“I Tried”

by digby

Oooh. Chris Wallace interviewed Bill Clinton today and sandbagged him with a question right out of the box about “why he didn’t do more to stop bin Laden.”

Clinton went ballistic. I just saw the excerpt on Fox:

At least I tried. That’s the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did NOT try. I tried.

No kidding. I remember hearing this kind of garbage constantly:

“Look at the movie ‘Wag the Dog.’ I think this has all the elements of that movie,” Rep. Jim Gibbons said. “Our reaction to the embassy bombings should be based on sound credible evidence, not a knee-jerk reaction to try to direct public attention away from his personal problems.”

And back in the day Republicans were so concerned about encroaching federal police power that they routinely watered down Clinton’s anti-terrorism proposals:

The measure, which the Senate passed overwhelmingly Wednesday evening, is a watered-down version of the White House’s proposal. The Clinton administration has been critical of the bill, calling it too weak.

The original House bill, passed last month, had deleted many of the Senate’s anti-terrorism provisions because of lawmakers’ concerns about increasing federal law enforcement powers. Some of those provisions were restored in the compromise bill.

[…]

Sen. Don Nickles, R-Oklahoma, while praising the bill, said the country remains “very open” to terrorism. “Will it stop any acts of terrorism, domestic and international? No,” he said, adding, “We don’t want a police state.”

Yes, they cared a lot about a police state when a Democrat was in office. So much so that looking back you’d have to conclude that by their standards today they failed to properly anticipate the threat.

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