Fisking Clinton’s dissing of the President

This past weekend, President Clinton went on the attack about President Bush, calling the Iraq war unnecessary and putting the lion’s share of the blame for the Katrina response on the federal government.

John at Powerline has posted a righteous fisking of Clinton’s claims and notes something everyone should be aware of and that is the fact that Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary, may be considering a presidential run (I think even without any sort of ‘official’ announcement it’s pretty safe to assert that):

Clinton’s vicious attack is even worse in the context of his wife’s Presidential bid: it is fair to assume that he was motivated not only by partisanship, but by his own desire to re-occupy the White House, and, most likely, wield once more the levers of power.

Read the whole thing. Clinton this weekend directly contradicted claims he made just two years ago about Iraq and WMD, as well as comments he made about a week ago concerning the Katrina blame game. This is the Clinton we know and detest. He played nice for Bush’s first term, but the gloves are off this time around. His wife is aiming for the WH, and Clinton knows that presents another shot at power for him, albeit in the role of second fiddle.

(Hat tip: Betsy Newmark)

More: The guys at Junkyard Blog also take Clinton and his comments to task. Jason at Generation Why? weighs in as well.

31 Responses to "Fisking Clinton’s dissing of the President"

Don Singleton says:

September 19, 2005 at 1:22 pm

Clinton launches withering attack

It is not FEMA’s job to activate the National Guard. That is the job of the Governor, and in extreme situations the President may invoke the Insurrection Act, and Federalize the National Guard. But instead he just kept urging the Governor to do it, a…
wordsmith says:

September 19, 2005 at 2:27 pm

I only caught him on Meet the Press yesterday. But everyones talking about all his various appearances. He must have had a busy weekend making the rounds.
Ronald Rington says:

September 19, 2005 at 4:55 pm

Anyone named Clinton should be banned from ever holding public office. They are criminals and should be in prison.
The Political Teen » Quick Hits 9/19 says:

September 19, 2005 at 5:43 pm

[…] Fisking Clinton That’s fisking, not frisking. Good job Sister Toldjah. […]
The Political Teen says:

September 19, 2005 at 6:30 pm

Quick Hits 9/19

…
Bachbone says:

September 19, 2005 at 6:38 pm

How do you keep Bubba out of Washington? Make all government offices and living quarters “No Smoking” areas and, specifically, ban cigars.
Sister Toldjah says:

September 19, 2005 at 7:32 pm

Word: Oh yes – when the Clintons talk, people listen (unfortunately).

Ronald: Welcome to the ST blog!

Bachbone: 😆
henryboom says:

September 19, 2005 at 8:27 pm

“Clinton’s vicious attack”

Does he really think tihs is ‘vicious’ ? or is this just more blog exceptionalism/hyperbole?
Sister Toldjah says:

September 19, 2005 at 8:30 pm

You can think of it in whatever way you like. Makes no difference to me.

And yes, I do think it was vicious.
henryboom says:

September 19, 2005 at 10:13 pm

“And yes, I do think it was vicious.”

How so?
Sister Toldjah says:

September 20, 2005 at 8:41 am

Read them.
henryboom says:

September 20, 2005 at 9:12 am

I did. I saw critique. But nothing evil or mean or vicious. What was evil or mean?
Sister Toldjah says:

September 20, 2005 at 9:24 am

Please don’t insult my intelligence. With all due respect, I’m not going to sit here and explain word for word why it was vicious. If you don’t like my characterization, fine. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I’m not retracting it.
henryboom says:

September 20, 2005 at 10:45 am

Bye, henry. –ST
Lorica says:

September 20, 2005 at 1:13 pm

I find the comment “it just doesn’t make any sense” particularly odd coming from Clinton. This is the man who cut 40 Million dollars from the firefighting budget to give it to the arts. How many millions of acres and how many towns were burned to the ground because he stopped companies from foresting and cut the parks service firefighting budget so that we could have such wonderful masterpieces as Piss Christ??

Also prior to the Clinton administration our military had 4 rifle divisions, we now only have 3 because he wanted to save a few bucks, fully aware that terrorist would be the new enemy. Once the Soviets fell, our Commands in Europe really did have quite a challenge on their hands trying to keep the really bad weapons away from terrorist who wanted to do the world harm.

