Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Blood for oil...from Clinton?

Did Clinton look the other way after the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in order to affect oil prices and thus bolster his re-election chances? From NewsMax:
Ex-president Bill Clinton didn't press Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to help with the FBI's investigation into the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing because he feared Abdullah would hike oil prices and hurt his reelection chances, according to former top Clinton advisor Dick Morris.

"Clinton was obsessed with gas prices," he recalls, in a column in Tuesday's New York Post.

"We would talk about them all the time. Every poll probed the issue and measured the level of popular animosity over their increase and the extent to which Clinton himself was blamed."

In the spring of 1996, oil prices began to spike - causing reelection jitters in the Oval Office.
And to think that we pegged Clinton for being soft on terrorism! Whatever were we thinking?

The man was so obsessed with winning re-election that he jeopardized national security (selling nuclear technology and political access to the Chinese), leased out the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidder, and ignored Islamic terrorism. Truth is, he didn't have to do any of that, since he was going to win re-election in a convincing manner anyway. I suppose his "Maybe, but what if...?" mechanism was too strong.

I don't want to hear any more from libs who complain (accurately, I concede) that Bush is too cozy with the Saudis, when his predecessor clearly was cozy with them, too.