Children are famous for becoming furious and going on the attack when they are caught red-handed in a transgression. The combination of displacement (changing the subject), turning passive into active (from being accused to accusing), and using anger to deny guilt is hard to resist for a child caught with their proverbial hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
Our ex-president Clinton, charming rogue that he might be, has always been recognized as having a childlike inability to restrain himself in almost every sphere and it occurred to me that along with the prosaic explanation for his unprecedented attack on his successor on the weekend talk shows offered by John Hinderaker at Powerline, there may be something more interesting at work. From Powerline we have this, Uncharted Territory, Once Again:
In recent years, the Democrats have violated many of the tacit conventions of civility that have enabled our political system to work for more than two centuries. Yesterday another barrier fell, and once again, we entered uncharted waters: former President Bill Clinton launched a vicious attack on President Bush on ABC's "This Week" program.
This has never happened before. Until now, both parties have recognized a patriotism that, at some level, supersedes partisanship. Consistent with that belief, former Presidents of both parties have stayed out of politics and have avoided criticizing their successors. Until now. The Democrats appear bent on destroying every element of the fabric that has united us as Americans.
Clinton's vicious attack is even worse in the context of his wife's Presidential bid: it is fair to assume that he was motivated not only by partisanship, but by his own desire to re-occupy the White House, and, most likely, wield once more the levers of power.
Then there is this, from Captain Ed, Able Danger: Closed Hearings?:
AJ Strata notes that the Senate Judiciary Committee has come under pressure from the Pentagon to close its Able Danger hearings to the public, just when it has finally acknowledged finding three additional witnesses that corroborate the identification of Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers over a year before the attacks. Why would the Pentagon want the hearings closed?
Maybe the Able Danger story has been overly hyped by the blogosphere (in direct proportion to the lack of interest by the LMSM*), however, it seems that as time goes on more and more information leaks out confirming aspects of the Able Danger as reported. If the Congressional Investigations blow the lid off of Able Danger, it is impossible to see the LMSM hiding the fact that this was a blunder of Titanic proportions and that it occurred under the Clinton watch, aided and abetted by such luminaries as Sandy Berger and Jamie Gorelick.
Which raise the question in my mind: Was this in the back of Bill Clinton's mind when he launched his infantile and unprecedented attack on Bush over the weekend?
With any luck, we will know more in the next few weeks.
*LMSM: LaMeStreamMedia
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