RUSH: We’re going to switch gears here and go to CBS Early Show today, the cohost Harry Smith talked to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer. Now, we’ve talked about Scheuer in the past. Keep in mind Scheuer is no fan of Bush, no fan of the Bush administration, and no fan of the war in Iraq, but he was involved in one of these CIA missions to get bin Laden. Harry Smith, I’m sure, thinks he’s doing a piece here to defend Clinton against this neocon, vast right-wing conspiracy assault on their beloved fearless leader on Fox on Sunday. The question is, “President Clinton basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify?”
About that, and talking about presidential and character. I mean, we’ve all heard about how rotten and dumb and lightweight George W. Bush is, have you ever heard him blame his administration? He stands and he bucks them up, he supports them, he doesn’t dump on them. Only a man who is obsessed with himself in a narcissistic way and knows that he’s telling lies to himself, ends up believing his lies. Only a guy who knows he didn’t do anything serious in his administration is trying to create the impression after the fact that he did, would dump on his own department head, his own cabinet, CIA, FBI, as though he was powerless. Richard Clarke wrote about that, too. The reason Clinton was powerless was because he had a little aversion to the military because of his Vietnam experiences, his letter that he wrote to Colonel Holmes, Lewinsky situation. Clinton was handcuffed in his own mind. He was handcuffed by his previous behavior. He was in a straitjacket, he couldn’t operate without threatening the approval rating and the legacy and so forth. Clarke makes this point clear, that that was Clinton’s attitude. So now you gotta dump on the FBI, you gotta dump on the CIA, and now after those people are gone and they can’t react to it, it is classic childish CYA, and it certainly is not presidential.
Here’s the whole question. “President Clinton basically laid the blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. Does that ring true with you, Michael Scheuer?”
SCHEUER: No, sir, I don’t think so. Former president seems to be able to deny facts with impunity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sandy Berger and Mr. Richard Clarke refused to kill him. That’s the bottom line. And every time he says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA especially, and the men who risked their lives to give his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden.
RUSH: Harry Smith stunned at this, says, ‘Is the Bush administration any less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?’
SCHEUER: There’s plenty of blame to go around, sir, but the fact of the matter is the Bush administration had one chance that they botched, and the Clinton administration had eight to ten chances that they refused to try. At least at Tora Bora our forces were on the ground. We didn’t push the point. But it’s just — it’s an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them.
RUSH: Remember, this is no friend of George W. Bush speaking, Michael Scheuer, former CIA agent. He’s saying Clinton didn’t even try, and yet the famous bite from that interview yesterday with Clinton losing it, purple rage, eyes bugging out, pointing that finger at poor little Chris Wallace, had — (interruption) what? CBS. CBS is in the on the conspiracy to get Clinton along with ABC. Don’t forget, I’ve been a commentator on CBS, so I have connections to CBS as well as the writer of the movie 9/11 and ABC. So my fingerprints are very, very deep on this, in this conspiracy to get Clinton.
But he says here Clinton didn’t even try. Clinton blew up yesterday, said at least I tried, I tried and failed, but they didn’t even try, not once in eight months did they even try. Here’s Scheuer saying he didn’t even try.
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