MRS. CLINTON'S MYTH

January 25, 2003 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday de livered herself of a blistering attack on the Bush administration's nation al-security policy:

"Time has passed and our vigilance has faded," claimed New York's junior senator. "We have relied on a myth of homeland security - a myth written in rhetoric, inadequate resources and a new bureaucracy, instead of relying on good, old-fashioned American ingenuity, might and muscle."

Hmmm. What to make of that?

Well, not to visit the sins of the husband on the wife - okay, maybe a little bit - but let the record show that the first attack on the World Trade Center took place in 1993, two months into the Clinton co-presidency.

And, as Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island) noted yesterday, "[After the first attack], nobody from the Clinton administration, including the president himself, ever even came to New York to visit the site, and they did nothing from 1993 until they left office to protect New York."

The contrast with the current administration couldn't be more stark.

For the record also shows that the previous administration did little to respond to subsequent attacks on U.S. interests: the Khobar Towers marine barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1995, the two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

Again, contrast that with the current administration's response - both in Afghanistan and across the world in the broader war on terror.

Certainly looks like "old-fashioned American ingenuity, might and muscle" to us. But what about the "new bureaucracy" that Mrs. Clinton so scathingly condemns?

Well, first, it was the Democrats who got out in front and demanded the creation of a Department of Homeland Security - and then blocked it for months afterwards in a happily failed attempt to lard up that bureaucracy with union-protecting language.

Sen. Clinton has, as the saying goes, a right to her opinion. What she doesn't have is a right to her own set of facts.

And the fact is, the previous administration - in which she held a significant behind-the-scenes role, and from which her current position devolves - failed to respond forcefully enough when American interests were attacked, both at home and abroad.

The Democratic Party, as a whole, has scant standing to criticize the efforts of the current administration regarding national security.

Mrs. Clinton, individually, has none.

NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM