KIRBY: And by the way, those of you out there who are really Clinton partisans, empirically consider this. When Clinton bombed that aspirin factory in Sudan that later turned out to have nothing to do with terrorism, a lot of us defended him. Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and myself, a lot of us defended him. The people who raised the issue of whether this was a distraction from Monica Lewinsky was the mainstream press! The comedy channel, the comedy show, John Stewart, said Desert Shield defended him from impeachment! It was the media that questioned whether this was a real attack on terrorism.Reality provided by Glenn Greenwald:
Sen. Trent Lott, GOP majority leader: "I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time," Lott said in a statement. "Both the timing and the policy are subject to question."
Rep. Dick Armey, GOP majority leader: "The suspicion some people have about the president's motives in this attack [on Iraq] is itself a powerful argument for impeachment," Armey said in a statement. "After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons."
GOP Sen. Dan Coats: Coats, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, "While there is clearly much more we need to learn about this attack [on bin Laden] and why it was ordered today, given the president's personal difficulties this week, it is legitimate to question the timing of this action."
GOP activist Paul Weyrich: "Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative activist, said Clinton's decision to bomb on the eve of the impeachment vote 'is more of an impeachable offense than anything he is being charged with in Congress.'"