Robert Rubin, who, as Joe Klein showed, was a major obstacle to shutting down terrorist financial networks in the last decade, now steps up to the plate. No mention of his own past failures. Perhaps he hopes no-one will notice.
THE PACIFIST LEFT ORGANIZES: If the following excerpt from the September 27 newsletter of the left-liberal group ActForChange is any guide, the Taliban need to be very, very scared by the way some activists are gearing up to respond to the September 11 Massacre. One suggestion? Write the Taliban ambassador! “We have even located a way to contact the only accessible public representative of the Taliban!” the excited activists write. “It remains important to let decision-makers know that we are engaged in civic life and attentive to the responses being made on behalf of the American people … Please consider the following actions … Tell the Taliban What You Think. The Taliban has been roundly condemned in the international community for providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and other known terrorists in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. If you wish to send a message to Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, calling on the group to turn over bin Laden and ease the oppression of women and relief workers in Afghanistan, ActForChange will print out your e-mail and mail or fax it to him.” I’m sure you can arrange a flowery American greetings card as well.
IT’S NOT CLINTON’S FAULT – NOTHING EVER IS: One theme of the largely obscene torrent of pro-Clinton emails is a revealing one. Rather than question the obvious fact of the last administration’s ultimate responsibility for national security, they argue that the Republicans are at fault for distracting Clinton with what they now call a “jihad” against the president. This follows the usual pattern, fomented by Clinton himself, that he is never to be held responsible for anything ever (except all the good things that happened on his watch). Even after close to 7,000 innocent deaths, Clinton is still the victim. I have a brief response to this in three parts. The president need not have done things that resulted in a sexual harassment lawsuit against him in the first place. The president could easily have settled such a suit years before it metastasized into impeachment. The president could have told the truth as soon a the Lewinsky scandal hit and defused the entire situation. The responsibility for his distraction is ultimately his alone. That’s what responsibility means. That’s what accountability means. As president, he actually had a duty to defuse that situation in order to function effectively as commander-in-chief. But he chose his own political suicide instead. I opposed convicting the president; and thoroughly criticized the Starr Report. But that doesn’t mean the president should be excused for avoiding responsibility and accountability. And the fact that those ideas were so thoroughly trashed by Clinton himself is only further proof of the damage he did to the culture and the government.
The Dish 