Today’s Award for injecting Bill Clinton into an argument for no reason whatsoever goes to Matt Yglesias, who willfully and intentionally conflates the numerous Gorelick conflict of interest stories with right wing angst about Bill Clinton. Sayeth the Prospect’s newest protege:
I’m given to understand from several testy rightwing bloggers concerned that liberals have paid insufficient attention to the incident that John Ashcroft gave Democratic 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick the what-for yesterday over her involvement while at the DOJ in erecting the “wall” that made it hard for the FBI to share information properly with other agencies. If so, good for him.
One of the difficulties I think a lot of people on the right have in grasping what’s going on at the 9/11 Commission is that Bill Clinton isn’t running for president. I have no interest — not even a partisan interest — in denying that Clinton and his appointees messed up in a variety of ways. Not even a partisan interest, let me say again, because Bill Clinton isn’t running for president. My interest as a patriotic American is purely in bringing the facts to light so we can make changes for the better. My partisan interest is, especially, in bringing to light facts that reflect poorly on George W. Bush and his appointees — the various ways in which they disimproved on the inadequate Clinton-era set-up.
So, again, Bill Clinton not running for president.
We agree with one premise- Bill Clinton is not running for President. Which leads me to wonder why Matt would inject him into a conversation about national security policies- other than a blatantly transparent attempt to shift all legitimate criticisms of Gorelick’s role in creating the security mess into a pile of hubris masquerading as relentless right-wing hatred of Clinton- which, I must note, is exactly like the “Anyone But Bush” animus currently held by the Democrats.
At any rate, and Matt knows this, but George Bush IS running for President. Matt and the other Democrats have had a field day in the last few months trying pin responsibility of 9/11 on Bush’s incompetence. When it comes to light that one of the most partisan members of the Commission that the Democrats are using as a baton to beat Bush over the head is a principle actor in creating the mess that helped to hinder Bush and our intelligence agencies from stopping 9/11, it is a very legitimate avenue of inquiry and outrage.
See Matt- it isn’t about Clinton at all- and you know it. An artful dodge on your part, worthy of a Blumenthal or Begala, but one that has not gone unnoticed.
Fred
Today’s award for least intelligence of any blogger goes to: John Cole, just like every day!
HH
Didn’t take burnplant long to come back…
Kerry has given every indication that he will pick up where Clinton left off… If the left is this interested in pushing this “Clinton isn’t running” line, all they have to do is urge Kerry to distance himself from Clinton’s policies.
Rick
Ygle-stardust might do better hoisting the corpse of Dick Clarke’s credibility on some horse and send it on another tour ’round the battlements as a distraction.
Cuz the cite you give don’t work. This is a paid writer?
Cordially…
JKC
To be fair, though, Ashcroft’s opening statement consisted of heaps of scorn and blame cast upon the Clinton administration.
Personally, I think that in hindsight, there were mistakes made vis-a-vis terrorism dating all the way back to Jimmy Carter by administrations of both parties. If John and I agree about anything, it’s that playing “gotcha” ain’t gonna fix anything.
That said, I think Ashcroft could use a BIG transfusion of humility. Interesting character deficit in someone who claims to be such a righteous Christian.
John Cole
Ashcroft is not my favorite, but I am not sure what recourse he had yesterday. After all, for a week leading up to his testimony, we heard about how he was going to be grilled, the blame was going to be pinned on him.
He had no choice but to come out shooting.
The whole commission is just a farce at this point.
Ken Hahn
Trying to appoint a nonpartisan commission is almost impossible. If you don’t appoint Democrats, it isn’t nonpartisan and if you do it’s a circus of conflict of interest and obstruction.
JKC
John-
I’ll say it again… a little humility from Ashcroft would have gone a long way.
Personally, I’d like to hear someone in the Bush League say “In retrospect, there are things we should have done differently. We’d like to learn from our mistakes so this doesn’t happen again.”
But, no: Ashcroft once again comes in guns ablazing. The man is a complete embarassment. No wonder he lost his Senate seat to a cadaver.
Kimmitt
“If you don’t appoint Democrats, it isn’t nonpartisan and if you do it’s a circus of conflict of interest and obstruction.”
It’s a circus of conflict of interest and obstruction no matter what; the difference is whether we have a commission which tries to bring this Administration’s obstruction to light or one which is complicit in it.
There is no way that we can have a nonpartisan commission under this President, because this President is congenitally incapable of admitting even the smallest error.
CleverNameHere
JKC
A little humility from Ashcroft would have bought him nothing from his critics. The admissions of error you want to hear from the Bush admin are just campaign commericials waiting to happen. Only political fools would willingly give such a weapon to their political opposition.
These “apologies” do nothing to make us safer. Ashcroft, if it’s possible, is even more reviled than Bush, even by many of the Libertarian leaning bloggers on the right. You’re asking for him to be a punching bag… exactly how is that supposed to help?
Kimmitt
The constant haranguing that this President is divisive and polarizing, set against the “Bush=Hitler” hordes and the “Ted Offensive”, would be hilarious if it weren’t symptomatic of the destructive anti-Bush mania infecting the Left.
Do you actually think that if Bush had come forth after 9-11 and said “it’s all on me”, that we would be seeing no partisanship on the part of the Left or the 9-11 Commission?
Please.
Sav
“Interesting character deficit in someone who claims to be such a righteous Christian.”
Ashcroft has never referred to himself as righteous. Please keep you religious bigotry to yourself.
Kimmitt
“The constant haranguing that this President is divisive and polarizing, set against the “Bush=Hitler” hordes and the “Ted Offensive”, would be hilarious if it weren’t symptomatic of the destructive anti-Bush mania infecting the Left.”
Talk about blaming the victims. “He hit me back first!”