Chris Wallace hits a nerve

Bill Clinton's rancorous appearance on Fox News Sunday was nothing if not entertaining. Can't help but wonder if the left will lionize Chris Wallace for "talking truth to power" like they did with Stephen Colbert.

Communication experts could have a field day with this thing, which seemed a literal training video for the study of body language. Everyone knows talk is cheap and people lie, so most folks instinctively scan for non-verbals to help ascertain the truthfulness of those they encounter.

Clinton's finger pointing, wide eyed staring and aggressive lunging towards Wallace's airspace were all the result of simply being asked about his response to bin Laden. Aside from the small possibility the reaction was staged, which would be disturbing, it's safe to say Wallace hit a large nerve.

The vein popping seemed out of place. After all, Clinton had reasonable explanations for his inaction. He's right--nobody knew about AQ during the Somalia operation and there was not enough time to respond to the Cole bombing, but his animated reaction seemed to say something else.

It was the same knee-jerk we saw during the run-up to ABC's 9/11 show, leading one to believe the history of terrorism in the 90s is somehow off limits unless approved by Clinton himself. Of course it's all about the upcoming elections--these things are seen as nothing but Rovian right wing conspiracies to make the dems lose. One can almost hear the dems in the backroom whispering...'if only we could have frog-marched that SOB we wouldn't have to deal with all his BS'. Sorry folks, history is more than what's displayed at the Clinton library.

He's a football fan and knows a good defense is often a good offense. The veiled assertion that Bush was somehow three times more responsible for not getting bin Laden after the Cole bombing might make the nutroots happy, but it's more than a little cheesy. For example, nobody blamed Clinton for the February 1993 bombing of the WTC, the Somalia soldier dragging incident, or the assassination attempt on Bush 41, all occurring within months after he took office. Yet somehow the same axiom of innocence doesn't apply to Bush.

Another bizarro thing was his repeated mention of Richard Clarke's book, sounding like a cross between a generic lefty arguing on a message board and Clarke's agent. Fact is, Clarke wasn't "fired" by the Bush administration and if we can believe this news report, there was a plan in place to address the Taliban in the fall of 2001. Ironically Clarke was painted as Paul Revere in ABC's Road to 9/11 movie, which Clinton slammed as a work of fiction.

It was disappointing that Wallace didn't ask any questions about Saddam, like why Abdul Yasin was never extradicted back to America to face justice for the first WTC bombing, or his take on the mind-blowing revelation that Saddam didn't have the WMD arsenal Clinton told us he did. What a waste of time scaring us all back then, eh? Instead he demonized Karl Rove for trying to scare everyone now. Pot meet kettle.

Clinton's global initiative is interesting, too, a sort of global end run around the electorate. The rich liberals still believe throwing money at world problems makes them go away, when in reality it often just makes the rich liberal donors feel better about themselves while the tinhorns run off with the proceeds.

The latest National Intelligence Estimate takes that ball and runs with it, criticizing the Iraq war as terrorist-producing factory (even though we've not had any follow on attacks) and scolding Bush for not addressing the root cause of terrorism. Hmm, and bringing democracy to the Middle East is not strategic thinking? There are precious few alternatives other than dropping more bombs or throwing more money.

All in all, the interview was quite strange and un-presidential. Funny thing is, even if Clinton himself had killed bin Laden with some kind of James Bond cigar-gun it wouldn't have stopped the problem--KSM and Yousef were planning attacks before joining 'the base'. The NIE is correct, we've got to deal with the root causes of terrorism and how we respond, but we're not likely to solve the problem by playing partisan politics in Washington, DC.

Oh, one more thing. We're not likely to see Hillary Clinton on Fox News anytime soon. And I was so looking forward to her being interviewed by E.D. Hill!

MORE 9/24/06

Lots of good blog coverage of what Clinton was (or wasn't) doing and what Bush wasn't (or was) doing to get the bearded diablo. Don't miss Mick Wright's excellent summary detailing the "fly swatting" days of summer 2001.

Let's try to keep some perspective here. Hindsight is 20/20 and neither Clinton nor Bush wanted an attack. Bin Laden and Saddam are/were bad guys and both wanted harm to come to Americans, typical of enemies. Bush has made an effort to stay above the fray and focus on the future, which is the only thing we can change. That's leadership. As for me, I'd be happy to stop 'finger pointing' so long as people stop distorting the facts.

