Mt. Clinton Erupts
September 26th, 2006 | by Todd W |If you haven’t seen Clinton’s day of rage with Chris Wallace, you can find it here. No need to set the table with what happened, nor do we need to go into the exhaustive fact checking of each and every claim. You can find all of that at the link.
Frankly, I’m a little tired of it all. Could Clinton have nailed Bin Laden? In the abstract, probably. If someone from 2002 time traveled to the Oval Office in 1997, ushered Monica out the door and briefed Clinton on what was going to happen, I’m fairly certain steps would have been taken to go get Bin Laden. Reality, however, failed to suggest what was coming down the pipeline. You can’t fault Clinton for failing to predict that some nut job playing soldier in the desert would organize 9/11 in a few short years. Certainly, after 9/11, everyone’s perception of reality had been shifted, and these things now need to be taken more seriously than they were in the past.
Was Clinton feckless about National Security? Sure, he was the King of Non-Feck. But we lived in an era when most people weren’t all that worried about external threats. It was the end of the Cold War and the End of History. Looking back from 2006, we were all pretty much asleep at the switch.
And the same argument goes for the first eight months of Bush’s term. Gotcha games are essentially pointless right now.
The real test of leadership is what you do with the facts at hand, and how you react when those facts upend every assumption you ever made about the way the world works. (And by that test, I have to admit being disappointed with Bush, but that is another post).
The Clinton eruption is fascinating for a number of reasons, few which actually reflect on his conduct viz. Bin Laden during his terms.
Why did the man go off like this in a national interview? This is a side of Clinton long rumored to exist, but rarely seen. It certainly isn’t flattering to the equally feckless middle-of-the road voter, and I wonder if Hillary wasn’t tossing more plates at her aides when she saw this.
And why did Clinton make so many odd claims that are easily contradicted by the record? Why step into this mess and open all of this historical review yet again?
Say what you will about Clinton, he isn’t a stupid man. There’s something else going on here.
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