Clinton launches withering attack on Bush

[kg_veteran]

Typical Slick Willie...no class or respect for tradition.


Clinton launches withering attack on Bush on Iraq, Katrina, budget

Sun Sep 18, 4:03 PM ET

link

Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.

Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.

The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.

On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.

People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.

"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.

He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.

"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his 1993-2001 presidency.

"But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."

On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.

"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.

"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."

[dude1394]

Slick Willie....And what's sad is he's about the classiest of the democrats these days. That party can't go down in flames fast enough.

[dude1394]

Not to mention he's a stinking bald-faced liar. What a legacy he has.....not.....I actually thought he was going to become a semi-responsible ex-president not like jimmah, but it's just not in the cards, garbage in, garbage out.

powerline

UPDATE: Reader Steve Tefft sends this Clinton quote from July 23, 2003:

[i]t is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.

That was then, I guess; this is now. And 2008 is just a few short years away. So it's time, apparently, to revise the historical record.

[LRB]

Clinton is the Jerry Springer of US Presidents, I don't think that there is too much that he could do to surprise me. Clinton is also one of the biggest liar's of all time, but even he sometimes slips up and tells the truth. However, this is definitely not one of those times.

[Rhylan]

This argument that the war is "why" we are short on cash and have a challenge funding the Katrina rebuilding effort is just utter crap. It's no different than the Luxury Tax argument I make all the time... if your overall salary cap is over the tax threshhold, why are you blaming the last guy signed as the one who "cost us" double? No, the expenditure as a whole is what cost you double.

Having to pay for a war sucks. But so does having to pay for billions and billions of irrelevant pork. In the middle of a conflict, which would you rather cut?

DUH.

It's a total political play.

[LRB]

I've got a few questions for Slick Willy, where the hell were you with this advice <u>BEFORE</u> Katrina hit. We had several days warning. We say that New Orleans weren't going to use their buses to get the people out. Why the hell weren't you calling for FEMA to send buses at least 2 or 3 days before Katrina hit? Is it just maybe that this is all a political ploy to make Bush and the Republicans look bad with little to know truth behind what you said?

[jacktruth]

This is a network news handout to the Clinton II campaign. It's amazing how the news media kisses up to the democratic party, especially the last democrat to win national election. Hillary will run the same way he did: promise everything, deliver nothing, and blame the republicans.

[Mavdog]

Who made up this idea that ex-presidents don't critise their successors? that has not been the case.

George HW Bush criticised Clinton.

Eisenhower criticised JFK (ever heard the famous Ike line "You can always tell a Harvard man, you just can't tell him much..."

There is a whole litany of T. Roosevelt's barbs on Taft.

nope, no tradition to adhere to. much ado about nothing.

[kg_veteran]

The writer of the article references the "tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors," and the author is right.

Remind me where Bush the Elder criticized Clinton like this?

The Eisenhower quote is a pretty lame attempt at comparison.

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally posted by: kg_veteran
The writer of the article references the "tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors," and the author is right.

Remind me where Bush the Elder criticized Clinton like this?

The Eisenhower quote is a pretty lame attempt at comparison.

The harshest thing that I ever heard POTUS41 say about POTUS42 was after POTUS42 said some untrue, unfair, unnecessary things about Dubya during the 2000 presidential elections. He basically said that if Clinton didn't stop taking shots at Dubya, that he WOULD go on record with what he REALLY thought about Clinton as a man and as a president.

The circumstances and substance of GHWB's comments make the comparison moot.

[Mavdog]

In 1993 George HW Bush criticised Clinton's Somalia actions, saying his missions (First Gulf War) were clear and the Somalia actions were not clear in their goals.

Eisenhower wrote a very scathing article in 1962 in which he strongly criticized the Kennedy tax cuts as they produced budget deficits, which Eisenhower was strongly opposed to.

again, there is precedent.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC

The harshest thing that I ever heard POTUS41 say about POTUS42 was after POTUS42 said some untrue, unfair, unnecessary things about Dubya during the 2000 presidential elections. He basically said that if Clinton didn't stop taking shots at Dubya, that he WOULD go on record with what he REALLY thought about Clinton as a man and as a president.

The circumstances and substance of GHWB's comments make the comparison moot.

