Bill Clinton Is the Last Democrat with Balls

Thanks to Antonius at Boring Diatribe for pointing this out. Bill Clinton has been all over the news for his recent billionaires-for-good-works schmoozefest (passing by which I saw former secretary of state Madeleine Albright getting into a car Friday, but that's neither here nor there) but when Fox interviewed him about it and shifted gears to talk about Osama Bin Laden, the former president handed interviewer Chris Wallace his head, along with the heads of a few other folks:

I’m being asked this on the FOX network . . . ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people. . . . But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t . . . I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke . . . So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know . . . I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know.

About time somebody laid it on the line a little more forcefully. The Democrats have spent too much time whining and pining and then pandering to the right rather than standing up and demonstrating the courage of their convictions--and the guts to lead. If they don't start doing that as a party, they can look forward to more defeats, and deserve what they get. I admire Al Gore's intelligence, I laud Howard Dean for his ability to mobilize the grass roots, I am a fan of Barack Obama's thoughtfulness--but so few of the party have been willing to face down the lies and the liars and call them what they are, and in so doing have become complicit in the lies by their inaction or weak protest.

If someone stands by and watches a murder, saying only, "Gee, man, not sure you should be doing that," would you praise him for his efforts to save a life? Of course not. At the very least, he needs to be screaming his lungs out for help, and if he truly wants to save a life, if he actually gives a shit, he ought to get in there and fight. It's wrong to stand by and let it happen without protest, or with only polite, safe protest.

So is this.