Blame game

About who's more to blame for not doing enough to capture Bin Laden...

The recent firestorm over former President Bill Clinton's culpability for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was fueled on Tuesday when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice contrasted President Bush's efforts to pursue al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with Clinton's efforts. Clinton has strongly denied various suggestions that his administration missed key opportunities to kill bin Laden and left the Bush administration without a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy. However, Bush -- whom Clinton says did nothing about al-Qaeda for the first eight months of his presidency -- has the bigger image problem with Americans on the issue.

According to a recent Gallup Panel survey, the American public puts the primary blame on Bush rather than Clinton for the fact that bin Laden has not been captured. A majority of Americans say Bush is more to blame (53%), compared with 36% blaming Clinton.

I remember the "wag the dog" comments from Republicans when Clinton tried to kill Bin Laden. Hell, there was a movie made about the subject.

For those same critics of Clinton to ay that he didn't do enough is rather disingenuous. Unlike the current President, I think Clinton would have acted differently is he was given a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to stike the United States" and I'm positive his Secretary of State wouldn't have been hitting tennis balls with Monica Seles and shopping for shoes in New York City while people were dying in New Orleans in front of everyone's eyes.

Clinton was many things but the label "incompetent" isn't one of them.