Clinton Rushes to Beat Bush to Disaster Site
Back to the Bill Clinton's Role in This Attack Page
Back to the Clinton Criminal Page
NewsMax.com
Thursday Sept. 13, 2001; 9:17 p.m. EDT
In a craven attempt to upstage his successor George Bush, ex-president Bill Clinton rushed to the site of the World Trade Center disaster Thursday where he attempted to reprise his role as "Comforter in Chief."
Earlier in the day Bush told New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki that he would travel to Manhattan Friday to survey the wreckage and send the city a message of support.
But just hours after Bush announced his New York trip, Clinton materialized at the scene of the collapsed Twin Towers, coaxing several women who were distraught over missing relatives into awkward hugs.
One sobbing woman accosted by the ex-president was clearly more interested in having the photo of her loved one broadcast on TV than participating in any photo-op with the has-been politician.
It's unclear how Clinton, who had been traveling in Australia, managed to re-enter the country -- since the nationwide ban on air travel had been lifted only hours before he arrived in lower Manhattan.
At one point during Clinton's attempt to upstage Bush, Fox News Channel's Brian Kilmeade grilled him on whether he missed a chance to prevent the worst terrorist attack in world history during his own presidency.
KILMEADE: Mr. President, there's a report today that you had the best shot at (Osama bin Laden) in December, in the waning weeks of your presidency and at the last minute you said "No, too much of a risk." How true is that?
CLINTON: No, it's not true. The best shot we had at Osama bin Laden was when I bombed his training camp in 1998 and we missed him by just a matter of hours. Maybe even less than an hour.
KILMEADE: Do you feel somewhat responsible?
CLINTON: Well, let me say this. We tripled the intelligence budget for counterintelligence -- for counterterrorism. (Bob's Note: Another lie by Blow Job Clinton. He bragged about cutting the budget for counterintelligence and then sold our nation's secrets to the Chinese including the secure communications technology used to coordinate this horror!)Because I believed, as I said, that these kind of threats would be the most likely ones.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: