Clinton: Face to Face with his Legacy

By now you have no doubt seen former President Bill Clinton's meltdown in a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace. If you have not, check it out at http://www.foxnews.com. Was Chris Wallace out of line in his questioning? Was it a "conservative hit job" as Clinton claimed?

Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, what Clinton is angered about is what concerns him the most, his legacy. Ever since 9/11, people have been asking the question of whether or not the attack that claimed the lives of over 3,000 American citizens could have been prevented. What they have found is that the Clinton administration dropped the ball by not taking terrorism seriously enough. Clinton is in serious risk of going down in history as the President who emboldened terrorists and paved the way to 9/11.

According to Bin-Laden himself, it wasn't until Americans pulled out of Somalia after 18 US servicemembers were killed that he realized America was a so-called "Paper Tiger". Bin-Laden concluded that he could indeed influence American foreign policy by striking hard enough and embarked on a mission to do so with the following results:

1996 - Khobar Towers bombed killing 19 US Servicemembers
1998 - Bombings of two East African Embassies, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans
2000 - Bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 US Sailors
2001 - Hijackers destroy the World Trade Center Towers, killing over 3,000 Americans

With the first three plots executed during Clinton's watch, did he do enough to try to curb the rise in terrorism against US citizens? In the interview with Chris Wallace, Clinton defends himself saying that "At least I tried" and "I worked hard to try to kill him...", meaning Bin-Laden. Bill Clinton knows that his response to this growing threat was too little too late. Clinton, whose legacy has already been through the ringer with his impeachment in the House, has already admitted to letting Bin-Laden slip through his fingers when the Sudanese government offered to hand him over to us, "At the time, 1996, [Bin-Laden] had committed no crime against America, so I did not want to bring him here because we had no basis to hold him. Though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America". That was 1996, the same year Bin-Laden issued a "Declaration of War" against the United States. Two years later in 1998, Clinton's Justice Department indicted Bin-Laden for conspiracy to commit murder on U.S. citizens. Which leads us to Clinton's true legacy in the years leading up to the War on Terror.

If anything, the decade prior to 9/11 showed us the folly of seeking a legal or police style response to terrorism. When 9/11 happened, President Bush decided to fight this threat as a war. Al-Qaeda has been on the run ever since. The American military has overthrown two murderous and tyrannical regimes in the last four years, bringing the oppotunities of freedom to over 58 million people. It has shifted the battlefield from American Cities to the Middle East. Win or lose in Iraq, when history looks back at Bush's Presidency, they will see a man determined to do something about terrorism. When they look back at Bill Clinton's Presidency, they will see retreat and a dissolution of American resolve in the face of common thugs. If I was Bill Clinton, I wouldn't spend my time being angry, I'd spend it being ashamed...