Clinton vs. Fox's Chris Wallace: Condi Rice offers different spin

By media girl

The Bush Administration and their conservative cheerleaders have been doing it for more than five years now: If something goes wrong, pass the buck to Bill Clinton.

Condoleezza Rice is now spinning to blame Bill Clinton

'The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said during a wide-ranging meeting with Post editors and reporters.

This coming from the former National Security Advisor who pushed aside Richard Clarke, the in-house expert on al-Qaeda. This coming from the White House staffer who pretty much ignored the presidential briefing memo about Osama bin Laden's plans to strike within the U.S. This coming from a key player in the Bush Administration, which fought against even having a 9/11 Commission look into 9/11. They didn't want anyone looking into it.

"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice added.

That is just silly.

She also whines about analyses by our own U.S. intelligence agencies that what the Bush Administration is doing is making things worse.

Transitioning to the global war on terror, an animated Rice questioned, "When are we going to stop blaming ourselves for the rise of terrorism?"

This is the perspective problem the entire Bush Administration seems to have: More concern about criticism of them, more concern about the political prospects of the GOP, more concern about spinning themselves into hero status, than any concern in actually doing something effective or at least making sure they're not just making things worse.

When, Condi? When you stop being a major cause of the rise of terrorism.

Asked about recently leaked internal U.S. intelligence estimates that claimed the Iraq war was fueling terrorist recruiting, Rice said: "Now that we're fighting back, of course they are fighting back, too."

"I find it just extraordinary that the argument is, all right, so they're using the fact they're being challenged in the Middle East and challenged in Iraq to recruit, therefore you've made the war on terrorism worse.
"It's as if we were in a good place on Sept. 11. Clearly, we weren't," she added.

Except, Condi, that the terrorists weren't even in Iraq until you and Bush invaded there. The terrorists were in Afghanistan.

Remember Afghanistan? That's the place where Osama has been, by many accounts, all this time. That's where al-Qaeda planned 9/11. That's where the Taliban government sheltered these terrorists.

Remember the Taliban, Condi? They're the guys who are now gaining ground in Afghanistan. (Wouldn't all those troops mired in Iraq come in handy in Afghanistan now?) You try to conflate Iraq and Afghanistan, as if they were the same place.

And you're supposed to be so sophisticated!

"It's a longer-term strategy, and it may even have some short-term down side, but if you don't look at the longer term, you're just leaving the problem to somebody else," she said.

"Some short-term down side." I believe that's what the President calls a "comma".