THE MAN WHO WARNED AMERICA 9/24/06

Clinton kept referring to his counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke in support of their efforts to get bin Laden. But there were other biographies written from insiders, for instance, the story of John O'Neill, head of FBI counterterrorism in New York and killed in the North Tower on 9/11. It was entitled "The Man Who Warned America". The title kinda speaks for itself.

This book, and to some degree Clarke's (since he says Clinton was hamstrung by 'wag the dog' charges to the point of not bombing) suggest the Clinton folks were trying to keep terrorism the 'nuisance' it had always been, probably for political reasons. Had they foreseen 9/11 things would have been different, but if Clarke and O'Neill were as adament about the threat as they later claimed then it's a legitimate question to ask the President why he didn't listen.

MORE ON SOMALIA 9/25/06

President Clinton forcefully asserted the Somalian adventure wasn't about Islamic terrorism, rather it was about a "warlord", one Mohammed Adid:

That was about Mohammed Adid, a Muslim warlord, murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission. We had no mission, none, to establish a certain kind of Somali government or to keep anybody out.

He was not a religious fanatic ...

Thing is, there was a definite Islamist connection at the time:

Somalia has been a sanctuary for al Qaeda since 1993, when bin Laden sent several top associates to provide assistance to Mohamed Farah Aideed, whose supporters eventually killed 18 American troops in Somalia. The country was again a center of al Qaeda activity in 1998 as its members plotted the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Bin Laden had been building his empire in Sudan since 1991. Let's go to the 9/11 Commission report for confirmation of whether Somalia was just a bunch of warlords or Islamic terrorists:

After U.S. troops deployed to Somalia in late 1992, al Qaeda leaders formulated a fatwa demanding their eviction. In December, bombs exploded at two hotels in Aden where U.S. troops routinely stopped en route to Somalia, killing two, but no Americans. The perpetrators are reported to have belonged to a group from southern Yemen headed by a Yemeni member of Bin Ladin's Islamic Army Shura; some in the group had trained at an al Qaeda camp in Sudan.

Don't know how widespread this knowledge was back then, but surely the CIA or Mossad had some intelligence. If a fatwa was issued, wonder why it wasn't considered? The report mentions two of bin Laden's earliest agents:

One founding member, Abu Hajer al Iraqi, used his position as head of a Bin Ladin investment company to carry out procurement trips from western Europe to the Far East. Two others,Wadi al Hage and Mubarak Douri, who had become acquainted in Tucson, Arizona, in the late 1980s, went as far afield as China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Belarus.

Abu Hajer al Iraqi was, uh, an Iraqi. He was captured in the 90s. His friend Mubarak al-Duri was perhaps the most elusive Iraqi in this whole twisted affair--just where the hell is he and why does nobody seem to care? The 9/11 Commission listed both as 'WNDWMD procurement agents' for bin Laden and both were Iraqis. One even shared the same surname as the leader of the Revolutionary Command Council, but due to the lack of reporting I'm assuming that's just a coincidence.

It would have been interesting to hear Clinton's comments on all of this.

KARZAI 9/26/06

Hamid Karzai spoke to the press today and set a few things straight:

They came to America on September 11th, but they were attacking you before September 11th in other parts of the world. We are a witness in Afghanistan to what they are and how they can hurt. You are a witness in New York. Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or a woman to jump off that high? Who did that? And where are they now? And how do we fight them, how do we get rid of them, other than going after them? Should we wait for them to come and kill us again? That's why we need more action around the world, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to get them defeated -- extremism, their allies, terrorists and the like.

Wow, excellent. But does this mean he's now part of the same right wing smear group that sandbagged Clinton?

BRUSH WITH MEDIOCRITY 9/28/06

Now that everything has died down I thought it might be interesting to share my personal experience with Chris Wallace. It was certainly nothing like Bill's.

Back in the 70s when I was a senior in high school Chris was a reporter for WNBC-TV in New York. Our paths crossed one day when he was sent out to get student opinions of a local teachers strike. Chris and crew approached me in the parking lot, asked a few questions, said thank you and disappeared.

I want you to know I never lunged at him, touched him on the collar nor raised my voice, although admittedly he didn't ask why I "hadn't done more to avert the strike" or somesuch. All of six seconds made the evening news, which represents my six seconds of fame.



edit--cleaned up grammatic mistakes