Why block Clinton's anti-terrorism papers?

Great Debates
1

From the New York Times:

I’m hard-pressed to find a reason for why these papers were blocked that don’t boil down to political skullduggery. As I see it, the Bush Administration has been engaged in some revisionist history for a while, trying to paint the falsehood that Clinton didn’t do anything to combat al Qaeda during his terms in office. The disclosure of thousands of pages of papers showing that Clinton was actively engaging al Qaeda would blow that lie out of the water, and provide (further) embarassment to the Bush White House, especially if some of the later documents emphasized the need to warn the incoming administration of the terrorism threat.

But that’s just my theory, and I admit I’m not as creative at finding excu^H^H^H^Hjustification for Bush’s actions.Does someone else want to toss out their favorite theories for why the Bushies were trying to bury this stuff?

2

Why is this WH More secretive than Nixon’s?

Anyone with an answer for [brjung**, please stop by and give an answer to why the WH is opposed to dispelling the nasty rumors about how it handled the intel in the run up to the Iraq war.

I’m genuinely curious about how attack-Iraq-Bush-backers excuse the default cover-up mode of this WH.
Coincidentally, the Plame investigation’s now looking to whether or not theWH took illegal actions to hinder the Plame investigation.

Creepier than Nixon as they say.

3

BullCaca. Clinton was asleep at the switch.

4

That perception is off by a factor of Four:

5

Cite, please.

6

But, but but … Clinton got a blowjob!

7

I’ve had one or two myself. I reccomend 'em. I also reccomend an obscuro robusto from a reputable tobacconist.

8

Reason #1:

The Bush administration doesn’t want to be caught in another lie.
Condi Rice has said: “The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or ‘roll back’ the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to ‘eliminate’ the al Qaeda network.”

and

“No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.”

These papers could make Condi look really, really stupid and/or completely dishonest. But then again, this administration doesn’t seem to care much about appearing stupid and or completely dishonest.
Reason #2:
Bush’s standings in the polls relies heavily on his supposedly tough stance on terrorism. If it turns out that the Democratic administration before him had a strong plan for dealing with al Qaeda (especially if, as it is mentioned in the first article I quoted, those Clinton papers did indeed have a position on “planes flying into buildings”) then these papers could really hurt the Bush re-election.

Or pretty much what jrung said. What is the official reason for withholding them?

9

From the NYT link in the OP.

So, basically, because “they don’t say nuthin’.”

:rolleyes:

LilShieste

10

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman

What a job that must be. Poor guy. At my last job I had the unfortunate task of explaining to a client how we hadn’t bilked them out of several hundred thousand dollars that we bilked them out of.

11

Bushco controls all releases of presidential papers…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20731-2001Oct31

Y’all reckon he knew this was coming?

12

Reeder, that link has me thinking I’m becoming a member of a conspiracy theory. Why would a WH do this? And not even two months after 9/11.

I’m waiting for the theme to The Twilight Zone to cue.

LilShieste

13

LilShieste, if I recall correctly, the white house wanted to block release of early Reagan administration papers. Stuff would have dribbled out starting with the Iran hostage crisis, and proceding through our support of Hussein in the Iran/Iraq war. Twould have been uncomfortable for an admin. containing so many members who got their start at the national level during the Reagan years.

14

I understand what you mean. I just would have figured they might have felt more anxious to take care of this earlier (like in 2000, or early 2001).

I was thinking about this too. After some of the “intelligence failures” this administration has seen, I would think they would welcome a different view on things (kinda like a second opinion).

LilShieste

15

For some really funny stuff like this, see my .sig

A few choice examples:

I sh*t you not, this is exactly what Republicans were saying not so long ago when Clinton struck at al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. If you changed “Bill Clinton” to “George Bush,” this could easily be taken for a Democrat reaction to Iraq or Afghanistan. We have it all - paranoia that he is going to take over the United States (using FEMA, of course), that the terrorists are all ready to slaughter us all if we blink in their direction (which would be interpreted as “being French - or maybe Spanish” today), the concept that he set it all up. I mean, FFS.

This is not a pro-Democrat post, it is an anti-Republican post. Take it either way you want, but I’m just copy and pasting here. I’ll just re-paste one of my favorites:

Historical revisionists, indeed. I especially like the, “my hands are shaking” ones. heh.

One more time:

16

14 responses, and still not even the hint of a defense from the resident Bush apologists?

Hello? Has everyone left early for the weekend?

17

There is a method of fishing in which you cast your line, and use a small motor to slowly move along, seeing what nibbles. Goblining? No, thats not it. Orcing! Nah, come to think of it, it’s not ‘Orcing’. Hrmm. It’ll come to me.

In the meanwhile, you may want to read the entire article you linked to, as it does answer your ‘question’:

For a President that purportedly spent soooo much time and effort fighting terrorism, you would think that Clinton’s case would be self-evident, and he wouldn’t need his loyal vassals to trumpet that ‘fact’ at every turn. Odd.

18

Not really. It just suggests that the info in the documents is more damning to the Bush administration than the predictable perception of impropriety created by withholding them.

19

Gadzooks! A NY Times aricle ‘suggesting’ that something the Bush administration is doing is ‘damning’ or whatever? What are the odds? Next thing you know, they will be running a series of articles favorable to the old Soviet Union, telling us how great life is there!

If you stick to the facts, and leave out the editorializing that somehow managed to slip into the article, you are left with:

Q: Why did the Bush administration not turn over some Clinton docs to the commission?

A:

The rest, and what is coming from you merry fellows, is mere supposition.

20

So Bushco is determining what information the commission needs?