The View From Here . . .

Rather suddenly, but perhaps inevitably with midterm elections just over a month away, a debate has erupted on the role of the Clinton Administration during the years leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks

The first bubbling up of the controversy occurred with the airing of the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" , which portrayed numerous missed opportunities during President Bill Clinton's administration in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. After a howl of protests by friends of the former president, portions of the film, which was shown just before the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, were cut. However, much of the original drama survived and the program received fairly high ratings.

Mr. Clinton, in an interview with Chris Wallace, added fuel to the fire. When Mr. Wallace asked whether his administration had done enough "to put bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of business, Mr. Clinton lashed out at the reporter, chiding him for the "nice little conservative hit job on me" and for the "smirk" on Mr. Wallace's face.

More substantively, Mr. Clinton claimed that he had done more to attack bin Laden than "all the right-wingers who are attacking me now" . Mr. Clinton said that he authorized the killing of bin Laden and the removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan after the USS Cole was attacked in 2000, but the action never took place. "The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we could do it otherwise, because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that al Qaeda was responsible while I was president."

Mr. Clinton said that he was ridiculed for attempting to remove bin Laden, but that the Bush administration did not try to do so during the eight months before 9/11. Mr. Clinton also asserted that left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy when he left office.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Clinton's remarks drew a sharp rejoinder from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. "The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said during an interview with the New York Post. "What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years." She denied that the Bush administration was left an anti-terror plan.

Obviously, the debate over who was more responsible for 9/11 is a classic opportunity to attempt "gotcha" politics. Democrats know that the one advantage the Republicans have in the upcoming elections is on national security and some in the party are banking that any effort to tie the current administration to the 9/11 attacks will paypolitical dividends in November. Conversely, Republicans can find considerable political mileage in attacking Bill Clinton's Administration, especially in light of Hillary Clinton's status as Democratic presidential frontrunner.

On the other hand, this latest debate may not seem very appealing to many Americans. It seems quite likely in hindsight that neither the Clinton Administration during its eight years nor the Bush Administration in the eight months leading up to the attack adequately appreciated the threat from bin Laden. But the 9/11 attacks were, thankfully, unique in American history. One would think that it is much more fruitful for partisans to argue about securing the country for the future than getting heavily involved in the blame game.