Bill Clinton takes on the fake outrage over the Patreaus Betray Us ad:

Condi Rice shot back this morning at Bill Clinton, to say they did try to get Bin Laden before 9/11.

Oh really? Think Progress lays out the reactions of both adminstrations concerning warnings of terrorists attacks:

The 9/11 Commission Report contradicts Rice's claims. On December 4, 1998, for example, the Clinton administration received a President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks." Here's how the Clinton administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report:

The same day, [Counterterrorism Czar Richard] Clarke convened a meeting of his CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] to discuss both the hijacking concern and the antiaircraft missile threat. To address the hijacking warning, the group agreed that New York airports should go to maximum security starting that weekend. They agreed to boost security at other East coast airports. The CIA agreed to distribute versions of the report to the FBI and FAA to pass to the New York Police Department and the airlines. The FAA issued a security directive on December 8, with specific requirements for more intensive air carrier screening of passengers and more oversight of the screening process, at all three New York area airports. [pg. 128-30]

On August 6, 2001, the Bush administration received a President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." Here's how the Bush administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report:

[President Bush] did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so.[p. 260]

We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford, Texas, on August 17 and participated in the PDB briefings of the President between August 31 (after the President had returned to Washington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President of the domestic threat during this period. [p. 262]

Well, the big dog finally got off the porch. Bill Clinton's face-off with Chris Wallace on Fox News is what the Dems have needed for a long time.

Clinton has been very quiet these last six years, trying to act like the statesman. But in that time, there has been an unrelenting effort to revise the history of his presidency in order to serve the political spin of the Republican party.

The narrative that I hear every day is that even if you think George W. Bush is a total disaster, at least he is doing something, because Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism, and everything is his fault anyway.

What Clinton did this weekend was to point that he did plenty, far more than the Bush team did.

But it's more than just staightening out the facts that is important. It's the shrillness of the defense that should wake Democrats up and get them to fight. They need to destroy this narrative of Clinton as a do-nothing president. The facts are on the Dems' side. Clinton was actively engaged in going after Osama and the Taliban when he left office. But Bush dropped the ball until 9/11 gave him the chance to pretend he was a real leader.

If Democrats fail to take up the fight on this issue, then they deserve to get beat like a Gitmo detainee.

Bill Clinton's exchage with Fox News' Chris Wallace brings up some interesting perspective on just how the Republicans acted back then:

Wallace: But the question is, why didn't you connect the dots and put him out of business?

Clinton: Let's talk about it. I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative running their little pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 commission report with three things asserted against me directly contradictory to the 9/11 commission report. And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who
now say I didn't do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden.

All of President Bush's neo-cons that I was too obsessed with bin Laden, they had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say I didn't do enough, said
I did too much, the same people. They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

OK, now let's look at all the criticisms, Black Hawk Down, Somalia, there is not a living soul in the
world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down or was paying any attention to it, or even knew al-Qaeda was a going concern in October 93.

So, let's see. The Republicans accused Clinton of being too obsessed with bin Laden. They wanted him to pull the troops out of Somolia after the Battle of Mogidishu. They called for pulling out of Bosnia and Kosovo.

Yet today, if a Democrat suggests we have a timetable for withdrawing from the disaster in Iraq, they are traitors.