Have you ever wondered why memes never die? Because so-called respectable journalists regurgitate them when they have nothing else to back up their argument. Here is Big Media Matt Yglesias re-spinning the tale that the Clinton Administration passed on to the Bush White House a plan to fight Al Qaeda:
Nevertheless, because Lowry wants to play the culpability game, let me suggest that an accusation of weakness on terrorism can be more plausibly pointed at the pre-9-11 Bush administration than at Clinton’s. By all indications, Bush, upon entering office, actually reduced the priority given to fighting terrorism from a level that was, in retrospect, already inadequate. According to Time, Clinton officials developed, in the waning days of their administration, a plan for combating al-Qaeda more vigorously, but — wanting to avoid sticking the incoming administration with a policy it had not designed — they delayed implementing the plan and instead passed the matter on to the incoming national-security team. Bush’s aides didn’t get around to discussing these anti-terrorism efforts at the highest levels until September 2001.
Do we really have to go through this again? First, just to get this out of my system: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. Here is Newsmax on Clinton himself pulling the plug on any such plans, and since you wingnuts never trust Fox or Newsmax or anything to the right of NPR, here is the Daily Howler with the relevant Sandy Berger Quote (and if you don’t know who Berger is, quit arguing with me:
BERGER: Now, the second question you asked