I also think it is funny that BJ is now singing a different tune on WMDs. He himself said that we should invade Iraq for this very reason. We do know that Iraq had WMDs it is false to believe they didn’t. As we have video of the Iraq Army using them on a Kurdish village. Plus Sodamn Insane used them to end the Iran-Iraq war. We also have the bill of sale that we ourselves, plus our allies sold him these weapons. So that arguement doesn’t actually fly. Sodamn did kill a number of his own people, last estimate was above 400,000 men, women and children. Plus he did attack 4 neighboring countries. Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel, so he was abit of a menace to middle eastern peace. If you really look at every reason GW used to go to war, they were all true.

On TOP of all that we found out just how corrupt our friends and allies truly were. Oil for Bribes, and Foreign Military Sales of hi-tech weapons. I love how those that are left of center believe that they can keep the wool pulled over the eyes of the people.

Sorry this is so long. It just had to be said again.
Sister Toldjah says:

September 20, 2005 at 8:07 pm

Yeah, I was especially surprised by his WMD comments. Those are the easiest of his to refute.
Lorica says:

September 20, 2005 at 10:57 pm

Ohhh and let us not forget the “virtually alone” comment. More countries partnered with us for Iraq than in Kosovo. Talk about a target rich enviroment of non intelligent thinking.
Brian says:

September 20, 2005 at 11:51 pm

It’s not true that Bill Clinton crossed some type of barrier by criticizing President Bush. Both presidents George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan criticized Bill Clinton while he was in office:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011712.php

Bill Clinton is entitled to his opinion just like everyone else, even if some people are offended by it. He criticized the state, local, and federal government’s response to the hurricane. Perhaps if he was president, he might have responded differently than President Bush. It would not have been impossible for the federal government to move trucks, helicopters, and supplies to the area faster than they were.

What he said about there not being evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction is true, at least valid evidence. There would have had to been weapons of mass destruction in order for there to be evidence of them. It’s true that many people believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but there was no solid evidence.
Lorica says:

September 21, 2005 at 10:10 am

No, there were WMDs in Iraq. They were just not nuclear weapons there. Let’s not split hairs too finely when it comes to WMDs. Nuclear is not the only catagory for these types of weapons, even tho the MSM and the lefties would have you believe that. Like I said Sodamn Insane did use them to end the Iran-Iraq war, and he did use them to end the Kurdish rebellion. We found evidence of them in our attack in Falluja, and there was a picture in USA today of that evidence. So no what he said is not true. Also the weapons inspectors found illegal weapons systems in the form of remote drones that were equiped to spray chemical or biological fluids on to an advancing enemy or whomever.
Sister Toldjah says:

September 21, 2005 at 11:01 am

That Powerline link you provided didn’t back up your point, Brian.
Brian says:

September 21, 2005 at 10:52 pm

This is the link I intended to post in my previous message:

LINK
Sister Toldjah says:

September 21, 2005 at 10:55 pm

Fine. The media got it wrong, but that’s no excuse for the lies Clinton told. It’s almost like two different men. The one from last year, and the one this year.
Brian says:

September 21, 2005 at 11:01 pm

Lorica,

The chemical and biological weapons Saddam Hussein used in the war against Iraq were destroyed after the first Gulf War. Even President Bush has acknowledged that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction.

LINK

“Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there,” Bush, according to the AP, told reporters.
Lorica says:

September 22, 2005 at 10:37 am

I know about the Deulfer report. I am glad that article repeats what it says about Sadamn wanting to start WMD weapons programs as soon as santions end. Which was going to happen with all the bribes that were being passed around.
We knew they were there, and we are still finding them. He used them on his own people and his neighbors. Here is an article from Powerline blog about sarin gas that was found in Fallujah when we attacked it. To say they were all destroyed is not quite true either.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/008649.php

Sadamn had 50 sq miles of weapons depots scattered around Iraq, and tended to bury items I would not be surprised if we find some yet. Sorta like the Millions of Euros, and Dollars that were found. Also interesting to note that your own article says that if Sadamn could get more WMDs he would.

