Democrats tell Americans they were safer under President Clinton than they have been under President Bush. The record, however, shows that the Clinton years coincided with al Qaeda's golden age.

Whether as a result of wrongheaded policies, the lack of policy or simple carelessness, William Jefferson Clinton passively presided over more successful terrorist attacks against America than any other President in the history of the Republic. And the attacks were carried out with impunity; President Clinton failed to order effective reprisals. The following is a list of the terrorist attacks planned and/or executed during the Clinton years:

* February 26, 1993, attack on the World Trade Center: 6 deaths and 1,042 injured
* April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing: 168 deaths and over 800 injured
* June 25, 1996, Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia: 20 deaths and 372 injured
* August 7, 1998, attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania: 12 U.S. deaths out of a total of 223 deaths; 12 U.S. injured out of a total of over 4,000 injured
* October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole in Yemen: 17 deaths; 39 injured
* September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington (occurred during Bush presidency but planned during Clinton administration): 2,975 deaths and 24 missing.

Except for the Oklahoma City bombing, all these terrorist attacks were the work of al Qaeda. Regarding 9/11, it is well established that al Qaeda planned, rehearsed and financed these attacks while Clinton was in office. Therefore, 9/11 was President Clinton's final national security failure.

Despite eight years of al Qaeda attacks, the Clinton administration was so clueless about al Qaeda that it was unable to provide the incoming Bush administration with material intelligence on al Qaeda activities. During the transition, President Clinton's focus was on pardons while his staffers were concerned with removing the letter "W" from the keyboards of the White House computers. So oblivious were Democrats to the imminence of al Qaeda attacks that their focus was on juvenile pranks.

While 9/11 was President Clinton's most spectacular national security failure, it was neither the most significant nor the most far-reaching. This dubious honor goes to his 1996 decision to refuse Sudan's offer to hand bin Laden over to American authorities. Apparently, the Clinton administration did not think it had enough evidence to indict bin Laden. More likely, it saw no immediate political advantage in bin Laden's capture.

Thus, instead of locking up bin Laden at Gitmo, President Clinton gave him free passage to Afghanistan where bin Laden became a warlord and trained thousands of terrorists. The world is still living with the consequences of President Clinton's negligence.

Two years before Sudan offered bin Laden to President Clinton, Sudan offered Carlos the Jackal to the French. The French took the famous Carlos and we have not heard a peep from him since; it appears that Carlos is rotting in a French jail. How different would the world be if bin Laden was rotting in a U.S. jail?

At the time, France's policy towards terrorists was to nab them whenever possible. In striking contrast, President Clinton's policy was to ignore terrorists as long as possible in the foolish hope that they would be someone else's problem. We now know the consequences of this reckless policy. It is clear the Clinton administration was more inept than the Socialist government of French President Francois Mitterrand. In fact, that very comparison underscores the magnitude of the incompetence!

Now Democrats want Americans to forget those serious failures. From the pulpits of presidential "wannabees," Democrats tell Americans they know how to deal with national security. But Democrats will deal with national security the same way they have dealt with illegal immigration. They will subordinate it to political calculations.

They already have. During the Spanish-language debate, Democrats traded border security for the Latino vote. In the words of Sen. Hillary Clinton, vigorous border enforcement is contrary to "...the Scriptures..." and "...would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself." This statement emanates from the same camp which constantly accuses President Bush of ignoring the separation of Church and State!

America cannot afford to subordinate national security to any other issue. This is why America cannot afford another Democrat presidency. We know that President Clinton, the most celebrated Democrat president of the past 50 years, permitted more terrorist attacks than any other president. What, then, can we expect from another Democratic administration? Perhaps even more worrisome, what can we expect from another Clinton administration?

When Democrats tell Americans to remember how glorious the Clinton years were for our nation, it is wise to also remember that, perhaps not coincidentally, the Clinton years were even more glorious for al Qaeda.

- Joseph Beaudoin is a regular contributor to Insight.