More on Clinton's FoxNews Smackdown....
Wallace repeats Path to 9/11 misinformation, Clinton fights back:
WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didnt you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President? Theres a new book out which I suspect youve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops. Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.
CLINTON: OK..
WALLACE:
may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the book says, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20/20.
CLINTON: No lets talk about
WALLACE:
but the question is why didnt you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?
CLINTON: OK, lets talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. Im being asked this on the FOX network
ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think its very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didnt do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bushs neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didnt have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office.
All the right wingers who now say that I didnt do enough said that I did too much. Same people.
Clinton takes on Fox News bias:
WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?
CLINTON: No, because I didnt get him.
WALLACE: Right
CLINTON: But at least I tried. Thats the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didnt
I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke
So you did FOXs bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..
WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir
CLINTON:
WALLACE: I asked a question. You dont think thats a legitimate question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didnt you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know
WALLACE: We asked
CLINTON:
WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?
CLINTON: I dont believe you ask them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of
CLINTON: You didnt ask that did you? Tell the truth.
WALLACE: About the USS Cole?
CLINTON: Tell the truth.
WALLACE: I
with Iraq and Afghanistan theres plenty of stuff to ask.
CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that youd spend half the time talking about
WALLACE: [laughs]
CLINTON: You said youd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you dont care.
Clinton on his priorities and the Bush administration priorities:
CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president wed have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now I never criticized President Bush and I dont think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is 1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarkes book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And youve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like youre so clever
WALLACE: [Laughs]
CLINTON: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise
We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think thats strange.
"Chris, Bill hasn't ****ed me like that in ages, tell me what it was like"
