In 1999, Clinton Knew of Coming Air Travel Threat?
After the 1999 school shootings in Colombine, President Bill Clinton gave an address explaining the need for more gun control. In arguing that Rights come with a responsibility, the President made a bizarre comparison. Clinton claimed the need for MORE gun control was comparable to not removing Metal Detectors and X-ray machines from airports because of an expanding threat from terrorists (emphasis mine):
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AND THE FIRST LADY ON GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION April 27, 1999
"Let me ask you something. Next time you get on an airplane, think about how you'd feel if the headline in the morning paper right before you got on the airplane was "Airport Metal Detectors and X-Ray Machines Abolished as Infringement on Americans' Constitutional Right to Travel." Think about it. That's the headline in the morning paper. And right next to it there is another headline: Terrorist Groups Expanding Operations In The United States. And you read the two headlines, and you're getting on the airplane -- exercising your constitutional right to travel, which is now no longer infringed by the fact that you might have to go through the metal detector twice and take out your money clip or take off your heavily metaled belt, and that somebody is X-raying your luggage as it gets on the airplane. It's unthinkable now, isn't it? This will become unthinkable, too, that we should ever reverse these things, if we ever have enough sense to do them." (Applause.)
Two years prior to the 9/11 attacks, Clinton's 'hypothetical' is that "Terrorist Groups Expanding Operations In The United States" WHICH THEY WERE and links this threat to air travel, WHICH IT WAS.
Clinton's political grandstanding on the unfounded hysterical fears of rampant unchecked gun violence handicapped him from failing to prevent the actual credible real-life threat that he himself put into words. The fact is that metal detectors were in place in September of 2001 and guns were NOT used in the hijackings, nor had any part in the attacks. Is this the reason why Clinton and his administration failed to 'connect the dots'?
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AND THE FIRST LADY ON GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION April 27, 1999
"Let me ask you something. Next time you get on an airplane, think about how you'd feel if the headline in the morning paper right before you got on the airplane was "Airport Metal Detectors and X-Ray Machines Abolished as Infringement on Americans' Constitutional Right to Travel." Think about it. That's the headline in the morning paper. And right next to it there is another headline: Terrorist Groups Expanding Operations In The United States. And you read the two headlines, and you're getting on the airplane -- exercising your constitutional right to travel, which is now no longer infringed by the fact that you might have to go through the metal detector twice and take out your money clip or take off your heavily metaled belt, and that somebody is X-raying your luggage as it gets on the airplane. It's unthinkable now, isn't it? This will become unthinkable, too, that we should ever reverse these things, if we ever have enough sense to do them." (Applause.)
Two years prior to the 9/11 attacks, Clinton's 'hypothetical' is that "Terrorist Groups Expanding Operations In The United States" WHICH THEY WERE and links this threat to air travel, WHICH IT WAS.
Clinton's political grandstanding on the unfounded hysterical fears of rampant unchecked gun violence handicapped him from failing to prevent the actual credible real-life threat that he himself put into words. The fact is that metal detectors were in place in September of 2001 and guns were NOT used in the hijackings, nor had any part in the attacks. Is this the reason why Clinton and his administration failed to 'connect the dots'?
posted by liontooth.com at 4:55 PM
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