Sunday, March 10, 2002 8:52 p.m. EST Lott Blames Lewinsky Affair for 9-11 Vulnerability
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., suggested Sunday that ex-President Clinton didn't do enough to counter the terrorist threat against the U.S. because he was too busy having sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Lott made the connection while complaining about a campaign ad run by North Carolina Senate candidate Erskine Bowles, who was Clinton's chief of staff during the Lewinsky affair. The ad features Bowles and Lott side by side, smiling at each other. "It's very curious to me. Here he is - the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. [The ad] doesn't show him with Bill Clinton. It shows him with the [then] Republican Majority Leader of the Senate." Lott continued: "My question would be, you know, as chief of staff to President Clinton, where was he when Monica Lewinsky was in the Oval Office? Where was he when they should have been doing more on the war on terrorism?" Lott is the highest elected official to publicly draw a link between Clinton's preoccupation with seeking sex from underlings and his failure to pay more attention to national security concerns. Former senior Clinton adviser Dick Morris has contended that Clinton met with Lewinsky more often than he did with his own CIA director. In September, Morris told NewsMax.com that the Lewinsky affair rendered the ex-president unwilling to take the kind of political risk that any serious effort to eliminate Osama bin Laden would have entailed. "My sense is that the affair made him passive and risk-averse," Morris said just weeks after the 9-11 attacks. "As a result, I think he was less inclined to interfere with the military or to order long-term involvement." Lott stressed to "Fox News Sunday" that, instead of backing Bowles, he enthusiatically supports his opponent, Republican Elizabeth Dole. ______________________________________________________________________ This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
