Right-wing author Morris blames Clinton, US Constitution for 9/11

Right-wing author Dick Morris is quick to attack political opponents' actions, even when the force of his own logic appears to undermine his argument.

Case in point: during a Monday appearance on right-wing host Sean Hannity's Fox News program, Morris tried to blame the Clinton administration for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even though George W. Bush had been president since the beginning of that year.

Morris also appears to blame the U.S. Constitution for the attacks by blasting criminal trials afforded to the plotters behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

The car bomb which was detonated in the basement of the North Tower injured scores of people, but miraculously only six were killed.

"[The] other point here is the reason 9/11 happened is that Bill Clinton treated the '93 bombing of the Trade Center as a crime, not as an act of war," Morris told Hannity. "And now Obama is going through the exact same situation [with the Christmas plot]."

The implications, according to Morris, being that Obama may be on track to somehow cause a more devastating attack by not superseding the suspect's constitutionally-guaranteed access to the criminal justice system.

Twenty-three-year-old Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to ignite a PETN bomb in his underwear on a Christmas day flight into Detroit, is facing charges in federal court.

What Morris neglects to mention is that the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, who attempted to destroy an American Airlines flight, was treated in the exact same manner by the Bush administration.

By his own logic, Morris would appear to be suggesting that Bush is somehow to blame for the failed underwear bomber, or the suicide attack on the CIA, or any other seemingly unrelated act of violence against Americans -- simply because a failed terrorist was tried and locked away under his watch.

Richard Reid was convicted in 2003 of eight charges related to his attempted bombing and is currently serving out a life sentence in a Colorado supermax prison.

This video was broadcast by Fox News on Jan. 4, 2010, as snipped by Media Matters.