Plus WMDs were not the only reason that we went to war. It is just the reason that lefties like to harp on. 400,000 dead in mass graves, a threat to his neighbors. 12 years of ignoring UN resolutions. 12 years of challenging the no fly zones. Illegal weapons sales, and bribes and corruption of our supposed allies. A classic is the bribe money that was found in George Galloway’s bank account that came from Iraq. Yet this man thinks he has some respectability. The list just goes on and on, the longer we are there the more we find out. It is a pretty sad state of affairs.
Brian says:

September 22, 2005 at 11:26 pm

Lorica,

I’m sure Saddam Hussein would have developed WMDs if he was able to, but he didn’t. I think it’s very unlikely that he did have any type of WMDs. It’s very hard to believe that he would have let the Americans take over his country and capture him without using them if he had any. If we were able to prevent him from acquiring WMDs for the past ten years, there is no reason why we couldn’t continue doing this.

The main case President Bush made for invading Iraq was to that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons program in progress. His justification was “he didn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud in New York”.

It’s true Saddam Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands of people, but there are other countries that are just as bad or worse and President Bush has not taken any actions against these countries. The government of Sudan has murdered just as many people or more as the government of Iraq did when Saddam Hussein was in power. So far I have seen President Bush do very little about this.

It’s definitely a good thing that Saddam Hussein can no longer murder or torture innocent people, but it’s possible something could have been done about this without invading Iraq. During the 1990’s when the Serbian government was murdering many innocent people, we were able to stop them by launching a massive air campaign against their country without invading it. We were also able to do this without the loss of any American lives, even though Serbia had a much stronger military than Iraq did.
Lorica says:

September 23, 2005 at 10:33 am

Yes I am well aware of the 2,000,000 people that have been murdered in Sudan over the last 20 years. Both of the Secrataries of State have been to that government under the Bush administration. So he has not done nothing.

As far as Kosovo, we were lied too. We were told that Miloshevik had killed 25,000 people there, last I heard the body count was closer to 1000, and those bodies were identified as KLA or Albainian’s that were in rebellion to the Yogoslavian Government. And yes we did lose people in our Air war over Kososvo granted not many but Americans did die. Plus we bombed: 1) the Chinese embassy, supposedly accidentally. 2) a Russian troop column, again supposedly accidentally. Have you heard any news lately about Slobodon’s trial before the World Court?? Last I heard he was on the verge of winning it. Of course the MSM just doesn’t really follow thru with stuff like that. Now if it were forged Air National Guard documents then they would be all over it.

I need to go, and I will not be repling again to this thread. I will concede the point about the threat built up about Nuclear WMDs was wrong. But I do not believe that this was the wrong thing to do. I feel very broken up about our troops dying on soil that is not our own, but we have been doing this for over 100 years, it is alittle late to stop now.
Baklava says:

September 23, 2005 at 1:20 pm

Lorica wrote and Brian needs to hear the response, “I will concede the point about the threat built up about Nuclear WMDs was wrong”

It wasn’t Bush lying though. It was bad information due to the closedness of Iraq and the French, British, German, Russian and American intelligence agencies all thought the same thing and these thoughts were all expressed by Albright, Clinton and Kennedy more than 5 years previous to March 2003.

If you dwell in the past Brian how does that help your argument. We are there now and have removed the government. We don’t just walk out of that country without having leaving a functioning government left that can provide for it’s own people’s common defense.

Look to the future Brian and you won’t be getting into such ridiculous debates anymore. What’s done is done. There is no sense trying to put everyone on the defensive from your attacks because because you could effectively do that for EVERY president
Brian says:

September 24, 2005 at 2:13 am

Baklava,

I’m not just concerned about what went on in the past with this administration’s Iraq policy. I’m also very concerned about what is happening now and what will happen in the future. This administration has done everything wrong since the decision was made to invade Iraq. They have done practically everything they can to turn the Iraqi people against us, whether it’s destroying their economy or torturing prisoners. After taking over Iraq, they disbanded the Iraq Army turning hundreds of thousands of trained fighters against the U.S.. The ideological fanatics in the Bush Administration privatized Iraqi industry throwing millions of Iraqis out of work. Iraqi prisoners were tortured and humiliated in front of the entire world. Most reports I’ve read of the newly formed Iraqi Army say the Iraqi recruits are poorly trained and equipped. The American military doesn’t seem to have the slightest idea of how to fight against an insurgency. The military commanders don’t seem to have any common sense. Israel’s military, which was able to successfully fight against an insurgency, has special units that could speak Arabic and dress like Arabs. Israel’s intelligence was able to identify and kill or capture many terrorist leaders. The Americans fight in their camouflage outfits and clearly marked vehicles and spend most of their time in well-protected bunkers. In spite of the fact that there is a severe shortage of people who speak Arabic in the military, our military leaders felt it was necessary to discharge Arab linguists because they happened to be gay. I would much more strongly support keeping American troops in Iraq if I saw things getting better, but I don’t. I really do hope this administration and our military are able to turn things around in Iraq and bring peace and stability to the country. Right now I don’t see this happening any time in the near future. I hope it turns out that I am wrong about this.

