When lying is a reflex, its hard to remember what you said, when you said it and why you said it. Hillary Clinton is about to discover that 90s political revisionism doesn't work so well in the internet age.
Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Iowa on Sunday President George W. Bush should find a way out of Iraq before he leaves office and called it "the height of irresponsibility" to leave the problem to the next administration."The president has said this is going to be left to his successor," the New York senator said during a jammed rally in a fairground exhibit hall in Davenport as she concluded a two-day campaign swing in the state that kicks off the 2008 presidential campaign.
"I think it's the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it," she said. "This was his decision to go to war, he went with an ill-conceived plan, an incompetently executed strategy and we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office."
You can understand why she said it--Democrats have been indoctrinated with a television drama sensibility, where complex problems are resolved on the half-hour, hour, or if they are really, really complicated, with two back-to-back episodes. Pelosi solved all the countries problems in one hundred hours, so quite obviously, wars shouldn't really last longer than a few months at best.
Hillary conveniently forgot a number of inconvenient facts in the best John F. Kerry tradition.
The Clinton administration was guilty, by her own standards, of the height of responsibility when they failed to resolve the issue of al Qaeda and in consequence gave us a second attack on the World Trade center eight and a half years after the first. This wasn't merely a matter of a good, but failed try at resolving the al Qaeda problem, it was a complete abrogation of presidential responsibility. As I said, liars often have trouble keeping their lies straight. In 2002, Clinton administration officials, seeking to deflect blame from themselves, provided us with this thoughtful narrative.
Since the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000--an attack that left 17 Americans dead — he [Richard Clarke] had been working on an aggressive plan to take the fight to al-Qaeda. The result was a strategy paper that he had presented to Berger and the other national security "principals" on Dec. 20. But Berger and the principals decided to shelve the plan and let the next Administration take it up. With less than a month left in office, they did not think it appropriate to launch a major initiative against Osama bin Laden. "We would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office on Jan. 20," says a former senior Clinton aide. "That wasn't going to happen." Now it was up to Rice's team to consider what Clarke had put together.
The sly little lie here is that the Clinton administration didn't know anything about al Qaeda before the SS Cole, which is a lie of massive proportions. The first WTC bombing occured shortly after Clinton came to office, and although it was not immediately known that al Qaeda was responsible, it became clear soon enough. The CIA was already tracking bin Laden in 1992 and by 1995 the State Department was publicly declaring bin Laden as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. The Congressional Research Service also produced a report--both of these were publicly available at the time and the mainstream media was reporting on bin Laden extensively at this time.
The Clinton's handed the Bush administration a war they had done their best to ignore.
One may be legitimately critical of some of the actions taken by the Bush administration, but no one can accuse this administration of being unwilling to do its duty and actually fight the war. Democrats on the other hand have proven themselves congenitally incapable of defending this country or accepting any responsibility for their actions.
Bitsblog No Lady Thatcher
Well, since Co-President Hillary left not only Bosnia, but also Kosovo and the War on Terror to Bush I guess she would know more than anyone else how irresponsible she Co-was.
Sensible Mom Term Limits for war.
Riehl World View
How can someone think they deserve to be President if they're going to resent inheriting a tough job? If a 9/11 were to happen on her watch, I can just hear the less than Presidential address now - "Frankly, Osama, I really resent this attack. I wanted to work on healthcare!"
Strataspherehttp://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/3295
This looks and smells of cowardice. A woman has enough trouble convincing voters she has the backbone to face our problems without going spineless and demanding George Bush make life easier for her before she will step up. Condi Rice would not have made such a blunder. She knows the stakes involved, the choice of winning in Iraq now or having to do it later as part of a World War eminating from the Middle East (if we lose Iraq).
Crittenden What I said, but funny.
Posted by Mick Stockinger on January 29, 2007 12:23 PM
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