The Truth About Clinton and Bin Laden: Another Right-Wing Talking Point Exposed

(Read a follow-up to this by Jeff Mussall:A Further Look at a Right Wing Talking Point)

It has become reflexive for Bush administration apologists to answer any criticism with an excoriation of Bill Clinton.

Some say that George W. Bush's actions are driven, in part, by his desire to step out from his father's shadow. But given the administration's tendency to cower behind Bill Clinton, there's obviously a larger and more recent shadow that the Bush Administration won't or can't escape.

Ask why President Bush is spying on Americans without warrants, and his spokespeople cry that President Clinton spied on Americans too. (They just leave off the part where the Clinton Administration complied with FISA court warrant requirements in order to do so.)

Ask why FEMA's response to hurricane Katrina was so poor, and Rush Limbaugh starts babbling about Monica and a blue dress.

It has not only become predictable, but comedic. Just watch Anne Coulter. She's like a demented yellow-parrot who can't stop squawking inappropriate lines or hilariously yanking out her own feathers on national television.

But one Clinton-bashing RNC talking point is not funny or comedic in the slightest. It's a lie meant to disguise the miserable job that Republicans have done at avenging 9/11, and it's being promoted with increasing desperation as we approach the mid-term elections.

The lie is that Bill Clinton had an easy opportunity to capture Osama Bin Ladin, but let him get away.

It's one thing to hear this on Fox News; America's Propaganda Network predictably allows this contention to go unrefuted by discoverable facts. It's quite another thing when the lie has become so pervasive that ABC feels entitled to air a "docu-drama" which supports that lie.