For Some Muslims, Osama Video Prompts Clintonesque Reaction
Back to the Clintons Role in This Attack Page
NewsMax.com
Friday, Dec. 14, 2001 1:22 a.m. EST
Devotees of Osama bin Laden around the world borrowed a page from ex-President Clinton's damage control handbook on Thursday, when they dismissed as "doctored" a smoking gun videotape featuring the al-Qaeda leader bragging about the 9/11 attacks.
"This is shameful," said Abdul Latif Arabiat, head of Jordan's mainstream Islamist party the Islamic Action Front, in an interview with Reuters. "Do the Americans really think the world is that stupid to think that they would believe that this tape is evidence?"
"In my view this tape has been fabricated by Washington to condemn bin Laden and conceal America's ugly crimes in Afghanistan. I don't see it as an indictment or proof against bin Laden," said Yousef Abdul Hamid, an Amman taxi driver.
In Egypt, terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta's father dismissed the tape as a "forgery."
While there may be no comparison between the crimes committed by bin Laden and the disgraced former occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., clearly fans of the terrorist mastermind have learned a thing or two from Clinton spinmeisters.
Ten years ago next month, when Gennifer Flowers released audiotapes proving that she and the then-Democratic presidential candidate had been romantically involved, Clinton operatives George Stephanopoulos and James Carville insisted to reporters her tapes had been doctored.
Hardened reporters who now scoff at Arab skepticism over the bin Laden video took to referring to Flowers' evidence as "the alleged tapes."
Six years later, when another set of audiotapes emerged featuring Monica Lewinsky discussing her Clinton affair with Linda Tripp, his defenders sounded like the disgruntled Arabs quoted above.
Rather than admit what she and everybody else knew, Hillary Clinton used "The Today Show" to charge that a vast right wing conspiracy had fabricated the story, much the same way some in the Mideast now blame 9/11 on a global Zionist cabal.
Stephanopoulos popped up again, this time as a "journalist," and actually became the first to mention impeachment from his then-new perch on ABC's "This Week."
But like extremists who can't accept the bin Laden smoking gun, the former Clinton operative was still in denial over Flowers, so much so that he repeated during one radio interview the old canard that her tapes had been doctored.
At least Mideast disbelievers can hang their hats on the bin Laden video's extremely muddy audio and the possibility that his Arabic may have been mistranslated.
But what was the excuse for Democratic Party spinmeister Victor Kamber three years ago, when he insisted to Fox News, "Just because his semen is on her dress doesn't mean they had sex." And that was after DNA tests proved a Clinton-Lewinsky relationship.
Bin Laden tape skeptics can also take comfort in the words of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Ak., who reportedly told prosecutors during Clinton's impeachment trial, "I don't care if you've got video of him raping a woman then shooting her dead, we're not going to vote to convict."
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
A product that might interest you:
Trooper Patterson`s tapes: "More Than Sex: Secrets of Bill & Hillary Revealed!"