Here's a little throwback for my dear readers. This is the first Op-Ed I penned for the St. Cloud Weekly Buzz back in early August of 2006. Given Hillary's push for the White House, it's worth noting some of the Clinton era facts contained herein. Enjoy (or do not).
Despite record heat, there was a grilling on Capitol Hill Thursday as New York Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton ripped into Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then called for President Bush to accept his resignation. While a number of Democrats have been calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation for some time, Clinton until now had stopped short of that. Clinton, a potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, voiced harsh criticism of Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars stating, “We hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration’s strategic blunders and frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy.” The Senator went on to say that she couldn’t “understand why we can’t get new leadership that would give us a fighting chance to turn the situation around before it’s too late.” There certainly isn’t anyone, especially amongst conservatives, who doubts that Senator Clinton is an extension of her husband and that her true position and agenda are masked with a thin and equally transparent shellac (if you will) that she so craft fully paints herself with in an attempt to make her attractive to moderates while at the same time appeasing her constituents. She’s essentially trying to have her cake and eat it too and this posturing is certainly no different than any other failed attempt on her part.
That Senator Clinton is even on the Senate Armed Services Committee makes about as much sense to me as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chastising the United States for meddling in middle eastern affairs by supporting Israel all the while they are supporting Hezbollah. In that I witnessed the New York Senator of all people chastising Rumsfeld was completely over the top. For me, what I can’t help but remind our readers is that the former first lady has been scrutinized by members of her own political party for voting for the war in 2002 in addition to her current opposition, for which she was recently booed, to setting a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal. So what does Senator Clinton do? She makes yet another calculated political move by calling Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before the Senate Armed Services Committee to confront him about the Bush Administration’s failed policy and incompetency knowing full well that she can gain some political ground with members of her own party.
The Clintons have an unattractive record when it comes to National Security and Defense. It’s become apparent that the former first lady has forgotten that her husband had two terms as well as ample opportunity to resolve the very middle east conflicts for which the Bush administration is currently engaged in having to deal with. Surely her husband Bill knows this because released Joint Congressional Committee reports on 9/11 confirm how lapses occurred during his presidency resulting in missed opportunities to focus on the growing terror threat. This explains why the former President defended President Bush’s position on Iraq back in August of 2003. Yet, it seems Senator Clinton has forgotten all of this as well as the fact that her husband was running up a $72 million travel tab, over sixty million of which came directly from the defense budget, on trips to Chile, Africa, and China. Has she forgotten that we nearly ran out of smart bombs in Kosovo. Does Senator Clinton know that, while in office, her husband did not allow for defense spending to keep pace with inflation thus falling from over $300 billion to well below the $270 billion he inherited in 1993? And certainly she must know that her husband was also a consistent opponent of missile defense, and someone who did absolutely nothing of significant consequence when weapons inspectors were ejected by Iraq. Nor did he prevent missile and weapons technology transfers by Red China to nations such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq (countries currently being dealt with by the Bush administration). During a televised address in August of 1998 her husband declared that we must take on the bin Laden terrorist network, only to have them launch an attack on the USS Cole two years following that address. Then of course who can forget the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, killing six and injuring a thousand others, in which the former first lady’s husband vowed to hunt down and punish those responsible, followed by the 1995 Saudi Arabia bombing which killed five U.S. military personnel where again he vowed to hunt down those responsible. Again he issued more tough talk after the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 and injured 200 U.S. military personnel, followed by the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa which killed 224 and injured 5,000.
You’ve got to hand it to Rumsfeld who remained the cool cucumber in the salad of Thursday’s summer grill fest. I think it was quite fitting that Secretary Rumsfeld thanked Senator Clinton for seconding the motion to have him come before the Armed Services Committee to respond to allegations of failed policy and an incompetent record in executing such a policy. There’s no question that, as first lady to Bill’s two terms, she became an expert on the subject.
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