Posted on 12/09/2001 8:34:03 AM PST by Carl/NewsMax
New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that it's unfair to blame her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky and the resulting impeachment for his administration's failure to pursue Osama bin Laden aggressively enough during the 1990's.
"I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's an accurate rendering of what did happen," Clinton told NBC's "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert.
"I don't know all the details," Clinton explained. "But what has already been reported in many other sources demonstrates clearly - and I know from personal experience - how absolutely focused the president was on this and the kind of action that was taken."
Russert had asked Clinton about a recent report in USA Today, from which he quoted:
"Even Clinton's defenders acknowledge that for much of his tenure fighting terrorism wasn't his highest priority..... In his second term when bin Laden emerged as a mastermind of plots against Americans, Clinton seemed enmeshed in the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment."
Mrs. Clinton's reference to her intimate knowledge of "the kind of action that was taken" appears to be an allusion to her husband's Aug. 20, 1998 decision to launch a cruise missile attack on a suspected bin Laden terrorist encampment in Afghanistan.
But White House aides told the Boston Globe two months ago that President Clinton's attention was at best divided as he tried to cope with the bin Laden threat, with the cruise missile strikes coming just three days after he informed the nation as well as his wife that he had lied about his affair with Lewinsky.
Part of the "personal experience" Mrs. Clinton alluded to in her comments to Russert reportedly included berating her husband for his promiscuity, with one account saying she screamed loud enough to be overheard, "You stupid f - - - ing moron. How could you risk your presidency for this?"
Just two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, former White House political guru Dick Morris told NewsMax.com that Clinton was so distracted by his affair with the 23-year-old intern that he became "risk-averse" when it came to dealing with the terrorist threat.
"My sense is that the affair made him passive and risk-averse," the former top aide said. "As a result I think he was reluctant to interfere with the military or to order long term involvement."
But in her comments to Russert Mrs. Clinton tried to shift the blame to Congress.
"Let's remember, we didn't even have support in the Congress for the money laundering that we finally got after Sept. 11. We didn't have support for a lot of the intelligence sharing that we thought we needed. You know, we tripled the budget but it wasn't always focused the way it should have been."
Repeatedly employing the term "we" to describe the White House decision making process, Mrs. Clinton further explained:
"You know, I think the biggest difference, Tim, is that, you know, we could launch a cruise missile and tell the Pakistanis that it was on its way to try to get bin Laden - and missed him by, you know, a few hours apparently. But we didn't have the kind of cooperation (we needed)."
Russert did not press the New York Senator on widespread reports that her husband's administration declined to accept an offer from the Sudanese government to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. in 1996.
Neither was she asked about recent criticism from Afghanistan's leading feminist, Gen. Suhaila Siddiq, who chided Clinton for her comments on liberating the country's female population from Taliban chauvinism.
"She cannot defend her own rights against her husband. How can she defend the rights of my country?" Siddiq told the London Times last week.
Amazing how The Smartest Woman In America has these occasional information lapses.
Isn't that con-V-E-E-E-E-nient!
Hillary ought to know about money laundering. She and her husband are the experts on payoffs and covering up money trails.
D'oh!
In her response to his, she answered (paraphrasing)
"...they were very focused on this and they worked very hard at it..."
Hillary! is distancing herself from clinton administration policy.
Nope, honeybunch, we ain't gonna blame your husband's affair, we should be blaming you. Because, you were calling all the shots. You were CO-PRESIDENT. No decision was made without your knowledge, input or final say.
Yeah, lets not blame Bill, let's place the blame squarely where it belongs, in your friggin' lap.
These terrorists observed America in a weakened state and moved in. The big bad bully on the block doesnt go after the big strong kid but the little weakened one who he knows he can defeat.
"Let's remember, we didn't even have support in the Congress for the money laundering that we finally got after Sept. 11. We didn't have support for a lot of the intelligence sharing that we thought we needed. You know, we tripled the budget but it wasn't always focused the way it should have been."
Yes, triple the budget but don't have focused, sensible plans for using it wisely (that's the M.O. of the dems.); blame others for your failures (another favorite dem M.O.); and rewrite history (yet another). I believe the Klintoon administration had great support: the Senate would not vote (both Dems and Republicans) to remove Klintoon from office after he was impeached.
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