Clinton: Not Only Was Iraq A "Mistake," But Whole War on Terror Is Inconsequential

On the Bias by Omission Watch, over at TKS, Jim Geraghty responds to the teen-idol Bill Clinton cover story at Esquire by recounting the more shocking parts of a New Republic story on Clinton yammering at his Global Initiative meeting. Check out what Geraghty bolded:

And, perhaps most striking, in a discussion of climate change, Clinton cast the war on terrorism as a blip on the radar of history: "[W]e have become arrogant in the present. All of us. Osama bin Laden's arrogant in the present. I mean, he really thinks it matters if he blows us up and kicks a few thousand American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia or whatever. And we really think it matters if we blow him up, more than how we all live and how people will be living 100 years from now."

It was a startling statement to hear so close to Ground Zero. Yet there seemed to be nary a critic in the house. After Clinton's closing remarks on Saturday afternoon — which featured a genuinely affecting sermon on AIDS in Africa — one man turned to the attendee next to him and declared, "He'd be elected president of the world if he were to run!" But Clinton is finished running. Mere mortals can never grant him the title he craves: messiah.

I'm stunned. Clinton is saying it didn't really matter that our American soldiers were blown up in the Khobar Towers while he was president (and by extension, our fighting men on the USS Cole, and the embassy personnel in Kenya and Tanzania, not to mention the thousands killed on 9-11). My first reaction is: this is a deeply silly and self-obsessed thing to say. Second, Clinton is wrong. The completely inconsequential figure in the War on Terror is Bill Clinton. Has he seriously considered how he will be evaluated 100 years from now? "Hmm, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush. Who was Clinton? Oh yeah, the Oral Sex President."

PS: If you're scrolling Geraghty, then don't miss how what he clipped from Tony Blankley's column yesterday on Vietnam-era peaceniks: "They plan to finish their careers as they started them — in defeatism, betrayal and national dishonor. Oh, that America might see the last of these fish-eyed sacks of loathsome bile and infamy: Unwholesome in their birth; repugnant and stench-forming in their decline."