I really do think that President Bush did believe Iraq had WMDs. I can’t read his mind so there is no way to know for sure. I know I believed Iraq had WMDs and for that reason I felt uncomfortable sending in ground forces to invade. I’m very thankful our forces and the Iraqi people didn’t have to deal with them.
Brian says:

October 4, 2005 at 8:24 pm

Actually, you’re wrong. There is no law that would stop the federal government from sending in the national guard in something defined (as this was) as a national catastrophe. The fact is, While most of the country watched people forming large “SOS” messages on their roofs, people starving, dying, and helpless for days, Bush did nothing. NOTHING. And the fact is, and it is documented, the mayor made the phone call to the White House asking for help. But even if they hadn’t, if you were president and watched people in this situation, would you too wait around (on vacation) until your phone rang before doing something. Cheney didn’t even end his vacation! Here are a couple other totally unbelievable, but true reports:

“Criticism of the federal government’s response is also coming from some unlikely sources including the Pentagon. Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, a Pentagon spokesman for Northern Command, revealed on the BBC that NorthCom was prepared to send in search and rescue helicopters from the USS Bataan almost immediately after the hurricane hit. He said, “We had things ready. The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so.” That authorization didn’t happen for days even though the ship was docked just outside New Orleans. On board the ship had doctors, hospital beds, food and the ability to make up to 100,000 gallons of water a day.”

U.S. Rejected Cuban Offer of 1,100 Doctors

“The Cuban government has also announced that the U.S. State Department rebuffed its offer of aid. Last Tuesday Cuba offered to send 1100 doctors to assist in the crisis. Cuba said the doctors could have been on the ground by last Wednesday.”

“Some commentators on the web are suggesting the U.S. could learn about hurricane preparedness from Cuba. Last year the United Nations commended Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation after surviving Category 5 hurricane. Ivan destroyed 20,000 houses but reportedly no one died because the government orchestrated the evacuation of 1.5 million people to higher ground. ”

That’s great. Let people die, just so you can stubbornly refuse to let doctors help because… they might be communists? It’s better to have people die than have some doctor tell them about Marxism. What the hell?!!! This is human life we’re dealing with — not political idealogy. Save that for the next cold war. Meanwhile, we need a president who has half a clue about human life. Not some total mornon who’s never worked a day in his life and skipped out on his National Guard duty thanks to Daddy. Just my 2 cents.
Sister Toldjah says:

October 4, 2005 at 9:32 pm

Just curious – are there two different Brians posting in this thread? My email notification gave me two different email addys for the Brian(s) in this thread and I just wanted to make sure so all the parties involved in the discussion would know who to direct their comments to.
Baklava says:

October 4, 2005 at 10:25 pm

Brian wrote, “They have done practically everything they can to turn the Iraqi people against us, whether it’s destroying their economy or torturing prisoners.”

This sentence followed your discussion about your opinion about the Bush administration doing everything wrong. That means the “they” you write about is the Bush administration, and that means you think it was Bush’s policy or desire to torture Iraqi prisoners.

You should be ashamed of yourself. It is one erroneous accusation after another with you. The rest of that paragraph was you know all and every commander has no common sense arrogant speak.

Brian wrote, “I really do think that President Bush did believe Iraq had WMDs”. So did Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Albright other coutries Intelligence Agencies.

Next Post Brian has more erroneous accusations (not even opinions this time), “Bush did nothing. NOTHING. This is factually false. Bush did things before Katrina hit as well as after Katrina hit. The federal government responded to Katrina before and after. I’m not sure how Brian can look in the mirror after this one. Yes, people died and needed help. But that doesn’t mean NOTHING was done as you unfactually asserted.

Brian demostrated his lack of knowledge about federal vs. local control by writing or pasting, “Ivan destroyed 20,000 houses but reportedly no one died because the government orchestrated the evacuation of 1.5 million people to higher ground.. Brian

Comments are closed.