I think we may be splitting hairs here. I didn't have Clinton's exact words at hand. Clearly he compared Bush's efforts unfavorably with his own. He used as one example a total falsehood, that Bush "fired" Richard Clarke, the NSC terrorism expert. Certainly Clarke hadn't accomplished much during 8 years with Clinton, so even if he had been canned I don't know what that would prove. I don't know exactly what kinds of warnings Bush was given or how specific they were. The 9/11 docudrama implied the failure was at the CIA, where they made the decision not to issue a general alert to the airlines. I'm not even sure how much good that would have done, given the lax airport security and the crippling effect political correctness had on screening. "Negligence" is a legal term that implies a failure to use reasonable caution. I'm sure there were levels of the government that indeed were negligent, but I haven't seen evidence to convince me that Bush personally was negligent. Clearly he didn't fully appreciate the seriousness of the threat, but a mistake is not the same thing as being negligent.
Serious question. If the roles were reversed, say Clinton was pres following Bush Jr., and 9/11 happened on Clinton's watch...would you be giving Bill a free pass the way you do Bush?
Well, I don't accept your premise that I am giving Bush a free pass. I already said he made mistakes, just that I don't think it rises to negligence. I also said that clearly we as a country didn't realize what a threat al qaeda was prior to 9/11, so some part of Clinton's failure to respond aggressively can be excused. Reagan didn't respond very forcefully to hezbollah either. I didn't blame Clinton for the first WTC attack, although it did happen when he was president. I do think it became clear to most of us during Clinton's term that some sort of forceful retaliation to these repeated attacks was necessary, and that shooting off a few cruise missiles into empty camps wasn't going to cut it. Certainly Richard Clarke thought so as well, but couldn't make it happen because the administration was filled with pacifists who instinctively wanted to look at everything from a highly legalistic standpoint. Of course, they didn't have such qualms when it came to incinerating a house full of children at Waco, but that's another story.
i'm just beginning to revisit the legal definition of negligence, but i think the fact that Bush continued to read to school children for 20 minutes after being informed of the attack may satisfy the standard for criminal negligence on its own, and that's the tip of an iceberg
I don't know of anyone with credibility who "blames" either President. Was Clinton to blame for the 1993 WTC bombing? Or for Oklahoma City? Was Blair to blame for the London subway bombings? Was Kennedy to blame for his own assassination? The "blame" rests squarely with the hijackers themselves and those who aided and abetted them. Period.
So you are suggesting that if Bush was on the job at the first WTC attack (with no "pacifists" in his camp) that we would have gotten Bin Laden? Then why didn't he make it a priority when elected? Your logic doesn't follow... Oh, and I am also not sure Waco wouldn't have been worse with Ashcroft or Gonzalez in charge...
In looking at legal definitions, is there anything about criminal stupidity? That would put Bush away for life...
After WTC1? He hasn't gotten bin Laden after WTC2, and by his own admission, Bush doesn't "even think about him".
Negligent? How? What if he was out of the country and sleeping half a world away? What if he were dead? Do you think the Federal Government and it's TWO MILLION EMPLOYEES await the President every second of the day? Do you think he had the phone number for NORAD in his pocket? Do you even think he would know the fucking protocol? Do you think rationally it should even be HIS FUCKING CALL? You're the same kind of dumb fuck who thinks a coach should be fired if a player commits a crime. You must really be into this nanny-state bullshit. Grow up, dude.