PeskyDane...If you want to spend some time and track my previous posts, you"ll find that I have personally praised Bush far more than Clinton.  I have spoken several times about my admiration for Bush, his father, indeed, his entire family.  Contrast that with my recent description of the Clintons (paraphrasing) as self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing narcissists, and my criticism of his morally reprehensible, reckless, and inexcusable personal behavior while president.  Maybe you also missed my intention--expressed here more than once--to vote for the Republican nominee over Hillary if she is the candidate...or my previous posts wherein I opined that Reagan was the best President in my lifetime--going back to Truman.

Does that sound like a partisan liberal ideologue to you?

Jer 

People also like to ignore how Al Gore's efforts to steal the election in Florida (did they ever count the absentee ballots from overseas, i.e., the troops) hampered President Bush's ability to create a cabinet and replace Clinton's Intel staff.  Don't forget that the people creating the PDBs were Clinton's people.  Jer's cited PDB contains this quote, "Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."   Gorelick's wall between internal and external Intelligence agencies helped keep a specific connection between the 911 plotters and this piece of info being made.  She should have been investigated by the 911 Commission, not seated on the panel.  Another example of Clinton's ability to keep his arse covered.

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."  - Sir Winston Churchill

Relax...motherbelt, I'm not going anywhere--actually I can't, since I'm stuck up here on my petard.  I'm not even sure what a petard is [something for naughty sailors?], but it is a little painful.  

[I generally try to get back..although I do think I still owe you some info on Kerry and the Swiftboaters.  On the other hand, I'm still waiting for you to reply to my three separate requests weeks ago asking that you review the NYT archives containing scores of anti-Clinton editorials during his presidency.  I'll give you another six months.  Fair enough?] <wink>

With respect to alarms not adequately heeded by Bush, and Clinton's SOTU claim of few external threats, some thoughts and observations:

--It can be argued, I suppose, that Clinton's statement was technically correct--there were "few external threats".  However, I agree that he should have alluded to at least the one major threat which did exist, i.e. the rise of Islamic terrorism.  And I think he should have referred to it--and emphatically so--more often throughout his presidency.

--But the burgeoning threat was communicated privately, frequently, and forcefully by several sources to the Bush people during the transitional period of the administrations in late December, 2000 or early January, 2001.  Those sources allegedly included Richard Clarke, Madeline Albright, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, and Gary Hart.  The consensus view from those individuals is that Condi Rice, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and others just didn't accept the view that Al Quaeda was the developing, ominous, and imminent threat which the Clinton people believed it to be.  Not that they completely dismissed it...just that they didn't attach a similar since of urgency to the issue.

--Clinton had appointed the Hart-Rudman bipartisan committee on terrorism before he left office, and its final report was released [I believe in the latter part of 2000] with some rather dire predictions.  Hart has stated he virtually went door to door with the warnings, but seemed unable to generate any real concern among the Bushies.

--I earlier referred to Clarke's problems in convincing Condi Rice to take action and set up regular meetings for the anti-terrorist Principles group.  He had raised the issue in January, 2001...the first meeting wasn't until September 4.

--There was an effort to get $800 million transferred from the Pentagon budget for anti-terrorism purposes but Rumsfeld blocked it.

--Bush never talked about terrorism in the campaign, and was virtually silent [puplicly] about it prior to 9/11.  The Republican platform had nothing about Al Quaeda or bin Laden directed terrorism (but it did have a lot about Iraq).

--When Rice testified before a committee prior to 9/11 about the major threats faced by the U.S., she didn't even mention terrorism.  Nor did Attorney General Ashcroft.

--Tenet at CIA was also sounding warnings.  The intelligence chatter indicating potential terrorist attacks was virtually off the charts in the summer of 2001.  But Bush apparently didn't change the security or alert levels at airports, as Clinton had done in response to even lower-grade intelligence chatter a few years before. 

I don't hold Bush responsible for 9/11, although I don't believe he took the threat seriously enough...and less seriously than did Clinton.  Furthermore, I thought his response to the attacks was magnificent, and I--and other Democrats (including the Clintons--rallied behind him, while simultaneously listening to the Clinton haters on talk radio say "the blood of the thousands murdered was all on Clinton's hands."  It disgusted me that they would resort to cheap partisan smears in the immediate aftermath of this awful tragedy.

I have some links, which I will cite in my next post to you...whether you respond to this one or not.

Jer

Thanks, PeskyDane...and I'll continue to work on becoming better informed. <wink>

Later, Jer