About that Record:

Over the weekend former President Clinton got more then defensive during a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace. Clinton became hostile when Wallace challenged him on his terror record, squirming in his chair and at one point poking Wallace.

I was raised believing that if you’re not guilty then you have nothing to be defensive about. Clinton’s Howard Dean moment was an interesting look at just how sore President Clinton is over the subject. I have said numerous times that Clinton did a poor job fighting terrorism during his eight years in office. Between the first WTC bombing, two embassy bombings, a U.S. barracks bombing and the U.S. Cole, Clinton never really did all he could and actually hurt matters by slashing defense spending in half, cutting our battle ready forces from 19 to 10.

To be fair it wasn’t all Clintons fault. As discovered in the 9/11 Report, Tenet was instrumental in talking Clinton out of several plans by Clark to get Bin Laden. The problem with Clinton is that he was more interested in not doing something that could go bad. He wasn’t a risk taker and when things got messy he picked up and ran.

He took the pressure off Iraq when Saddam threw out weapons inspectors and he hightailed it out of Mogadishu when things started to get heated. This morning there is more news coming out of Somalia that shows not only what a big mistake it was for Bill to accept defeat but also why staying in Iraq is critical. It’s being reported today that heavily armed Islamic militiamen have seized control of another town in Somalia giving them full control of all the countries seaports. Clinton’s surrender in Somalia paved the way for al-Qaida to take charge of the country and effectively create a new base for their operations.

I’m not going to argue that Clinton didn’t “try” but the question is how hard? The difference between Clinton and Bush is that Clinton new what should be done but never took the all out risk because he was more concerned about his image then doing what was needed as the leader of a country.