Richard Miniter makes an excellent point.
Bill Clinton's outburst on Fox News was something of a public service, launching a debate about the antiterror policies of his administration. This is important because every George W. Bush policy that arouses the ire of Democrats--the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, pre-emptive war--is a departure from his predecessor. Where policies overlap--air attacks on infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, freezing bank accounts, using police to arrest terror suspects--there is little friction. The question, then, is whether America should return to Mr. Clinton's policies or soldier on with Mr. Bush's.
Charles Krauthammer, a former psychiatrist, made an interesting observation on Brit Hume's show the other night. Clinton, as we saw during the Monica debacle, tends to get angry and point his finger when he's lying. And just as he did when defending his record on terrorism and announcing that he had battle plans to invade Afghanistan drawn up. Coincidence?
Anyway, read the rest of the article if you care to remind yourself exactly how many times we were attacked under Clinton and exactly how little he did about it. Hell, I voted for the guy twice (I know, I know) and even I was frustrated with his lack of response.
The bigger point here is that while we have to give both administration a pass pre-9/11, it's important to think about how we want to fight the war going forward. And the Dems seem to want to fight it like it's a police issue.
1 comment:
The Dems desire to treat this merely as police action is short sighted, though there will be a neccessity to have some police actions involved. It's the only method of dealing with terror cells that exist in the US already.
Miniter at his website (see sidebar for link) points out that he doubts that this was politically motivated. He does give good reasons as well. My wonder comes on the topic of how the swing voters will view this and the relevance to the dems positions going ahead.
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