Dispelling The Clinton Myth

North Korea is flexing its muscles and some conservative pundits are blaming this hubris on a perceivably weakened Obama administration.

They recall Vice President Biden's injudicious remark made in 2008 during a fundraiser. He warned: "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy." Biden continued, "Remember I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

While Biden's date may have been off his reasoning was not that far wrong and made perfect sense. The problem with this conclusion is that the wrong president is being blamed for our increased vulnerability. That responsibility should be aimed at the true Teflon president - Bill Clinton.

The media dubbed Ronald Reagan the "Teflon President" because scandals surrounding members of his staff had no effect on Reagan's popularity. But Clinton deserves the nickname because his personal and administrative scandals have not affected his popularity with the general public who credit him with being responsible for the booming economy of the '90s.

Clinton was trotted out during the midterm election campaigns to support the endangered Democrat congressional candidates. This time around, however, the tea party movement included voters who not only were not impressed with the former president; they also had a better grasp of history.

Saber rattling by the North Koreans has been a tactic that works when used against an appeasing administration loathe to use military force and President Clinton's animosity towards the military was a matter of public record.

As a young man he was virulently anti-war and in a letter to Colonel Eugene Holmes he explained why he could not join the ROTC as he had pledged.

Signing the intent to join the ROTC had exempted him from the draft but in his letter he said his conscious would not allow him to participate.

He wrote that he had written a letter to the draft board asking to be drafted right away but he admits he never mailed it.

This revealing letter was reported during the 1992 campaign yet the voters elected this self-serving man to be commander in chief of our armed forces.

In September, 1992, Col. Holmes signed a notarized statement asserting "there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft dodger becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. I believe that he (Clinton) purposefully deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft reclassification." Holmes was ignored by the press.

Although Clinton ran his campaign as a centrist, his special interest supporters kept a low profile but popped up during his inauguration and paraded in joyful triumph before their leader. The parade reflected Clinton's view of diversity and he carried it into his administration much to the dismay of security minded veterans of the secret service and the FBI.

30-year FBI veteran Gary Aldrich wrote a tell-all, "Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House" that the Clintons managed to debunk through the mainstream media. The book was, however, written before the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Aldrich's main conclusion was that the Clinton's were unfit for the white House due to their lack of respect for its security.

Biden's warning about Obama being tested couldn't have been more accurate if applied instead about Clinton for in his first year of office, he was faced with the Black Hawk Down tragedy in Somalia and the first bombing of the World Trade Center. The first resulted from a gross failure in judgment and the other ultimately proved to our enemies that the United States was a paper tiger unwilling to address terrorism as a national threat.

Before his presidency the United States was still the number one Superpower not yet vulnerable to our adversaries but Clinton's policies of self-interest and incompetence in foreign affairs changed that.

Accommodations were made by the Clinton administration to allow Red China special access to highly sensitive computer technology.

The administration allowed the company LORAL to sell advanced radar technology to Red China. After a guided missile crash, the administration failed to monitor Loral's transfer of intelligence that allowed China to now have long range missile technology able to reach our mainland. Was this incompetence or treason?

Conspiracy theorists will have a field day determining if the frequent visits to the White House of Democrat fundraiser Johnny Chung had anything to do with the Clinton's cozy relationship with Red China.

Chung has admitted funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the People's Republic of China to the DNC for Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign. Is that why the Clinton administration tried to transfer use of a closed U.S. military base in Long Beach, California over to a Chinese shipping company? Oh, you forgot that, did you?

As for North Korea, President Clinton sent the hapless Jimmy Carter in 1994 to negotiate with its saber-rattling dictator Kim-Sung and the former president bragged about getting NK to go back to the Geneva peace talks.

What came after this was an agreement to give North Korea more nuclear power stations, 500,000 metric tons of fuel annually as well as tons of grain all in return for a promise to cease all nuclear weapon ambitions. Appeasement never turns out well for us, does it but we never learn, do we?

You'd think that the Republican Congress would have brought this up during Clinton's impeachment trial but I suspect that treason would be harder to prosecute than lying under oath about sex. Or maybe the thought of President Gore was even more frightening.

Nevertheless, Clinton has his devotees who still believe he was responsible for whatever good came from the Republican Congress and the myth of this continues till today.

In the 2000 campaign Sen. John McCain was smeared by some who called him the Manchurian Candidate asserting that he was flipped while he was being tortured as a P.O.W. in the Hanoi Hilton.

Yet there has never been any inquiry as to what anti-war activist Bill Clinton was doing or seeing in Moscow in December 1969.

The Cold War was still as hot as ever and yet there wasn't one inquiring mind in the mainstream press that needed to know what the future president was doing there.

For that matter why didn't the National Organization of Woman rush to defend Juanita Broaddrick who accused Clinton of raping her when he was a Governor of Arkansas? Why didn't they believe Kathleen Willey, the widow who was assaulted by Clinton in the White House?

The docudrama "Path to 9/11" an ABC presentation has only been telecast once and further viewings have been blocked because of a controversial scene showing that our military forces once had Osama Bin Laden clearly in their sight.

His capture was halted by Clinton's national Security Advisor Sandy Berger. You remember Sandy, don't you? He was the man caught stuffing documents from the National Archives down his pants before testifying at the 9/11 Commission hearings.

Our current economic crisis is due in part to the collapse of the housing market. Guess which administration thought subprime mortgages was a great idea?

Blame Bush and you'll be in the news 24/7. Blame Clinton and you'll be branded a liar so why am I bringing these negative points about the man who is now considered a senior statesman?

The nation is still reeling from the impact of this bad president and it's time to debunk his legacy while we can.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com