C'on... Chris Wallace ambushed Clinton. He flew his planes into Clinton's buildings, but did you spot that Chris Wallace inadvertantly called him President Clinton when under Clinton's return fire? Or did it seem so natural that you didn't notice it either? That's because we were all enjoying being reminded what a real US President should sound like. :::[Clinton shows how real Presidents handle ambush] How refreshing, especially after a long 5 years when it has been needed most.

"no controlling legal authority"...

VP Gore's excuse as to NOT intercepting the aircraft that flew UBL outta Sudan despite being forewarned by the Sudanese govt after the expulsion.

lawyers don't fight wars.

unforgivable.

Fred Barnes had an interesting observation, which is that Clinton is not only a liar, he is an angry liar---he tends to show anger when he is trying to convince people of something that is not true.

This would be very consistent with his tirade the other night, as he was trying to pass off a whole package of lies, and evidently felt that he needed a big strong temper tantrum to be more convincing.

Though it may have been that Wallace just struck a nerve, and when Clinton blew up the lying was just a default position to feeling backed into a corner. We all know that he falls back on lying whenever he is under pressure.

In any case, calling it a "smackdown" is just plain silly. "Meltdown" is more like it. The man came off like a buffoon. And in his tantrum he let fly with some real whoppers that we had not heard before, which only serve to make him even more of a joke.

Let's see----he didn't think he had anough evidence to take Osama into custody, so he just decided to kill him?

And the man is clearly not healthy, physically, as well. I've seen better skin tone on fish bellies after a couple of days of floating upside down, and those puffy red-rimmed eyes were pretty weird. It was literally painful to watch him, or creepy.

Richard Clarke sent this memo to Condi Rice in January 2001:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf

Along with this attachment:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20attachment.pdf

As well as a still-classified military-ops strategy for combating AQ with Rice.

Take the time to read these. Then take the time to read what Clarke said about the response he got from these:

"Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.

"We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.

"There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.

"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years."

Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.

For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.

Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'

"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever."

Fact is, Clinton tried to get bin Laden. And when he did, he was criticized by republicans who were more interested in impeaching the president than taking on bin laden and al Qaeda.

Clinton took the AQ threat more seriously than Bush. Clinton did more and left Bush with a plan that he did nothing with despite urgent warnings from Clarke. We don’t know whether or not action by Bush would have prevented 9/11. But we do know he did not try. Clinton did try. Republicans didn't care and are now attacking Clinton for doing nothing. Reprehensible.

shipley wrote: "Fact is, Clinton tried to get bin Laden. And when he did, he was criticized by republicans who were more interested in impeaching the president than taking on bin laden and al Qaeda.

Clinton took the AQ threat more seriously than Bush. Clinton did more and left Bush with a plan that he did nothing with despite urgent warnings from Clarke. We don’t know whether or not action by Bush would have prevented 9/11. But we do know he did not try. Clinton did try. Republicans didn't care and are now attacking Clinton for doing nothing. Reprehensible."

tom your half right and half wrong here. and quite frankly i'm tired of the whole it's clinton's fault, no it's bush's fault. it's both administrations fault and it's nobody's fault at the same time. i've thought about this a lot lately and here's my take:

if clinton really tried he would have succeeded. he had many documented chances and admitted that he could have arrested bin laden. i won't go ahead and say he tried. if that's trying it's pretty scary and not anything worth being proud of and trying to bully a "jounalist". and that was 8 years or 96 months and numerous attacks.

bush did not do a whole lot either and is not without fault. but bush had 8 months and really no attacks, and was really trying to get his administration rolling. i'm not giving a pass here.

both are at fault but nobody could imagine the devestation of 9/11. nobody could have thought that anything like that could ever happen. and in my opinion probably couldn't have been stopped unless there was concrete info by an informant on the matter. WHAT FAILED US IS THE BUERACRACY OF OUR GOVERNMENT, PERIOD! we have so many laws that are set up to protect our rights that actually allowed bin laden and the perpatrators of 9/11 to pull such a thing off. that doesn't mean we should give up certain laws.

now let's imagine for a minute. say clinton killed bin laden or captured him. would that have saved us from 9/11? i don't think so. IMO, bin laden is no "mastermind". he's a fund raiser, a figure head. he didn't plan 9/11, we captured that guy who did that. what if bush would have launched an attack on AQ and killed bin laden. i believe 9/11 still would have happend. but maybe the date would have been different.

the problem that this country has is that we are griping over who is at fault for 9/11. dems say it's bush, reps say it's clinton. but the real answer is AL-QAEDA! the real answer is ISLAMIC TERRORISTS. the real answer is JIHADISTS!

i'm tired of the looking behind and trying to find blame. who cares! we've learned from it and need learn from it everyday and fight the people who picked the fight with us, not each other. playing the blame game will not undo what was done on that tragic day. the WTC will not go back up and 3000 innocent people will not come back to us.

"if clinton really tried he would have succeeded."

Clinton was hindered by a domestic and international situation that was not conducive to really going bin laden. Any president in his shoes would have been. Bush was as well. Not until 9/11 did the political and public support for real action against AQ materialize.

My point with my post is in defense of the argument that clinton didn't try.

Read Clarke's two memos for Rice:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20attachment.pdf

Read those and tell me he didn't try and didn't leave Bush in a position to do a lot more than he did... which STILL is nothing, as far as I can tell.

I don't blame Bush for 9/11. But when republicans start attacking Clinton for doing nothing when they were criticizing him for taking action against bin laden AND Bush did nothing, I can't stay silent.

Facts are facts. Clinton tried. He obviously failed at getting bin Laden. But he did have a plan, one that Bush ignored when he came into office.

". . . A funny way to look at it, since Clinton's rant was full of lies"

Which lies?
I'd be interested in hearing which assertions you think are lies, given all the things I've heard so far.

"My point with my post is in defense of the argument that clinton didn't try."

wow, that sentence really didn't come out right.

How bout, my aim was to defend Clinton against accusations that he didn't do anything.

The fact is that Republicans never complained about Clinton going after Bin Laden, the one and only time he found the nerve to do something.

Clinton simply didn't want to deal with terrorism because he was/is weak. He blew his top because he can't take criticism, being the narcissist he is.

Bin Laden was emboldened by Clinton's lame attempt to get him, after telling Pakistan he was coming by being politically correct. Clinton was no leader. He rode the Reagan/Bush economy and left it in recession with his massive tax hikes while letting corporate corruption go unheeded.

Clinton was all about perception and his image. He was the worst president in history by far and was directly responsible for 9/11 happening due to his tearing down and cutting the budgets our military and intelligence agencies, which made the economy look good for him, but left the nation vaunerable to attack.

The best and only way to heal this nation from 9/11, is for Clinton to be tried for treason in court and go to jail for his many crimes against America. This must be done now!

Clinton did fine! He should however, have known better than to do an interview on the Fox News Network. A radical, far right leaning organization. It is amazing how they bill themselves as "fair and balanced". Yeah right! I guess there are alot of gullable Americans that do believe this.