Kick to the Hind(sight)

Another lovely episode in American politics excreted explosively over the weekend, as former President Bill Clinton visited the hive of scum and villainy, Fox News, to promote his new Clinton Climate Initiative (i.e. vote for my wife in 2008).

No, they didn't have an impromptu makeout session.

Host Chris Wallace, shifting uncomfortably on top of the mind control device Rupert Murdoch inserted in his anus earlier in the evening, tap danced around the Initiative in order to slither into the following "reader question":

"Why didn't you do more to connect the dots and go after Osama Bin Laden (during your Presidency)?"

Clinton had the look of someone who had just been caught with his pants down in the Oval Office. Again.

Here is the classy, Gojira-like battle that ensued, in all of its partisan-screeching glory:



Feel the love?

Sure, hindsight certainly sees with clearer accuracy than, say, a red-eyed, pot smoking Rhodes scholar at three in the morning. The Republican machinery wishes to grind Clinton's legacy into a fine powdery dust, invoking the catastrophe of 9/11 in order to castrate Clinton for not seeing the unforseeable.

Clinton sadly, even remorsefully, tells the truth in one instance: "I tried, and I failed."

The Rush Limbaugh crowd of guffawing, 300-pound dittoheads will no doubt be playing that soundbite for years to come, reminding themselves of the utter incompetence of the Democrats while lauding the overbearing, master-race sensibilities of the Republicans. However, it's hard to remember the last time a politician admitted his major mistake in such stark, unflinching terms.

One thing we do need to remember, though: we ALL failed on September 11, 2001. Democrats and Republicans.

Sure, the Democratic White House in the nineties literally had Osama Bin Laden in their gunsights, but it was a different world then. It simply was not part of the game plan of the United States to start assassinating key political/ religious figures. That is why George H.W. Bush (oooh, a Republican, even!) didn't assassinate Saddam Hussein at the end of Desert Storm.

Republicans forget that for the first eight months of Bush's first term his administration officiated from a ranch in Texas. Bush did a little fishing and tree chopping, walked along dusty roads with his dog, and occasionally shot animals/people/air. The dire warnings left behind concerning bin Laden did not stifle Bush's vacation plans in any way.

The point is not to belittle Bush; genetics have already done the job in far more efficient fashion. Nor is it to harp on the failings of Clinton, who is a man far more intelligent than Bush, and also more of a liar.

We all have regrets in our life, moments when we wish we could see all the facts of the inrushing future and make a better choice than we did. Clinton probably did not act with the authority his office demanded of him in the nineties. Bush certainly did not heed critical warnings in the months prior to 9/11, with the attacks looming unknowingly over us all.

We look back, and we see their failings. BOTH men. BOTH parties.

Casting blame in hindsight is not 20/20. It is 0/0. Nobody wins, nobody cooperates, and everyone loses.