff in depth for the 'Rats if they would like to go ahead and relive it all over again...
The bottom line is that Clinton knows he didn't accomplish anything particularly noteworthy during his Presidency, other than to be Impeached. He is extremely sensitive to his legacy, and it is no surprize to see the Moonbat Left starting up thier chorus to support thier former Boy President.
Let 'em yap.
MR. RUSSERT: As you know, your motivation has been widely questioned both at the White House and by some on Capitol Hill. One article captured it this way: "Mr. Clarke... who had sought the No. 2 spot at Homeland Security, was passed over for the post in October 2002 and demoted by Secretary Tom Ridge and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to the position of special adviser for cyberspace security." You had applied for a position and didn't get it. Are you a disgruntled job-seeker?
MR. CLARKE: Now, here we go again, you know, with it's about Dick Clarke and it's about his motivation, when really this is what the White House is trying to get you and others to do is to focus on me. I'll answer the question, Tim, but I want to point out again that this is about the president's job in the war on terrorism. This is about how going into Iraq hurt the war on terrorism. This is not about Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke's not running for office.
MR. RUSSERT: But the messenger's important.
MR. CLARKE: No, no, I understand. So let me answer the question.
MR. RUSSERT: And people have questioned your motivation. Were you happy? Did you feel dissed for being passed over?
MR. CLARKE: No. And the information you read is somewhat inaccurate. I wasn't demoted to a position of national cybersecurity adviser. I--and there's lots of paper trail on this one. I asked in June of 2001 to be transferred from the terrorism job, I did and my chief of staff, Roger Cressey, did, because in June 2001, we were so frustrated with the administration's lackadaisical attitude toward terrorism that we no longer wanted to work on the issue. As obsessed as I was with going after al-Qaeda, I felt I had to get out of the terrorism business because I couldn't work for an administration that was treating it in such an unimportant way. I asked the president to create the position of special adviser to the president for cyberspace security so that I could go into it. I didn't consider it a demotion. I considered it an important job and I consider it today, the protection of our cyberspace, to be a very important task which we haven't done...
MR. RUSSERT: But you were turned down for the number-two job at Homeland Security?
MR. CLARKE: No, I wasn't turned down for it. What happened was the White House was developing lists of people to consider for various jobs. And I said, "If you want to consider me, fine. I've been working on homeland security issues for five years."
MR. RUSSERT: Did you interview for it?
MR. CLARKE: I was interviewed for it. Am I disgruntled about it? No. Is that the reason I wrote the book? Let's talk about motivation. You're asking me is that the motivation. So let's talk about what the motivation actually is. The actual motivation for writing this book is to, number one, tell the people who have been asking me for two or three years, you know, what happened on 9/11 and why couldn't we stop it. I hope the 9-11 Commission answers those questions, too. But I had to get it off my chest. I had to tell the families of the victims. I had to tell lots of people who have been asking me, "What went wrong? And how, with all of your experience, can you advise us on what mistakes you made personally? Can you advise us not to make those mistakes again, and with that experience, how do you advise us about structuring the government so that we can avoid this kind of thing in the future?" I had to get it off my chest. That's the motivation.
Exactly.
I guess Bill Clinton really didn't watch ABC's The Path to 9/11 or he would know that Richard Clarke (ABC contributing expert) did everything on 9/11 except fly those planes into the WTC.
If you will recall, 1996 and 2000 were election years. No way in Hades were either of the clintoons going to make waves come h*ll or high water.
Here is, for my money, the operative "business end" of the quote:
I asked the president to create the position of special adviser to the president for cyberspace security so that I could go into it. I didn't consider it a demotion. I considered it an important job and I consider it today, the protection of our cyberspace, to be a very important task which we haven't done...
The move was at his request, and he did not consider it a demotion. QED
Clinton might have done something right, if he hadn't been married to a woman obsessed with becoming president.
He had to avoid controversy so that he would not encumber her bid to be POTUS.
Chris Wallace has never asked any Republicans whether or not they've been the recipients of BJs while on the clock either.
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