German Report: Taliban Offered to Extradite OBL... to Clinton

Offer was made "about a year" before the September 11 attacks:

ZDF reported that American and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt in November 2000 to discuss deporting bin Laden long before his al Qaeda terrorist network successfully hijacked airliners and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001.

The television documentary, which aired Thursday evening in Germany, said the Afghan-American businessman Kabir Mohabbat tried to broker a deal between the U.S. government and the hard-line Islamic Taliban. Mohabbat quoted the Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, as saying: "You can have him whenever the Americans are ready. Name us a country and we will extradite him."

Ever notice that when the media is reporting on something that is potentially damaging to Clinton, they get very vague about the administration the event occurred under? They can never bring themselves to say "Clinton." The best they can do is provide a vague date that allows you to figure out who was the President at the time.

I can't help but think they're hoping readers don't bother doing the math themselves.

I've seen this dozens of times. Hell, I've even seen them misidentify the President during 1999 or 2000 as George Bush in their rush to pin something on the current administration. Anyone remember that story? Let me know in the comments if you do. I know Instapundit covered it.

Ooooh! Here's another recent example! Here's the MSNBC story regarding a walk-in tipping the US to a planned Al Qaeda jet attack, a year before 9-11. The walk-in was disbelieved, and no action was taken on his tip.

Now: Go to the top of the article and search for "Clinton."

Who was President when this occurred? Who knows? It's a mystery. A stone-cold whodunnit.

Maybe it was Clinton. Maybe it was Bush. It's hard to say, and really, why should we get all hung up on "basic facts" anyway? Let's keep our eyes on the bigger picture: George Bush is ruining this country and he caused 9-11.

Ace of Spades Readers are Awesome: Golden Boy remembers the story in which Clinton's failure to follow-up on an offer to extradite OBL is blamed on Bush:

The report revealed that in a previously undisclosed secret diplomatic mission, Saudi Arabia won a commitment from the Taliban to expel bin Laden in 1998. But a clash between the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and Saudi officials scuttled the arrangement, and Bush did not follow up.

Bush didn't follow up?

From Austin, Texas?

What the fuck was he supposed to do? Don his famous cowboy garb and "Yeee-haw!" his way into fucking Kabul and lasso hisself some terrorist?

Who knew that the President of the United States had, in 1998, delegated terrorist-lassoin' activities to the governor of Texas?

If that were the case, the media really should have made that clear, as it would have disproved the notion that Bush had "no" foreign policy experience. If a guy has been de-pu-tized by the head American Marshall to take his trusty horse Nugget and his keen-nosed smell-hound Arrow, and then gallop off to foreign capitals to russle hisself up some evil-doers, then I gotta say, I count that as foreign policy experience of some sort.

By the way, MSNBC apparently has corrected their original error. They deleted the reference to Bush not following up.

So, did they say that Clinton did not follow up?

Nope. They said the United States did not follow up.

Odd, that. When they think it's a Bush failure, they personalize the failure. When it turns out to be a Clinton failure, it's a failure of all Americans.

And they once again cagily avoid mention of the man in charge at the time.