The Secret Plan

"I am the only President who knew something about agriculture when I got there." - Bill Clinton, Washington Post, April 26, 1995.

"I'm sure I spent more time in Texas than anybody else who had run for President recently." - Bill Clinton in Longview, Texas, U.S. Newswire, September 27, 1996.

"John Kennedy had actually not been back to the White House since his father was killed, until I had became president - and first he was on an advisory committee that made a report to me, and he came back to the Oval Office where he saw the desk that he took the famous picture in - you know, coming through the gate, for the first time since he was a little boy." - Bill Clinton press conference July 21, 1999. [1]

Part of Bill Clinton's enduring charm was his ability to engage in self-aggrandizing behavior with impunity. For his supporters, it was all part of Clinton's magnetism and charisma. You did not have to believe what he said in order to admire his sheer brilliant impudence. For his detractors, this ability was frustrating and infuriating.

With respect to the above outlandish claims:

• George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Jimmy Carter were farmers and probably knew a little "something about agriculture."

• It is unlikely that Clinton spent more time in Texas than George Bush (41), Ross Perot or Phil Gramm, all of whom ran for president.

• President Nixon had the young John Kennedy in the White House in 1971.

It is not clear if Clinton or only Clinton apologists are behind the recent Time magazine article. Nevertheless, we can often recognize "the lion by his paw." The article revealed the existence of a secret Clinton Administration plan to go after Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Though the plan was not as ambitious as the attack against Bin Laden's Afghan refuge that began shortly after September 11, 2001, it did purportedly contain many of the same elements: support for the Northern Alliance, going after terrorist assets and charity fronts, and covert military action.

The fact that such a plan existed is almost certainly true. The Pentagon sprouts plans like a untended lawn sprouts weeds. There is probably someone in the Pentagon who, as an academic exercise, is discerning the optimum means for conquering Canada. The fact that a plan existed to attack al-Qaeda is no indication that there was any realistic possibility that the plan would have been implemented.