Hillary: National Security Is My New Top Priority
Bob's Note: Yeah right BITCH! Gee, wasn't it just a couple years ago that you accepted gigantic bribes in an envelope, you personally-not some flunky, from Charlie Trie, to subvert America's military? Something about selling US technology to China in exchange for campaign dollars. Didn't you say you "loathed the military" and treated your very own Secret Service agents like shit? So what changed your mind? Or is it just an act? Surround yourself with stupid people Hillary; they are the only ones who will take you seriously.
NewsMax.com
Saturday, May 18, 2002 12:09 a.m. EDT
Casting aside her usual agenda of health care issues and education concerns, presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Friday night that her new No. 1 priority is national security.
Just a day after she called for an investigation into President Bush's prior knowledge of the 9-11 attacks, Mrs. Clinton told a Dix Hills, N.Y., audience: "I see three very large challenges. First - national security."
"Make no mistake about it," she explained. "Our adversaries are determined, they're ruthless and they are a continuing threat to us."
Adopting a stern, commander in chief-like tone, Clinton continued, "We have made an extraordinary success of the initial operations in Afghanistan. And I'm extremely proud of our men and women in uniform."
Then, playing to the home-state crowd, Clinton noted the Americans on the ground are Special Forces and 10th Mountain Division soldiers "from right here in New York."
Oblivious to long-standing complaints that her husband's administration decimated the military and traded national security secrets for campaign cash, Clinton continued to harp on the security theme.
"The national security challenge is one that is global in scope and encompasses not just the current battlefield in Afghanistan but serious threats throughout the world," she warned. "It is a different kind of war than any ever fought before."
Saying she was drawing on her encounters with military personnel who served in her husband's administration, the New York senator noted, "This is a new kind of military mission. And we have to stay committed, we have to have patience and we have to be aware of the extraordinary dangers that they confront."
At one point during the address to the Half Hollow Hills High School crowd, Clinton seemed to be borrowing a page from President Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech:
"Our challenge is much more pervasive than it would be if we were just facing one enemy in one place. [But there's] the Middle East, Iraq, North Korea, Iran. There's a relatively long list that we believe are linked to the al Qaeda network - in the Philippines, in Indonesia and in Yemen and other places. That makes it very clear that this is a global network."
Clinton said homeland security was the second of the three challenges that were now a top priority.
Reminding the audience that Americans haven't had to worry about domestic attacks since the war of 1812, Clinton warned that things have changed.
"We have to worry about our nuclear plants, our utilities, our chemical plants. We have to worry about our ports, our railroads, our tunnels, our bridges, our northern border with Canada," she explained.
"I've been working very hard on this since 9-11," Clinton told the crowd, before declaring that the third big challenge America faces is everything else that was important on Sept. 10.
When her speech was over she answered only questions that were submitted in writing and prescreened, then she autographed programs from well-wishers.
When NewsMax.com approached with a question about her call for a 9-11 probe into the Bush White House, she ended the signing session, waved politely and retreated to a private reception.
Learn how the Clintons undermined U.S. national security from former White House insider Gary Aldrich, in his exclusive "Off the Record" interview with NewsMax.com.
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She Will Run! Hillary Clinton's Plans for the PresidencyNewsMax.com
Saturday, May 18, 2002 2:20 p.m. EDT
White House Goes Limp as Hillary Attacks
"The White House declared war on Sen. Hillary Clinton yesterday for suggesting President Bush mishandled pre-Sept. 11 intelligence warnings," asserts the New York Daily News in Saturday editions.
And just what does Bush's Hillary "war" consist of? Not much, it turns out.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer cautiously informed reporters of his "disappointment" that Mrs. Clinton had pounced on Thursday's New York Post front page headline, "Bush Knew," complaining that she "did not ask if [the charge] was accurate or not."
"Clinton immediately went to the floor of the Senate, and I'm sorry to say that she followed that headline and divided [America]," he added.
If Hillary was still smarting over Fleischer's "attack" Friday night, it certainly wasn't evident in her demeanor during an address to a Dix Hills, N.Y., audience, where she heralded national security as her new cause celebre. (See: Hillary: National Security Is My New Top Priority)
In a speech covered exclusively by NewsMax.com, the New York senator sounded every bit the presidential candidate she denies she is. And, just in case anyone missed the point, she even borrowed heavily from Bush's "Axis of Evil" State of the Union address.
Before it declared "war" on Hillary, the White House decided to honor her impeached husband by giving him his first official Bush administration assignment of his already checkered post-presidential career. The disbarred ex-president is now representing America as head of a U.S. delegation to East Timor.
Clinton promptly expressed his gratitude for the goodwill gesture during an interview with National Public Radio's Tavis Smiley, where he suggested that Bush was an illegitimate president.
"A lot of folks know we [Democrats] won the popular vote last time. Some of us think we won Florida. And I'm one of them," he cheerfully announced.
Meanwhile, radio and cable TV talk shows are filled with conservative outrage over Hillary's attack - especially in light of the numerous 9-11 warnings her husband ignored.
Yet the Bush White House steadfastly refuses to take the gloves off and hit the Clintons where they're most vulnerable - by citing their sorry record on terrorism and national security.
In truth, the Bushes, both father and son, have never learned how to wage war on the Clintons. Bush 41 lost the White House 10 years ago because he refused to engage in the kind of political streetfighting Bill and Hillary have made their trademark.
And the only reason his son is president now is because Mr. Clinton couldn't run for a third term.
There was no way for President Bush to have prevented the 9-11 attacks - and criticism that suggests otherwise is as despicable as it is outrageous.
But he has ample warning of what could turn out to be an even worse national security nightmare: President Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The question is will Bush do what it takes to avert that disaster.
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