Fiddling

Yesterday, Rocket Man reported on how Bill Clinton’s malfeasance with respect to Al Qaeda may finally catch up with him (as it has with the U.S.) as the result of the reporting of Richard Miniter. Today, however, Robert Novak, our least favorite conservative columnist, seems to shift the blame away from Clinton and onto Madelaine Albright, William Cohen, Janet Reno, and George Tenet. According to Novak, by the time of the attack on the USS Cole, in October 2000, Clinton, “had focused on the terrorist threat.” But at a cabinet level meeting his top advisors couldn’t agree that bin Laden was behind the attack and/or that the attack was “sufficiently provocative” to justify a heavy bombing campaign in Afghanistan. Thus, they did not recommend retaliation.
We can only speculate what Clinton was doing while his administration was deciding to give bin Laden a pass.