Hollywood shouldn't write history, but because too many people won't open up a book it does. Bill Clinton understands this, which is why he seeks to alter an ABC drama that depicts him as getting too distracted with Monica Lewinsky to properly respond to terrorism and his administration calling off a counterterrorism operation that might have resulted in bin Laden's death. The 9/11 Report contains examples of the latter, and it seems perfectly reasonable to assert that the Lewinsky scandal distracted Bill Clinton. After all, it distracted the rest of the country and we weren't directly involved. The Nero-fiddled-while-Rome-burned characterization is a tough one to live down, but it's hard to look back on the unseriousness of the Clinton years--calls for school uniforms and sex scandals dominating the news cycle--and not think such thoughts. In Clinton's defense, even if the American public demands that their presidents see the future, they can't. Al Qaeda had killed a few dozen Americans prior to 9/11. As was the case with the pre-9/11 George W. Bush, al Qaeda was not priority one with Bill Clinton. He should stop reacting aghast when anyone, including the makers of a television miniseries, suggests this rather obvious point.

I read that Sandy Burglar was deeply offended at the suggestion the he blew the authorization to snag Bin Laden. This is the guy who got a slap on the wrist for stealing classified documents from the National Archives. Lucky he’s not deeply offended from a jail cell.

Are you kidding? Weren't you the same people who objected to the fictionalized CBS documentaty about Reagan?

The problem with this movie isn't that it critizes Clinton, its that it does so in a dishonest, unthruthful way. It makes up scenes and even entire events to burn the former president.

There's pleanty to critize both presidents for, there is no reason or need to make crap up just to smear them.

ABC should be ashamed and pull the "docudrama", jsut as CBS pulled its Reagan one.

what did they make up? cbs was provin wrong. so dont compare the 2.

Many scenes in the documentary can be proven wrong.

Off the top of my head I would say that Madeline Allbirght telling the Pakistanis to hide Bin Landen because an American attack was coming is just a little made-up.

BTW I remember when Clinton bombed Bin Laden. YOU repubs claimed he was "wagging the dog". Sean Hannity accused CLinton of making up Bin Laden just to get attention off Lewinsky.

Now you claim he didn't do enough? Please.

I would give anything to know what Sandy snitched from the National Archives.

He He,

What do you think about Michael Moore?

Just curious.

Michael Moore sucks. He's intellecually dishonest and makes the progressive movement look bad.

I agree with him on many things, gun control and Iraq for example. But he uses the same simplisitic, empty rehtoric that Bush does to make his points.

There are much better documentaries out there on Bush. Check out Frontline.

An Interview with Richard Clarke on the matter:

Q. I think it was [CIA bin Laden Desk Chief] Michael Scheuer who told us they were going to whack Osama bin Laden, and he says, "We were ready; we had them; we had Afghans on the side of the mountain, and the White House stopped it." It seems he's essentially saying it's politics, politics, politics.

A. Yeah. What frequently happens in my experience is people come to the White House from CIA or the Pentagon, senior people, for a crisis meeting, and a decision is made not to do something. Then they go back to the Pentagon, or they go back to the CIA, and they say, "Those folks at the White House made the decision" not to do something, rather than admitting to their own troops that when they got to the White House, their advice was "Don't do it."

I've seen this happen time and time again, where military officers go back to the Pentagon and say, "Oh, those politicians at the White House wouldn't let us use force." That trickles all the way down to the guys on the field, and they're all mad at the White House, when it was actually the general sitting at the table in the White House who said, "Oh, I don't think we ought to do this."

In the case of CIA, it's the same story. On three occasions, CIA, working-level people, thought they knew where bin Laden was, and at the White House's insistence, there were cruise missiles at the ready in submarines underwater off the coast of Pakistan, because the White House wanted to be in the situation where we could get information where bin Laden was and launch cruise missiles.

On those three occasions, I asked for high-level meetings in the White House, and the director of CIA, on those three occasions, came to those high-level meetings and recommended that we do nothing. The word gets back to folks in CIA that "Those politicians in the White House decided to do nothing."

Q. So this would be Tenet.

A. George Tenet, on three occasions, came to the White House -- and he's admitted this in testimony -- and looked at the evidence about where bin Laden allegedly was at the time, and we have cruise missiles ready to fly, and on all three occasions [he] said that the evidence didn't justify launching the cruise missiles.

Q. And do you remember this specific case?

A. I remember every one of them. But it was a location that was not a bin Laden camp, according to George Tenet; it was a visiting group of people from Dubai who go there all the time to falcon hunt. And it was Winnebagos and C-130s and satellite dishes -- very fancy little camp. It wasn't a guerrilla camp; it wasn't an Al Qaeda camp. And the director of CIA said -- appropriately, I think -- "Don't bomb that camp; it's not an Al Qaeda camp."

... But the reason they were out there in the first place looking for bin Laden is that we in the White House had gotten the president to sign an order that they could go in -- over the objections, by the way, of CIA leadership. We're on their case daily: "Where is bin Laden? What do we know about it? How many assets do you have in there trying to find him? We need to do more." Massive pressure from the president, the national security adviser and me. That's why they're out there in the first place, looking to find him.

Then on the three occasions when they said they knew where he was, the director of central intelligence and other senior leaders of the CIA said, "Don't fire." Then the rumor gets around in the CIA, "It was the politicians at the White House who said, 'Don't fire.'"

Q. Why would George Tenet and others not do it?

A. I think on one occasion there was a hospital across the street, and they were afraid of collateral damage. On one occasion it looked like it was visiting people from Dubai; it turned out it was. But on all these occasions, they only had one chain of reporting, what George Tenet told us was "single-threaded reporting," meaning you could be wrong.

Remember, they had been wrong and blown up a Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. They may have been wrong -- although I don't think so -- about a chemical plant in Sudan which we blew up. They were very careful; they wanted not to be wrong. So they erred on the side of "We don't know enough to pull the trigger."

That's why we insisted on having a Predator [unmanned aircraft] operation, because we said: "Look, if you're afraid of telling us to fire the trigger because you've only got single-threaded reporting from humans, we have the Predator up there. We're going to be able to sit in the Situation Room and see for ourselves what the evidence is." That's why we initiated the Predator program, again over CIA objections.

If I'm not wrong, Berger pilfered documents that showed that Clinton had information about a terrorist attack on LAX and that he disregarded it.

I don't remembeer what Berger stole was ever made public.

Something about the whole incident screams politics though, on both sides.

It was made public and there were no politics involved. Just the illegality and blatant disregard for law and protocol of a Clinton hired gun (surprise, surprise) who stole highly classified government documents and personally destroyed them. But, you see, this story is true. So naturally, as the Democrats only believe stories that aren't true, there is a disconnect for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGT1O30vIAo

Michael Moore loves gun control as long as his posse of security guards are allowed to carry one. He loves black people as long as he doesn't have to hire or live next to one. He loves the unions as long as none of his employees belong to one. He pays lip service to the evil medical companies but that doesn't prevent him from owning their stocks.

Michael Moore life is nothing more than a string of lies.

I don't like Michal Moore's tacics, but I don't think he's pretending not to be racist.