Oh, of course, he didn't tell me personally, but it might as well have been me.
On Monday, Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year student at Virginia Tech, lost his marbles and killed 32 people. On that day, I was so angry over this shooting, that I asked, "Why don't they just shoot themselves first?" In that post, I knew the person was seriously messed up but frankly, I didn't give a damn about whatever was going on inside him at the moment he snapped. I said:
Maybe he wanted to go down in history because his life wasn't worth it in the first place? Maybe he knew that he wouldn't get out alive or would face the Virginia death penalty? Maybe he just snapped after reportedly shooting his girlfriend in a domestic dispute? Maybe something else horrible happened to him? Maybe he was just a loser who couldn't control himself and wanted to inflict as much pain on others before he took himself out of the equation.
And I was so mad at this guy, that he would do something like that, that I wanted to smack him dead. I also wanted, in my heart of hearts, for some one to rise up and beat the crap out of the dude. I don't think I was actually thinking rationally, but more emotionally, more viscerally. That "someone" I was talking about were the students themselves.
I had been listening to an April 17th story related by Virginia Tech student, Erin Sheehen. Sheehen was one of only four students who survived Cho's rampage through their German class. They survived by playing dead and after Cho left, they blockaded the door and stopped Cho from returning to the room. It made my blood boil just hearing about what the kids and teachers went through. I applauded them for not letting him back into the room.
Maybe I've seen one too many kung fu or action hero movies. But everything in me screamed, "Just knock that fucker out."
That was complete and utter rage speaking. I was accused at Gothamist of blaming the students for not trying hard enough to stop the asshole with a gun. An asshole with a gun is a powerful thing. I guess I've known too many people to die from gunfire, and how much I hate guns. And people who shoot folks for no good reason. How much sometimes, I wish someone would just "knock the fucker out." Looking back, I realized that I was blaming the victim. I'm sorry.
So, I offer this conversation and this mea culpa. I am one of the worst people in the world.
"... Now I feared that the timing of the President's interrogation about the scandel, August 17, would get in the way of our hitting the al Qaeda meeting.
It did not. Clinton made clear that we were to give him our best national security advice, without regard to his personal problems. "Do you all recommend that we strike on the 20th? [August 1998, bin Laden was to meet with his top staff that day.] Fine. Do not give me political advice or personal advice about the timing. That's my problem. Let me worry about that." If we thought this was the best time to hit the Afghan camps, he would order and take the heat for "Wag the Dog" criticism that we all knew would happen, for the media and congressional reaction that would say that he was using a military strike to divert attention from his deposition in the investigation. (Wag the Dog was a movie that had been released that year, in which fictional presidential advisors create an artifical crisis with Albania to attack it and divert attention from domestic problems. Ironically, Clinton was blamed for a "Wag the Dog" strategy in 1998 dealing with the real threat from al Qaeda but no one labeled Bush's 2003 war on Iraq as a "Wag the Dog" move even though the "crisis" was manufactured to "run on the war.")
On August 20, 1998, CNN reported President Bill Clinton saying: "there will be no sanctuary for terrorists." Clinton had ordered U.S. airstrikes against bases in Afghanistan and Sudan, which were "[part of] a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism."
Americans who refuse to remember (or were not born/conscious at the time and have not learned history but have been told it through 3rd-hand pundits) are sleepwalking. It's maddening because they are sleepwalking to their own agenda, and that's an agenda of power, where they make the history and hope you're too dense or asleep to remember what actually happened.
(The Daily Show, in fact, had a brilliant piece tonight about the difference between a citizen pie eater in Budapest and a citizen pie eater in Springfield when both are told their governments have lied to them; the Hungarian stabs himself with remorse through the heart, the American just walks over to the other split screen and continues to eat pie as the Hungarian lays dying, but: To the Hungarians it's still about the idealistic faith; to Americans, it's about the pie. If you can't remember what kind of pie it was, then go back and read about how Hungary's leader lied about their economy just to ensure reelection. )
I remember screaming at the TV back in 1998, and living in New York as we were being threatened (yes, sure it was the entire country, but guess who had the bullseye painted downtown), and all I would hear from Republicans was that Clinton was wagging the fucking dog; all I remember hearing was that he wasn't doing anything about terrrorism, but then again, there was one useless and pointless "Gate" after another. While all this was happening, and we were really being threatened, 24/7 was a stupid battle over sex instead of action and concerted effort on the part of Republicans. The threat wasn't the Big Dog's sex life; it was the Little Dogs of the Republican Party trying to take him down, all day, all night, all the time. It never stopped.
Clinton may have fallen, but when the time came for the Republicans to cast aside their animosity and try and solve this al Qaeda problem, where were they? Questioning President William Jefferson Clinton about sex. Not al Qaeda. Why? Because of a blind, furious, and raging agenda to bring him to a place of humiliation, one way or the fucking other, no matter the risks we were under in the face of national security.
And that's the reality of the Clinton Years fighting al Qaeda. Republicans and all those who voted for Bush in 2000, and then again in 2004, betrayed the country as much as Clinton may have betrayed the sanctity of his marriage. I tell ya one thing, though, his wife forgave him; will the American people forgive Republicans when they finally wake from their long national sleepwalk? One day I will forgive myself for voting for Ralph Nader. Will you ever forgive yourselves for what you have done because you refuse to wake?
It's time, my friends on the right, who believe the hoopla of the Republican Party because of loyalty and not facts: It's time to wake up. Aren't you sick of being lied to? Aren't you tired of being scared? Aren't you tired of an administration of incompetent, blistering ninnies? I know I am. These guys in power today mean you no good.
Kick the bums out.
Keith Olbermann's ever sharp "Special Comment" (and the look on Joe Scarborough's face shortly thereafter) was priceless today. He basically told President Bush that the gig is up. The portable public chorus can't help you anymore, the truth is finally set free. Of Bill Clinton, Keith noted:
"At least I tried," he [Clinton] said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by anyone, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama Bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration… did… not… try.—
I suggest you go on over and read or click below to see Olbermann's comment, maybe it will wake you up.
Olbermann also noted that the Bush Administration is constantly trying to rewrite history. Well, we're over it. Clinton is over it. Olbermann is over it. I'm over it. Americans should be over it. Wake up Republicans, you should be over it, too.
