Has Bill Clinton checkmated a Rove 'Terra' scare electoral campaign?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

IMO Bill Clinton's brilliant interview on Fox News Sunday has made it more difficult for Dubya and his spokesmen to keep getting a "pass" on 'Terra'. Chris Wallace's first off-base question was about the "message" Clinton sent to bin Laden by pulling out of Somalia in the early 90s. IMO that was really a "reach". Come on!

Why would anybody ask that except to continue the "Clinton's fault" Scaife campaign that began with this month's "Path to 9-11" miniseries on ABC? Clinton responded to Wallace with a full accounting of his personal "obsession" with "killing" OBL, and Wallace had no effective follow-up questions.

IMO, the most significant consequence of Sunday's set-to on Fox is Clinton's challenge to journalists to ask the same kinds of questions of "the other side." Wallace has given a very high profile to what White Houses FAILED to do about international terror threats to citizens of the US. IIRC, no journalist has ever dared to ask Bush or his top officials about what they DID NOT DO to keep the country safe.

How well would a Rove "Terra' fear campaign play if journalists started asking Dubya, Cheney, and Condi the same kinds of questions Wallace asked Clinton? Of course, since 9-11 happened on their watch, and they have tamed the media ever since, they are much more vulnerable to a sudden outbreak of more "fairness and balance":

1. The CIA and FBI did not find OBL responsible for the Cole bombing until after the 2000 election. That's why Bill Clinton did not implement his plans to invade Afghanistan, overturn the Taliban, and capture OBL. Why didn't the new Bush administration respond to the bombing of the USS Cole? What message did that failure send to Osama bin Laden?

2. Richard Clarke had been a WH antiterrorism expert for the three Presidents who preceded Dubya. Why was he demoted in 2001? And how were Clarke's superiors held accountable for apparently relaxing down America's longstanding safeguards against terrorism?

3. How many meetings did Dubya, Cheney, or Condi hold on antiterror strategy from Inauguration Day to September 10 2001?

... And so on, and so on.

What do you think?

(1) Has Bill Clinton brilliantly pre-empted another Rove pre-election "Terra" scare campaign?

(2) What questions would you now ask Dubya, Cheney, and Condi to hold them accountable for what they failed to do before 9/11?

[babylonsister]

1. That could be why they're dredging up the anthrax meme:

terra comes in lots of forms.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2529550

[Rockstone]

11. I mean really

I couldn't believe they were dusting off that old thing with "after all this time we miraculously have some new information that negates everything we said before"...

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Bill owed MSM a kick in the crotch ,I liked seeing get fired up!

What pisses you off more than being falsely accused? nothing.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

15. kick

[Tanuki]

3. Why did 9/11 happen on Bush's watch

and not Clinton's---seems Clinton must have been doing something right to keep terrorism at bay---and why did * just keep on playing golf and goofing off in Crawford after getting the infamous August 2001 briefing memo about how Al Quaeda was planning an attack involving hijacked planes? Those seem like some obvious questions to lob at * and his apologists.

[Old and In the Way]

4. When a politician demands the Fox journalist "tell the truth", multiple

times, well, it's gotta hurt. Seriously, why did Bush take the attack subs off-station in the Persian Gulf? Mothballed the Predator? Shitcanned the Hart-Rudmma Bipartisan Report on Terrorism? No follow-up on Cole?Generally, said zip about Al Qaeda and terror in the 9 months leading up to 9/11 and appears to have completely ignored the gathering threat that US and foreign intel were reporting......why?

Because Dick was busy preparing his hostile takeover of Iraq National Petroleum in the Spring of 2001 (see: Secret Energy Meetings) and he didn't want to be distracted. That's why Bush was on vacation for 40% of 2001 prior to 9/11...Uncle Dick was busy and didn't want Junior f'ing things up.

AQ probably knew this, so the time to strike was before the marketing of Iraq began in ernest. No one was paying attention.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. Great list of issues for Dubya & Co. Wonder whether Keith Olberman

will have a comprehensive list of hard questions no one has dared ask them.

[BrotherBuzz]

9. Those were questions that were being asked back in 2002 and 2003

they were poo-pooed at the time as being absurd, and the people asking them were labled tin foil conspiracy idiots by the misadminstration and the MSM. Times have changed, and I wonder if the general public might be more receptive if the questions were asked again. Olberman is just the man to ask them.

[davidwparker]

5. I was thinking this with the OBL dead story. If it circulates that he is

dead, then clearly he can't release another tape. Then again, there seems to be multiple OBL's.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. 'Where's OBL?' is the best q of all for Dubya, Cheney, Condi, and Rumsfeld

If the planted rumor gets him to resurface a few weeks before a big election, as he did in 2004, voters' reactions may be different this time, thanks to Bill Clinton's performance on Fox.

Last time, nobody in the "press corpse" asked why OBL still was roaming free. If he should pop up to say, "Still here--nyah nyah na nyah nyah!" that question may be more likely to come up, maybe even from Chris Wallace or another Fox stalwart.

[Rockstone]

12. Maybe the Bushies could print out a Flat OBL

a lifesized cardboard cutout.

"Have him at you dinnertable - he won't eat much... Use to remind you of the need for revenge. Why settle for just three minutes of hate a day?"

[ProgressiveEconomist]

13. A trompe-l'oeil Osama would remind everyone that he's

just another really dangerous nutball, IMO. So would Osama Halloween masks. He's not worth destroying our Consitituion over, IMO, and I'm all for anything that reminds us he's just one guy, and show us that Dubya's "war" is a gigantic boondoggle.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

14. Deleted--double-post

[Sapere aude]

8. I'm reminded of the posts that say we should do what Clinton did

because the right will come down on us for it. Well now they are coming down on Clinton but it sounds a little like sour grapes to me.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. Well, Keith Olberman sure agrees with my first sentence, posted hours

before his broadcast.

Did you notice how he also used the phrase, "free pass"? And how he thanked Bill Clinton for making it "okay" to ask Dubya and company hard questions about the eight months BEFORE 9-11?

Karl Rove must be pulling an overnighter right now.