Now we get to play the old familiar game he should she said. President Clinton said on Fox News Sunday that the Bush administration was given a comprehensive anti-terror plan. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice fired back in an interview with the New York Post. She states that the Bush administration was not given a plan. So what are we to believe? On one hand we have President Clinton who is trying to set the record straight and trying to clear his name. On the other hand, we have the Bush administration which has only one in a row in its quiver. That arrow is terror. If the Bush administration is not fighting terror as vigorously as they would like us to believe they would be in a great deal of trouble with the midterm elections. Therefore, each party has a reason to bend the truth.
What data do we have to help us with this conundrum? Well, there’s the 9/11 commission report. The report seems to support President Clinton’s assertion that the Bush administration was given a plan and a report seems to be devoid of any actions that the Bush administration took prior to 9/11. Is there any other evidence? Well there is the book The Price of Loyalty which was about Paul O’Neill’s time in the Bush Cabinet. This book notes that there are no high level principals meeting on Osama bin Laden prior to September of 2001. This seems to support President Clinton’s assertions. There of course is Richard Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, which conservatives like to attack but the bottom line is the data contained within the book, the actual facts, are not in dispute. The 9/11 Commission clearly supports Richard Clarke’s view of what happened in the Bush administration prior to 9/11. There’s even more evidence, the fact that the Bush administration does not point to any solid event or press conference or press release or meeting suggests that they had a completely and totally different agenda when they came into the White House.
Do you remember what Donald Rumsfeld was pushing prior to 9/11? The missile defense shield!
