Home > BILL CLINTON, ANTI WAR ??? by FAIR
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Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
Times, Post and Bill Clinton’s dishonesty slide
The New York Times and Washington Post (11/28/07) both failed to adequately challenge the dishonesty of former President Bill Clinton’s declaration that he had been opposed to the Iraq War "from the beginning." Clinton, in fact, was a supporter of the war, both before the invasion and in the first year or so of the fighting.
In the Times’ words, though, Clinton’s new stance was just "more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003." The Times went on to claim that around the time of the invasion, "Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war," though he "has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush had done."
The Post’s account was similarly muddled, with the paper noting that Clinton was "glossing over the more nuanced views of the war he has expressed over time," though "past remarks made by the former president do leave open a question about how fervently Clinton opposed the war at the outset." The Post returned to the story the next day (11/29/07), repeating that Clinton "went far beyond more nuanced remarks he made about the conflict in 2003." The Post did try to challenge Clinton’s position by noting that he had participated in briefings with key Bush administration officials, and had allegedly expressed support for the invasion plan.
But Clinton’s public support for the war is a matter of record. Just before George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair invaded Iraq, Clinton published an op-ed in the London Guardian (3/18/03) urging Britons to "Trust Tony’s Judgment":
As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties.... But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.
Clinton’s column included the less-than-prescient prediction that "military action probably will require only a few days."
Soon after the invasion (3/30/03), Clinton appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes with former Senator Robert Dole and endorsed the war, saying, "Senator, unlike some of your Republican friends during Kosovo, I support our troops in Iraq and the president." (Note that while one can support the troops but not the war, supporting the president in Iraq means supporting the war.)
In a 2004 interview with Time magazine (6/28/04), Clinton reiterated this before-the-fact support for the invasion: "You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over."
Clinton went on to claim that Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons were of concern, especially after the September 11 attacks:
So, you’re sitting there as president, you’re reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I’ve got to do that. That’s why I supported the Iraq thing.
Clinton added: "So that’s why I thought Bush did the right thing to go back. When you’re the president, and your country has just been through what we had, you want everything to be accounted for."
Remarks like these should be referenced when a political figure attempts to dramatically recast his record. But establishment media go out of their way to avoid questioning powerful politicians, especially presidents: "You can’t say the president is lying," as New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller once proclaimed (Extra!, 1-2/05).
The papers of record have given George W. Bush license to eliminate well-known events from the recent history of Iraq, claiming of Saddam Hussein (7/14/03): "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in." As FAIR pointed out (7/18/03), in fact, after a Security Council resolution was passed demanding that Iraq allow inspectors in, they were given complete access to the country; their well-publicized search for the non-existent WMDs was ongoing until four months before Bush’s claim. The Washington Post (7/15/03), describing Bush’s remarkable statement, could only say that his assertion "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring."
Bush has repeatedly made the same claim (1/27/04, 3/21/06, 5/24/07, 11/7/07; see Consortium News, 11/9/07), with little or no note taken by the news outlets that chronicle his every move. "Historians will wonder someday how a free press permitted the world’s most important official to say such things without contradiction," Salon’s Joe Conason reported (3/31/06).
When politicians are allowed to get away with making such bold misstatements, it can only serve to embolden others to do the same, since there would seem to be no downside to lying. Indeed, at a Republican candidates’ debate in June, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offered his own version of the weapons inspector lie, to little media note (FAIR Action Alert, 6/8/07). Perhaps the press was just treating him as they would if he actually were president.
ACTION: Ask the Washington Post and New York Times why their reports on Clinton’s misstatement did not more forcefully challenge his record on the Iraq War.
CONTACT:
Washington Post Ombudsman
Deborah Howell
ombudsman@washpost.com
(202) 334-7582
New York Times Public Editor
Clark Hoyt
public@nytimes.com
(212) 556-7652
http://www.fair.org
http://internationalnews.over-blog.com/article-14313726.html
Forum posts
4 December 2007, 04:23
Good point. The more often the left fairly and accurately critiques itself, or, in this case, a President who claims to be left but acted far more right wing, the better off it will be. For too long the left blindly defended Bill, claiming that no one should care about whether he had sex with Monica, or any other person. In general that’s a good rule, but in Bill’s case he had it in the office, conspicuously with a troubled woman who couldn’t keep a secret.
What if you had sex in the office and were caught? Would you be fired? Or it was the CEO of Coke or GE? Would they be fired? Yep. But OK, let’s look the other way; we’re all adults here. The disturbing part, as many right wingers have claimed, was that Bill perjured himself. That’s a felony. And if for some reason it’s not a felony for him then why should it be a felony for anyone?
The story’s out now that Bill would’ve told the truth and acknowledged he did have sex with Monica, except that Hillary didn’t want him to admit it. Sound familiar? Hillary has a profound problem acknowledging human deficiencies, such as her vote to give W preemptive power to attack Iraq. It was a grave miscalculation and every Democrat running for President who voted that way has admitted it, except for Hillary. Somehow she believes that appearance trumps actuality. She seems to believe that most of the people can be fooled most of the time.
Poor Bill, he just follows right along like a puppy dog. Why’s he now out there saying he opposed the war when in fact he didn’t? To polish his own record? Nope. To paint Hillary as an actual left winger. To provide Hillary with a patina of decency that she doesn’t in fact have. It’s a joke. And you’d be an idiot to support her or vote for her. Don’t be duped; too many people have been already.
The American people have had enough snake oil. Enough flipflopping. Enough deceit. For God’s sakes let any of the other more deserving candidates get the nomination. Why should 14 years of deceit be rewarded with the highest post in the land? Is that the kind of candidate you want leading us in a world that’s on the verge of WWIII?
Another point the Clintons - this era’s greatest revisionists - are making that’s patently false is that Bill orchestrated balancing the budget. In fact, Bill insisted originally that the budget couldn’t be balanced. It was Newt Gingrich who wrangled the House into balancing the budget, not Bill Clinton. And it was also Gingrich, for better and for worse, who provided Bill with the Contract with America, including the gutting of welfare, the repeal of affirmative action, etc. And yet you constantly hear African-Americans say, "Bill was the first black President." Really. With friends like that the disadvantaged don’t need enemies.
If you’re a profressional whose career has been ruined by the shift in economic affairs and you’re now parking cars at Home Depot or managing a Taco Bell, don’t forget to thanlk Bill for that as well. Rather than being given credit for the boom times, which mostly helped the junk bond crew, Bill should be held responsible for all the damage NAFTA and other moves he made have done to this country.
The Clintons were, are, and will remain BAD NEWS. Cut the tie to them now and spare the country another 4 or even worse 8 years of lousy leadership.
4 December 2007, 19:43
The Clintons and the Bushes are incapable of telling the truth. One can see the lies reveal themselves as the corrupt ones forgot what lies they told in the past. Hillary is not in any way one who will represent the people. She and her fellow politicians represents the CORPORATE WORLD.