Isn't it fun to hear Republicans quoting Clinton to justify W?

[zbdent]

I mean, all the time that Clinton was talking about the threat, they were crying that he was an absolute liar, and that he was "wagging the dog" to take the focus away from his personal troubles.

Any time that a Repuke uses Clinton as justification, we should throw "Yeah, and you called him a liar" back in his or her face.

[grannylib]

1. Any specific examples??

[prodigal_green]

3. I posted this earlier on another thread...

Clinton did a lot to stop terrorists prior to 9-11. He was obsessed with it. I lived less than a mile from a "hornets' nest" in Brooklyn that had been planning to blow up the bridges and tunnels in NYC one fourth of July. That event never happened because resources went into finding and arresting those people after the WTC was hit in 1993 (which clinton did NOT blame on Bush I endlessly). Also, in 1999, proper resources were mobilized to avert a bombing during the millenium celebration in Seattle. I'm sure there were plenty of others that we didn't hear about as well. There were no terrorist bombing (on edit--foreign terrorism, forgot about OK City--that was a right-wing nut job) on US soil until AFTER Clinton was gone. Wonder why?

Do we have any evidence of any specific plot being averted by this administration? No, just a random roundup of muslim-looking men.

[Career Prole]

5. There was a post over the weekend which included a freeper archive link

from the summer of 2000 which illustrated just this contradiction. I can't search it right this minute...it's time to go to work!
Apparently in summer 2000 that's exactly what went on. :)

[Jacobin]

2. I hear that all the time. My response is:

Yeah, and he obviously made an accurate interpretation of the intelligence gathered and decided that containment was the better option. That seems to shut them the fuck up.

[erpowers]

4. Both great and Sickening

To some degree it is great to see Clinton finally get the credit he deserves. He did a great job fighting the terrorist. On the other hand it is sickening to see these people use Clinton to justify their evil. Clinton did not want to use our soldiers to get rid of Saddam, he wanted someone from Iraq to get rid of him.

[enki23]

6. saw Al Franken recently, and he had a Q&A afterward

and a kid tried to say (i think) that... anyone left of center was a hypocrite for failing to be in favor of war in iraq. the reason for this was that clinton too had a "policy of regime change" in iraq.

several things came to mind...

1. we've had a "policy of regime change" in cuba since 1959. everyone not in favor of invading and occupying cuba is equally hypocritical if this is true.

2. i am not clinton. even if it would have been hypocritical for clinton to be opposed to the war, (he wasn't) that has next to nothing to do with those who do oppose the war. regime change in iraq at any cost wasn't *my* policy. and honestly, i don't think it was clinton's either. which brings me to:

3. clinton didn't try to invade and occupy iraq. like george h w bush before him, he realized that the probable outcomes (the mess we see now in iraq) were highly unlikely to justify the probable costs of such an invasion (the literal cost of the war, the lives lost, the lives taken, our standing in world opinion, and others.)