Papers? Oh, those big greyish white things with smeary ink that you use to protect your table from art projects, right?
Yeah, there’s the problem right there. I was eight.
The wonders of modern education - I never got a “current history” class. We started with the damn pilgrims and got to the Civil War every single year. They’ve fixed it somewhat, and this year my son is starting at WWI, so he’s teaching me history as he learns it.
But thank you for fighting my ignorance. I’m off to read the wikipedia article now.
By the way, the second part of the interview (Google video) starts out hilariously:
Wallace: One of the main parts of the Global Initiative this year is religion and reconciliation. President Bush says that the fight against Islamic extremism is the central conflict of this century. And his answer is promoting democracy and reform. Do you think he has that right?
Clinton: [three second pause] Sure. [three second pause] To advance — to advocate democracy and reform in the Muslim world? Absolutely.
From Clinton’s posture, head resting on his hand, his patience with Wallace already at low ebb, I can just picture him thinking what kinda dumb-ass question is that?
It’s also the way this Admin and it’s supporters works. Broad, meaningless, feel good statements sometimes in the form of a question, that have no depth and don’t task anybody listening.
DEMOCRACY, REFORM, FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM. Ra Ra Ra.
Blair in the UK has made some fucking horrible decisions of late but at least he goes one on one with real heavyweights like Jeremy Paxman who not only asks hard intelligent questions but expects an answer.
A better answer, which, knowing how these bozos operate, Clinton should have been prepared to deliver:
“As an abstract goal, he’s right on the money. No argument there. It’s his specific strategy, and more importantly the general competence of its execution, that’s at issue here.”
To chime in with my own 2¢: I read the first part of the transcript (what seems to be relevant to the “hissy fit” comment). Haven’t had a chance to watch the video (sorry, stuck at work). In the text Clinton comes off as a bit shrill; but it also seems clear that he has reason to be. It’s about the response you’d expect from someone who’s at the “I’ve had enough of this shit” point. As others have pointed out, there’s plenty of agenda in the wording and delivery of Wallace’s questions. My only real criticism of Clinton’s response is, he erred in repeatedly referring to Clarke’s book as a catch-all for defending his administration’s counterterrorism efforts. On any issue, you have to form your judgements from more than one source. Since all governmental actions are thoroughly documented–even the secret ones–he could have pointed to specific efforts and said, “Hey, check the record. I signed executive orders giving the go-ahead for terminating Bin Laden.” Or something to that effect. It’s not like Clinton to not have such concrete examples right at his fingertips, so maybe it is fair to say he was flustered by the questioning. But that doesn’t make his response a hissy fit.
Sure they matter. Reagan “responded” to that criticism by improvising a cocked-up invasion of Grenada less than 48 hours after the Beirut bombing, in the most classic dogwag of all time. Yet he did it and didn’t get called out for it, while Clinton didn’t do it and did get called out for it anyway.
I got the impression that it was just a simple matter being an old man who doesn’t need to give a shit. In his term as president, I never heard Clinton say anything clearly and not in politicianese. Personally I found it rather refreshing to finally get to see him say something clear and unmitigatedly.
He quite specifically says, “Bin Laden was not yet on anyone’s radar, and what information we did have wasn’t enough that the CIA or FBI to be willing to put any guarantee on it. We authorised to kill him, we did what research we could, sent out some shooters, and then my time came up.” And he agrees that obviously that wasn’t enough. But he does make the point that for nine months after his time came up, the next president didn’t do diddly squat more to get Bin Laden than he did.
If you think any of that is spin, then provide some cites that the Bush administration did more to find and kill Bin Laden previous to 9/11 than the Clinton.
Yeah, that’s more or less the way it seems to be these days. For instance, in the 1990s, we did have history textbooks that made it all the way to at least Iran-Contra. They might have made it all the way to at least Gulf War I, but I don’t remember. We never made it that far, heck, I’m not sure we ever cleared the 40s. And it’s not like I remember anything about Iran-Contra as I was 4. I don’t remember much about anything until probably Kosovo. I was either too young to have it brought up to me or too self-absorbed to really care.
Well, I’ll entertain the notion that Fox cherry-picked that quote but won’t make any assumptions for now. In any case, if that’s your evidence that Clinton was whining, your evidence is lacking.
