Watch the YouTube capture of the FNS interview of Bill Clinton on bin Laden, but also be sure to read the comments. They are quite instructive.

The comments are revealing: both Left and Right liked the Clinton performance in their own ways. The Right got its dander up about Clinton’s use of “right wing” and “hit piece” and his laughable insistence that conservatives thought he was too militaristic and aggressive (see also Byron York), when in fact Republicans “strongly supported” Clinton’s rare efforts. The Left thought he took on the right wing neo-cons at Fox News and gave ‘em hell. It’s like a football game where the same coach fired up both sides at once.

There are a number of possible explanations why Clinton decided to be “angry Clinton” on FNS. Perhaps it has to do with fund-raising from the base, perhaps it has to do with his wife’s presidential aspirations, perhaps as a definitive warning to all journalists to stay away from the topic in the interests of protecting his legacy, or perhaps some other reason. But you should bear in mind that President Clinton is a master politician and has been so for decades. Bill Clinton knows precisely what he is doing at every moment when the camera is on him, and so he manufactured his “outrage” because he thought it was the best approach to an interview today. If you think otherwise, we would argue that you have forgotten Ron Brown’s funeral.

UPDATE

Hmmm. We’re having some second thoughts, based on what happened after the interview: “There was no making up with him. He was angry. And when he left, he chewed out his staff.” Perhaps the former President completely lost it after all. Perhaps his slurred speech was a telling sign that something was going on.

UPDATE II

We find Bill Kristol agreeing with our original thesis.

UPDATE III

Taranto takes the middle ground: “Most likely, Clinton’s anger and defensiveness were genuine.” After all these years, it is still appaently somewhat difficult to guage what Bill Clinton is really thinking. How very odd.

UPDATE IV

For a trip into Bizarro world, please watch Keith Olberman’s praise of Clinton’s performance. It is an unhinged masterpiece.

UPDATE V

Dick Morris chimes in that the public saw the Clinton that his employees knew well, and added this:

Clinton told Wallace, “There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down.” Nobody said there was. The point of citing Somalia in the run up to 9-11 is that bin Laden told Fortune Magazine in a 1999 interview that the precipitous American pullout after Black Hawk Down convinced him that Americans would not stand up to armed resistance.

Clinton said conservatives “were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day” after the attack which killed American soldiers. But the real question was whether Clinton would honor the military’s request to be allowed to stay and avenge the attack, a request he denied. The debate was not between immediate withdrawal and a six-month delay. (Then-first lady, now-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) favored the first option, by the way). The fight was over whether to attack or pull out eventually without any major offensive operations.

The president told Wallace, “I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill bin Laden.” But actually, the 9-11 Commission was clear that the plan to kidnap Osama was derailed by Sandy Berger and George Tenet because Clinton had not yet made a finding authorizing his assassination. They were fearful that Osama would die in the kidnapping and the U.S. would be blamed for using assassination as an instrument of policy.

Clinton claims “the CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible [for the Cole bombing] while I was there.” But he could replace or direct his employees as he felt. His helplessness was, as usual, self-imposed.

Why didn’t the CIA and FBI realize the extent of bin Laden’s involvement in terrorism? Because Clinton never took the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center sufficiently seriously. He never visited the site and his only public comment was to caution against “over-reaction.” In his pre-9/11 memoirs, George Stephanopoulos confirms that he and others on the staff saw it as a “failed bombing” and noted that it was far from topic A at the White House. Rather than the full-court press that the first terror attack on American soil deserved, Clinton let the investigation be handled by the FBI on location in New York without making it the national emergency it actually was.

In my frequent phone and personal conversations with both Clintons in 1993, there was never a mention, not one, of the World Trade Center attack. It was never a subject of presidential focus. Failure to grasp the import of the 1993 attack led to a delay in fingering bin Laden and understanding his danger.

Sometimes the greatest problem is the failure to recognize that a problem even exists.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 9:50 am and is filed under Democrats, General, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.