Saxaphone playing Bill was negligent in his duties. He was too busy golfing or looking for interns to get the job done. Quit trying to blame Bin Laden on Bush.
read Dereliction of Duty by Lt Col. Robert Patterson, the officer in charge of the nuclear football during bill's term.
here is one book review.
Dereliction of Duty is a first-hand witness' account of the inner workings of Bill Clinton's presidency, specifically concerning those matters which involve security and military command. The witness is credible and uniquely insightful too: formerly the military officer in charge of the president's "nuclear football" -- the satchel containing U.S. launch codes. This satchel must accompany the president everywhere he goes; therefore, so does the officer responsible for it. This person sees almost everything the president does and hears almost everything he says, especially in outdoor functions and trips outside Washington, but often inside the White House as well. [Even when the doors are closed between he and the President, the "football" is but feet away, on the other side of a wall or door.] Buzz Patterson had that role in the Clinton administration.
Commendably, this is not a "kiss and tell" tome, despite the rantings of some detractors (many of whom have not actually read the book). Instead, Patterson's tone is very plain spoken and strongly informational, letting the scandalous events speak for themselves and only occasionally allowing his own feelings of frustration blink through. This is not a creative writing exercise. Patterson instead writes militarily but still compellingly. Crisply candid and matter of fact in style, Patterson concisely packs several years of experience into just 148 pages, not counting a couple of surprisingly interesting appendices. Sharply focused, unencumbered by tangents and irrelevant wanderings, wonderfully devoid of fluff and useless banter, this book is stuffed with details only someone in the inner circle would know. The pace marches along, steadily, surehandedly and rapid-fire, as one would expect from a high military officer sworn above all to uphold this country's honor. Every page clips along quickly with new pieces of information and insight into a president who quite clearly was not only ignorant of the military, but often ambivalent about it and sometimes downright loathsome of our armed services.
As one may expect, given who was Commander in Chief, there are some shocking revelations: the time Clinton forgot the card containing the nuclear launch codes and left them who-knows-where, never to be found; the time Hillary dispatched a military mission (at taxpayer expense) to fetch Chelsea's school books from South Carolina to their Virgin Islands vacation suite; and how Osama bin Laden got away from sure capture while Clinton was at first inaccessible to the commanders, then indecisively deliberating the matter for hours and hours. Osama was known even then to be behind numerous American deaths resulting from bombings he financed and/or arranged. Patterson doesn't say this, but he doesn't need to: If Clinton simply gives the go-ahead anytime while "studying the issue," bin Laden is captured, and the September 11 attacks probably don't happen. Patterson explains succinctly how, under Clinton, our military forces were slashed -- in numbers, pay, equipment and morale -- driving many of them away, leaving many of the rest on welfare assistance, and the armed forces as a whole poorly prepared as possible for the war on terror we now face. First-hand accounts of Hillary's viciousness, arrogance and elitism are a minor sideshow here, but vivid enough still to scream loudly against any sentiment that she should someday have the power of the presidency.
Fair warning: This book is frightening at times, deeply disturbing in many ways, perhaps even disillusioning, and definitely arouses anger. This is precisely why it should be read! Unless Patterson was dreaming his experience (not likely!), this conclusion should be crystal clear: Bill Clinton and his entourage of passive "progressives" damaged our national security and our military preparedness in dangerous and numerous ways, at the expense of 3,000 American lives one horrible September morning, and at huge extended costs to be paid for decades to come.
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