Bill, Condi, Hillary, Where Will It Stop?

WASHINGTON, D.C. Sept. 26, 2006 — -- The one-sided slugging match between former President Clinton and Fox TV newsman Chris Wallace has evolved into "he said, she said."

"He" is Clinton.

"She" is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Speaking to The New York Post, Rice took issue with Clinton's angry remarks on "Fox News Sunday," when he defended his response to the threat of al Qaeda.

Clinton said that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for his successor's team to follow.

Rice told the Post: "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda."

That's about as direct a denial as you could get. No mealy-mouthing there.

Now, the argument has ratcheted up another notch with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton entering the fray.

She told reporters on Capitol Hill: "I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team."

Clinton was referring to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, briefing that President Bush received at his Texas ranch.

Until now, her husband's televised outburst on Sunday seemed to be a case of a former president trying vigorously to protect his legacy from even the suggestion that he was tepid in dealing with the likes of Osama bin Laden.

Political observers opined that Clinton might also have been signalling his party to defend itself equally strongly this fall against insinuations that Democrats are weak on terrorism.

Legacy or politics? Or both? What was Clinton up to?

Now, his wife is in the mix, and that tips the scales.

She is both a candidate for re-election to the Senate and a possible contender for the presidency in 2008.

So anything she says on this hot-button issue clearly goes way beyond just concern for how historians rate her husband.

She has tried to establish herself as tough on national security issues.

Apparently, she is also now telling us that she would not be married to someone who is not equally as tough.

No wimps in our household, she seems to be saying.

But back to Rice.

She says she will not be running for the presidency, and as secretary of state, she is supposed to downplay politics in her job.

In the age of al Qaeda, however, that may be impossible.

With former President Clinton taking a slap at the Bush administration's pre-Sept. 11, 2001, stance on terrorism, she slapped back.

That doesn't mean she necessarily has political ambitions, but her counterattack will be appreciated by congressional Republicans up for re-election in November.

Rice also disputed the former president's assertion on Sunday that the Bush administration had fired Richard Clarke, former White House anti-terrorism chief.

She said that Clarke "left when he did not become deputy director of homeland security."

The strong implication was that Clarke, passed over for promotion, left in a huff.

Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, says he resigned, but because he was frustrated with the White House's response to terrorism.

Washington is fascinated by all this, and eagerly awaits the next cannon shot regardless of where it comes from.

This is a town consumed with politics 24/7.

And with terrorism and national security such crucial issues as both parties struggle for supremacy on Capitol Hill, surely politics is why we sit around slack-jawed wondering what's next.

But it's more than that.

Washington enjoys watching heavy hitters do some heavy hitting.