It's a good thing for Republicans that most Americans have historical amnesia. It allows Republicans to alter our preception of history by defining it, ex post factor, a decade after the fact. Americans would know the truth if only they hadn't forgotten,to forget to remember history.
The historical irony is here is in 1998, Republicans in Congress were railing at Clinton was trying to "wag the dog" by using the by using the air strikes against Bin Laden to intentionally distract the public from the impeachment trial. The Republicans got this Wag the Dog theory from a Hollywood movie. It ironic because eight short years later they are demonizing Clinton, the Republicans are accusing Clinton of "cutting and running" from al Qaeda.
So my fellow Americans you can keep your amnesia or trade it for one of the ideas behind the three doors:
Door #1: Evil Clinton Cut and Run or Door #2 :Evil Clinton Wagged the Dog, or Door #3 Evil Republicans are Full of Bull
If you selected Door #3 (Full of Bull) you are the winning contestant because in the year 1998 the Republicans did and said the following things about Clinton's efforts to destroy al Queda:
Jim Gibbons Nevada Republican who sat on the Ethics Committee for the Clinton impeachment 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."http://marc.perkel.com/...
In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.
http://www.jregrassroots.org/...?
One of the first questions asked of Defense Secretary William Cohen at a nationally televised Pentagon was how he would respond to people who think the military action "bears a striking resemblance to 'Wag the Dog." "The only motivation driving this action today was our absolute obligation to protect the American people from terrorist activities," Cohen said. "That is the sole motivation."http://marc.perkel.com/...
In fact I'll make the fake Republican "patriots" squirm with transcripts of what they were saying about Clinton's air strikes on Osma Bin Laden. A little trip down memory lane to 1998:
Rep. Dick Armey, GOP Majority Leader
"The suspicion some people have about the president's motives in this attack [on Iraq] is itself a powerful argument for impeachment," Armey said in a statement. "After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons."
Rep. Gerald Solomon (R - NY)
"It is obvious that they're (the Clinton White House) doing everything they can to postpone the vote on this impeachment in order to try to get whatever kind of leverage they can, and the American people ought to be as outraged as I am about it," Solomon said in an interview with CNN. Asked if he was accusing Clinton of playing with American lives for political expediency, Solomon said, "Whether he knows it or not, that's exactly what he's doing."
Sen. Dan Coats
Coats, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, "While there is clearly much more we need to learn about this attack [on Osama bin Laden] and why it was ordered today, given the president's personal difficulties this week, it is legitimate to question the timing of this action."
Sen. Larry Craig, U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee
The foregoing review of the Clinton Administration's prevarications on Kosovo would not be complete without a brief look at one other possible factor in the deepening morass. Consider the following fictional situation: A president embroiled in a sex scandal that threatens to bring down his administration. He sees the only way out in distracting the nation and the world with a foreign military adventure. So, he orders his spin-doctors and media wizards to get to work. They survey the options, push a few buttons, and decide upon a suitable locale: Albania.
The foregoing, the premise of the recent film Wag the Dog, might once have seemed farfetched. Yet it can hardly escape comment that on the very day, August 17, that President Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury to explain his possibly criminal behavior, Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton has ordered U.S. Marines and air crews to commence several days of ground and air exercises in, yes, Albania as a warning of possible NATO intervention in next-door Kosovo. . . .
Not too many years ago, it would not have entered the mind of even the worst of cynics to speculate whether any American president, whatever his political difficulties, would even consider sending U.S. military personnel into harm's way to serve his own, personal needs. But in an era when pundits openly weigh the question of whether President Clinton will (or should) tell the truth under oath not because he has a simple obligation to do so but because of the possible impact on his political "viability" -- is it self-evident that military decisions are not affected by similar considerations? Under the circumstances, it is fair to ask to what extent the Clinton Administration has forfeited the benefit of the doubt as to the motives behind its actions.
GOP Activist Paul Weyrich
Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative activist, said Clinton's decision to bomb on the eve of the impeachment vote "is more of an impeachable offense than anything he is being charged with in Congress."
Wall St. Journal Editorial Board
"It is dangerous for an American president to launch a military strike, however justified, at a time when many will conclude he acted only out of narrow self-interest to forestall or postpone his own impeachment"
Sen. Trent Lott, GOP Majority Leader
"I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time," Lott said in a statement. "Both the timing and the policy are subject to question."
Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-NY)
"Never underestimate a desperate president," said a furious House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald B.H. Solomon (R-N.Y.). "What option is left for getting impeachment off the front page and maybe even postponed? And how else to explain the sudden appearance of a backbone that has been invisible up to now?"
Rep. Tillie Folwer (R-Fla)
"It [the bombing of Iraq] is certainly rather suspicious timing," said Rep. Tillie Fowler (R-Florida). "I think the president is shameless in what he would do to stay in office."
Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum
First, it [intervention in Kosovo] is a "wag the dog" public relations ploy to involve us in a war in order to divert attention from his personal scandals (only a few of which were addressed in the Senate trial). He is again following the scenario of the "life is truer than fiction" movie Wag the Dog. The very day after his acquittal, Clinton moved quickly to "move on" from the subject of impeachment by announcing threats to bomb and to send U.S. ground troops into the civil war in Kosovo between Serbian authorities and ethnic Albanians fighting for independence. He scheduled Americans to be part of a NATO force under non-American command.
Jim Hoagland, Washington Post
"President Clinton has indelibly associated a justified military response ... with his own wrongdoing. ... Clinton has now injected the impeachment process against him into foreign policy, and vice versa"
Byron York, National Review
Instead of striking a strong blow against terrorism, the action [launching cruise missles at bin Laden] set off a howling debate about Clinton's motives. The president ordered the action three days after appearing before the grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair, and Clinton's critics accused him of using military action to change the subject from the sex-and-perjury scandal -- the so-called "wag the dog" strategy.
Wall St. Journal editorial
"Perceptions that the American president is less interested in the global consequences than in taking any action that will enable him to hold onto power. This is a further demonstration that he has dangerously compromised himself in conducting the nation's affairs and should be impeached.
Some of the above quotes are from the Congressional Record. Some are from the archives of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, NYT and the Washington Post.Some are quotes are from internet forums who were discussing issue in 1998. I lost my source notes before I could post this.Fact check them; they're as good as gold.
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Eight years later all of this fake GOP patriotism makes you want to gag doesn't it. The very self-righteous and reckless Republicans who call Democrats appeasers and defeatists in 2006 are the same people that railed against Clinton when he tried to take out Bin Laden with air strikes in 1998. The same sleazy opportunists that blame Clinton for 9/11 in 2006 are them same sleazy opportunists who that said Clinton was "playing with American lives for political expediency" in 1998.
Now we have as right wing producted crockumentary that is serving up Cut and Run on a silver platter to the American public. Go ahead and blame the one man who had the vision to attempt to save America from Bin Laden. The sole Clinton administration counter terrorist specialist that was a holdover from the Clinton administration, Richard Clarke, was labelled as being a paranoid crank about Osama Bin Laden. Until 9/11, then he was promptly dismissed from his position so nobody couldn't interfer with the Republican spin to hide their lack of competence and experience in handling global terror.
I could go on and on, but I won't. The more I write the angrier I get at the reckless buffoons who run this nation. What it all comes down to is the Republicans are a bunch of soulless barbarians and a cancer on democracy.
Once you get over the laughable irony of a slapstick president, all you have left in the comedy department is gallows humor.
Good night and good luck. The Republicans have gotten the president they deserve