Monday, February 14, 2011

Book Update

A few posts ago I mentioned an interview by current ABC News analyst and former communication director for the Clinton White House George Stephanopoulos where it seemed he was overly hectoring Don Rumsfeld over a refusal to apologize for his role in Iraq. I promised to read Steph's memoir "All Too Human" and see how much he apologized, or even mentioned, Iraq or terrorism. His book came out in 1999. Yes, a cheap gotcha.

After getting through over half the book it can be said that Steph is a somewhat sympathetic neurotic not afraid to admit his close ties with all kinds of MSM journalists or that he was generally in over his head, but completely afraid to mention much of anything about the aforementioned items. It's possible fear was not involved--perhaps such subjects simply didn't rate very high on his liberal agenda give-a-crap meter in the late 90s. Which is kind of like an indictment of sorts.

Interestingly the lack of mention doesn't seem to square with the passionate zeal of his former boss Bill Clinton when addressing the bin Laden issue with Fox News host Chris Wallace a few years ago. According to Clinton, nobody pursued UBL like he did. Maybe that happened after Steph left in late 1996.

Actually the highlight of the book so far has been the story about "Sweet, sweet Connie". Possibly lost in a fog of multiple Clinton bimbo stories, Steph tells of an event in Little Rock where a woman named Connie Hamzy encountered Clinton in a hotel lobby. She was out by the pool sunbathing and came up to Bubba and dropped her bikini top saying, "what do you think of these"? The travails of being king.

Oh, and if that phrase 'sweet sweet Connie' rings a bell that's because it was indeed the same Connie mentioned in the song "American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad...
"On the road for forty days,
Last night in Little Rock put me in a haze.
Sweet, sweet Connie -- doin' her act,
She had the whole show and
that's a natural fact. ".
OK, back to the research!

FINISHED 2/17/11


Here were the original questions, followed by my interpretation of the read:

First World Trade Center Bombing.. nothing mentioned

Ramzi Yousef.. zip

KSM.. zip

Osama bin Laden.. zip

Blind Sheikh Rahman.. zip

Ali Mohammed.. zip

Attack on US military barracks in Saudi Arabia (twice).. nothing

TWA flight 800.. nada

CIA coup against Saddam.. there was a vague mention of some action, but nothing specific

Defection of Hussein Kamel (Saddam's son-in-law).. zip

Islamic connection to Oklahoma City bombing.. nothing, and nothing much on the Ok City bombing either

Waco event coming only days after first WTC bombing.. there was only a brief mention of the Waco event as to coverage on the day the compound burned down.


Yet he mentioned the OJ Simpson case and verdict; the Susan Smith event; the Rodney King thing; and Frank Corder's Cessna kamikazi into the White House on September 12, 1994.

It's not a bad book on the the Clinton White House, though. No question he absolutely hates Dick Morris, which makes him human, and no doubt he's a committed liberal who now has a high position in ABC News (who has to pretend daily that he's fair). The point is he never apologized for anything the Clinton administration didn't do in regards to the Islamic problem. He didn't even mention it.

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