Clinton asked...and Wallace lied.....

From American Progress:

TERRORISM -- CLINTON SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON HIS RECORD ON AL QAEDA, SMACKS DOWN FOX NEWS:

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, former President Bill Clinton "vigorously defended his efforts to capture and kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden."

Host Chris Wallace attempted to falsely accuse Clinton of having given aid and comfort to bin Laden by withdrawing from Somalia six months after the downing of a Black Hawk in 1993, an incident which -- as Clinton noted -- had no connection to bin Laden.

Clinton set the record straight on the numerous times his administration tried to kill bin Laden. "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."

Clinton pressed Wallace on why he had never asked the Bush administration why it demoted Clarke.

Wallace claimed “we asked” and shot back, “Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday, sir?"

In fact, a Progress Report analysis found that, since 2001, Wallace has interviewed the top national security officials from the Bush administration — Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Hadley — 42 times. According to a Lexis-Nexis database search, he never asked any of them why Clarke was demoted, nor did he ask why they failed to respond to the USS Cole attack.

Days after it was revealed that President Bush had received a President's Daily Brief that said "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.," Wallace did not even bring it up in an interview with former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

(Watch the video of the Clinton interview HERE.)

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