~~~~~

Where's a real president when you need one?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that simply said "I Miss Bill". If you look past the incredible amout of bullshit heaped on him by his opponents, throughout his entire presidency, you'll see a lot of things Bill Clinton did that place him among the most effective presidents we've had and for that reason, I miss him too. One of the things that is often overlooked is what his opponents criticized him for at the time, his "obsession" with offing Osama bin Laden. Now, those same people, and we know who they are, are accusing him of not doing enough about bin Laden.

It seems a little odd that Bush has been in office nearly six years, has the full weight of the military, the CIA and the FBI, as well as a blank check from Congress, to go after bin Laden and not only does he continue to not do it with any conviction, but I hear they even cut back the bin Laden unit at the CIA for budget reasons.

When Clinton was president, he could not get the CIA or the FBI to even sign off on the fact that bin Laden was responsible for the embassies and USS Cole bombings, leaving him with limited options beyond cruise missle attacks and Special Forces raids (which were both called "wag the dog" tactics by Republicans at the time). He even had a plan in place to invade Afghanistan and take out the Taliban, but needed basing rights in Uzbekistan before he could launch the plan. He also had one of the best weapons we've ever had against terrorism, Richard Clarke, who worked for Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, until Bush II decided he didn't need the one person who knew more about this subject than anyone on earth.

To add insult to injury, Bush ignored what Clinton had in motion and Condi Rice even said that there was no need to retaliate aginst Al Qaeda for the Cole bombing (now that we know who did it) because that happened on Clinton's watch and we're past that now. What?! The crux of the biscuit is that Bush ignored a secret briefing from the CIA with the title of something like "bin Laden plans to fly planes into buildings" about a month before...well, you know what happened.

And now these inept bozos have the gall to heap their miserable failures on Clinton? I'm sorry but Clinton left the ball on the 1-yard line and Bush fumbled it.

This weekend, Chris Wallace from FOX news had Clinton on for an interview under the false pretense (a lot of that going around) that the subject would be about Clinton raising 7.3 billion dollars to fight global climate change. In a bait-and-switch move FOX obviously got right from their benefactor's play book, Wallace started to press Clinton about his efforts to get bin Laden. Wallace was quickly confronted with how bad an idea that was when Clinton tore him a new asshole. You don't even have to lower yourself to watching FOX to hear how it went. It's easy to find a transcript and read it for yourself. Here's one.