**I just added some of you to this blog update so please feel free to look over the other columns I have posted here. This particular piece of writing is old news but I never got around to posting it until now. It's more my general thoughts on the matter than a well formed argument. However, I did want to post in on my page so...here ya go** 

Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice were both interviewed on various programs last Sunday night. (Clinton on Fox News Sunday and Rice on 60 Minutes). I respect them both and wanted to hear what they had to say. Each interview was interesting - to say the least - but handling tough questions in the face of a skeptical public is difficult. In these instances, only Rice managed to keep composure and answer with respectful defense.

My casual viewing quickly turned to fascinated as I watched Clinton practically pummel the notes out of host Chris Wallace’s hands. The over-hyped reaction in response to some simple questions was mesmerizing. A red-faced rant accompanied the accusation that Wallace performed a “conservative hit job” on Clinton. I don’t blame Clinton for coming to the interview with his answers lined up in protection. He feels wrongly targeted with “The Path to 9/11,” which took some serious hits against his administration. He came to Fox believing they were ready to point the blame finger because it’s progressive-trendy to say Fox is conservatively biased. I highly doubt Clinton himself actually watches Fox on a regular basis but obviously, it is perfectly acceptable and actually, obligatory, to ask questions that require information about the events leading up to 9/11.

No one should doubt that Clinton feels terrible about the fact that he was in power for 8 years just before the attacks and perhaps something could have been done to prevent them. It’s understandable to be combatant against blame. However, a less aggressive and accusatory response towards Wallace and “right wingers” as a whole would have aided his retaliations significantly.

Wallace says his own so-called “smirk” was an expression of disbelief at the disproportionate actions of a man so on the defensive he was asking to be doubted. You must analyze history to clarify the present and the fact remains that, had the Clinton administration been more closely aligned with bin laden’s threats, maybe they could have done something. But only maybe. Mistakes were made, on his part and on the part of the Bush administration in the past six years. If Clinton could admit to mistakes (as Bush has many times and Rice echoes below), he’d look graciously less guilty. Everyone knows by now that ex-CIA bin laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer, under Clinton’s administration, has plainly told the American public that Clinton was lying about the chances he had to get bin laden.

Katie Couric interviewed Rice, no stranger to so-called liberal leaning questions. Rice was flanked with inquiries that doubted the actions of the Bush administration, questions many people want to know the answers to and rightly so. She exemplified how you should respond to such grilling. I did find it ridiculous when Couric asked, “To quote my daughter, ‘who made us the boss of them?’” First of all, how do you think her daughter got that idea? I’d be teaching my daughter that America is trying to spread liberty, and the hope of peace that will never come through inaction. And that peace truly is the ultimate goal, no matter what side you are on.

That’s exactly the message that Rice expounded, calmly upon, in her responses. Finding a generous humility in light of the world situation is the only way to go about it. Rice said that, “because the intelligence was wrong, we were misleading the American people…the administration was using the best available intelligence. Nobody can re-invent the past, things that look like brilliant policies turn out to have been really stupid and things that looked like mistakes at the time turned out to be brilliant policies, I’ll let history judge the mistakes.” And only history can do so.

Clinton should have understood that. Look at this country, have the decency to own up to mistakes you might have made preceding the worst attack on American soil in history. But, really, why are we blaming anyway? We should simply learn. Look what Clinton did or didn’t do and say hey, how can take pains to do it right from now on? These short interviews unveiled much significance on the part of both administrations. Only years from now will we truly be able to judge either.