Exactly, but yet again we see that mavdog will not allow a fact to get in the way of liberal spin.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Drbio
Exactly, but yet again we see that mavdog will not allow a fact to get in the way of liberal spin.

you mean like the facts I posted on Somalia ?

talk about spin....your head never stops, like the child in The Exorcist.

[Drbio]

More craptacularly inspiring *yawn* material from mavdog. Of course, you just (again) got your head handed to you in the other thread, so you trying to recover with a lame yawner is appropo.

[Mavdog]

so that self revealing spiel means that the criticism of clinton's somalia operation by GHW Bush was the same as clinton speaking against GW Bush? or do the facts not matter...

[LRB]

Originally posted by: Mavdog
so that self revealing spiel means that the criticism of clinton's somalia operation by GHW Bush was the same as clinton speaking against GW Bush? or do the facts not matter...

And a copy of GHW Bush's words or a news story about it can be found where?

[dude1394]

Not to mention he's a stinking bald-faced liar. What a legacy.....What a pathetic excuse for a political party.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: LRB

And a copy of GHW Bush's words or a news story about it can be found where?

your guess is as good as mine.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Not to mention he's a stinking bald-faced liar. What a legacy.....What a pathetic excuse for a political party.

And sadly that is as good as they will be for a long time looking at their stable of potential "stars".

[LRB]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

your guess is as good as mine.

Well my guess is that GHW Bush was misquoted.

[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Not to mention he's a stinking bald-faced liar. What a legacy he has.....not.....I actually thought he was going to become a semi-responsible ex-president not like jimmah, but it's just not in the cards, garbage in, garbage out.

powerline

It's worth reading this entire blog entry at Powerline. Hinderaker completely fisks Clinton's comments, exposing all of the blatant lies told in a shameless attempt to discredit Bush.

[LRB]

KG thanks for the link. I loved this paragraph from Hindrockets response:

This attack was false in every respect. The invasion of Iraq had the support of dozens of nations. The UN's inspections could never be "completed," but the UN itself had reported that large quantities of WMDs remained unaccounted for. On the other hand, Clinton's suggestion that there was "no real urgency" about the situation in Iraq was probably sincere, as it typified Clinton's approach to terrorism: he perceived no urgency after the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, or after al Qaeda's attempt to simultaneously destroy a dozen American airplanes over the Pacific in 1995; or after the attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998; or after Saddam's attempt to assassinate former President Bush; or after Saddam repeatedly tried to shoot down American aircraft; or after the Cole bombing in 2000; or after the Taliban took over Afghanistan and converted it into a training ground for anti-American mass murderers; or after any number of other provocations. So, naturally, Clinton saw no urgency with respect to dealing with Saddam's regime. Of course, had Saddam facilitated a post-9/11 attack on the U.S. using chemical or biological weapons, you can imagine how harshly Clinton would have criticized Bush for his lack of foresight.

Clinton would feel a sense of urgency unless his penis was in danger, because he thought a heck of a lot more about pleasing it than he ever did about combating terrorism and keeping Americans safe.

[Usually Lurkin]

Chris Lynch makes a good point about Clinton's mishandling of the new media. Specifically, he figures that more people will hear about Clinton's speech via blogs and internet bulletin boards than initially saw it on tv. Since this new media has more time to sort out all the lies and truths, people will have greater access to discussions of Clinton's lies than to the original.

[LRB]

UL I think that Clintons speech was mainly to the diehard democrats which will never admit any significant wrong by him under any circumstances, and the undereducated with extremely limited internet excess and/or limited formal cognitive training training to follow complex discussions to disect fraudulent statements like Clintons. Everyone else already knows that Clinton is a lieing cheat and takes what he says with a grain of salt. Clinton's problem is that the number of diehard democrats are shrinking as are those with extremely limited internet access. Also, we're making grounds with education, and finally the poor and uneducated are proving more and more not to be as dumb as the Democrats would have them be.
Hopefully this will cause the Democratic party to collapse upon itself soon, and then hopefully a truely relevant party will take it's place to offer an alternative to the Republicans. I think that Clinton's lack of civility and total scorn for tradition and patriotism are sterotypical of the democrat death throws that the dems have been going through the last few years.