Originally posted by Mini D
It's also important to make something very clear: He wanted to go in and do more and was stopped by congress who asserted that he was only doing that to overshadow the Monica Lewinski scandal. They were 100% right. But it shows just where all of congress was focused -> bipartisainship.
CLINTON: President Bush's neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They --
RUSH: Stop the tape. All right, exhaustive research indicates, folks, that there was nothing but total Republican support for getting bin Laden. The people did a thorough NexisLexis search over the weekend. A thorough LexisNexis search identified absolutely no instances of high-ranking Republicans ever suggesting that Clinton was obsessed with bin Laden or that he did too much to apprehend him prior to the bombing of the USS Cole in October of 2000. Quite the contrary, Republicans were typically highly supportive of Clinton's efforts in this regard.
As a little background here from the AmericanThinker.com, prior to the August '98 US embassy bombings in Africa, there is hardly any mention of bin Laden by Clinton in American news transcripts, prior to 1998, even though bin Laden declared war on the United States in 1996, after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Clinton didn't even -- maybe a couple sentences in his Saturday radio address which followed the bombing on February 26th of '93 -- he didn't want to deal with it. He told New York it was a local law enforcement issue, you people handle it, wanted nothing to do with it. No mention, hardly any mention of bin Laden by President Clinton in American news transcripts. And for the most part, the first real discussion of bin Laden by Clinton or by any US politicians for that matter began after the embassy bombings in 1998 and escalated after the American retaliation in Afghanistan a few weeks later.
"At the time, the former president was knee-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, so much so that the press was abuzz with the possibility that Clinton had performed these attacks to distract the American people from his extracurricular activities much as in the movie Wag the Dog." But that begs the question, why did this possibility even get raised? It's because of Clinton's own behavior with Monica Lewinsky. It wasn't made up by a right-wing conspiracy, and it wasn't made up by a bunch of enemies out to get him. It was a direct offshoot and result of his behavior. "Were there high-ranking Republicans that piled on this assertion? Hardly. As the Associated Press reported on the day of the attacks, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) said the following on August 20, 1998: 'Well, I think the United States did exactly the right thing. We cannot allow a terrorist group to attack American embassies and do nothing. And I think we have to recognize that we are now committed to engaging this organization and breaking it apart and doing whatever we have to to suppress it, because we cannot afford to have people who think that they can kill Americans without any consequence. So this was the right thing to do.'"
There was Republican support for this, as I have drummed into people's heads constantly, and yet Clinton is out there convinced that Republicans were angry at him because he was obsessed with bin Laden. "Gingrich was not alone in his support. CNN’s Candy Crowley reported on August 21, 1998, the day after cruise missiles were sent into Afghanistan: 'With law makers scattered to the four winds on August vacation, congressional offices revved up the faxes.
From the Senate majority leader [Trent Lott], 'Despite the current controversy, this Congress will vigorously support the president in full defense of America’s interests throughout the world.' Crowley continued: 'The United States political leadership always has and always will stand united in the face of international terrorism.'" Those are the words of Jesse Helms. Well, we know that's not the case anymore. The United States political leadership does not stand united in the face of international terrorism today under President Bush's watch.
"The Atlanta Urinal Constipation, same day: 'Our nation has taken action against very deadly terrorists opposed to the most basic principles of American freedom,' said Sen. Paul Coverdell, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'This action should serve as a reminder that no one is beyond the reach of American justice.' Former vice president Dan Quayle was quoted by CNN on August 23, 1998: 'I don’t have a problem with the timing. You need to focus on the act itself. It was a correct act. Bill Clinton took—made a decisive decision to hit these terrorist camps. It’s probably long overdue.' Were there some Republican detractors? Certainly. Chief amongst them was Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana: 'I think we fear that we may have a president that is desperately seeking to hold onto his job in the face of a firestorm of criticism and calls for him to step down.'
"Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) also questioned the timing at first. However, other Republicans pleaded with dissenters on their side of the aisle to get on board the operation, chief amongst them, Gingrich himself. As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Speaker felt the 'Wag the Dog' comparisons were 'sick': 'Anyone who saw the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, anyone who saw the coffins come home, would not ask such a question,' said the House speaker, referring to the 12 Americans killed in the embassy bombings. In fact, Gingrich did everything within his power to head off Republican criticism of these attacks as reported by the Boston Globe on August 23, 1998: 'Indeed, Gingrich even saw to it that one of his political associates, Rich Galen, sent a blast-Fax to conservative talk radio hosts urging them to lay off the president on the missile strikes, and making sure they knew of Gingrich’s strong support.'"
Even in the end, both Specter and Coats got on board the operation. "After reviewing intelligence information collected on bin Laden, Specter said: 'I think the president acted properly.'"
"As for 'neocons,' one so-called high-ranking member, Richard Perle, wrote the following in an August 23, 1998, op-ed published in the Sunday Times: 'For the first time since taking office in 1993, the Clinton administration has responded with some measure of seriousness to an act of terror against the United States. This has undoubtedly come as a surprise to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist believed to have been behind the bombing... So Thursday’s bombing is a small step in the right direction. More important, it reverses, at least for now, a weak and ineffective Clinton policy that has emboldened terrorists and confirmed that facilitating terror is without cost to the states..." Go back to the top of cut three, Mike, re-cue the thing. Now that you've heard all of the evidence of how the Republicans, the neocons, supported this, urged all of their supporters to get behind it on the basis that the country comes together in times of war, in times of attacks on American citizens internationally, Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday claimed that Republicans were obsessed with his obsession with bin Laden, claimed that he was obsessed with bin Laden, were being critical. Here from the top the whole bite now.
