By Ben Barrack

If you want evidence that Barack Obama knows he has a big disaster on his hands with the Bowe Bergdahl swap, just look at who’s getting the same treatment Janet Reno got after the Waco disaster. In 1993, when the Waco compound of David Koresh went up in flames at the hands of Bill Clinton’s ATF and FBI, it was then Attorney General Reno who took the fall for making the decision.

Hagel: Buck stops with him on Bergdahl decision.
Reno: Buck stopped with her in Waco.

Today we’re being told that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was solely responsible for the decision to pull the trigger on the swap for Bergdahl. As was the claim that Reno is where the buck stopped in Waco, so too is the claim that it stopped with Hagel. Besides, is Obama at least responsible for standing with Bob Bergdahl in the Rose Garden or is Hagel responsible for that too?

This latest attempt by Obama to vote “present” after he clearly cast the deciding vote is transparently pathetic and desperate. Possibly the only thing more so is Hagel’s willingness to go along with it. The claim was made in response to a question from a member of Congress in a closed-door briefing:

“Now wait a minute, are you saying it was Secretary Hagel that made this decision, or was this the president of the United States?” McKeon, a California Republican, said to reporters. “It was the president of the United States that came out with the Bergdahls and took all the credit. And now that there’s been a little pushback, he’s moving away from it?”

The administration’s claim that Hagel, not Obama, made the decision is at odds with what Hagel himself said on Meet the Press on June 1. “I signed off on the decision,” Hagel said. “The president made the ultimate decision.”

Even in this interview with the BBC last week, note that Hagel says the decision to go through with the swap was “unanimous”. Sorry, Mr. Obama, voting “present” in this case is just not possible:

This playbook was used in the Clinton administration after the siege at Waco in which nearly 100 people were killed when Clinton’s ATF, FBI, and even military assets were used to storm the Branch Davidian compound. Attorney General Janet Reno

In 2010, Dick Morris revealed a shocking account of what happened right before Clinton’s second inauguration. According to Morris, Reno essentially blackmailed Clinton with what she knew about the Waco siege. Though Morris doesn’t say it, the implication is quite clear; Clinton made Reno take the fall even though it was his call:

Here is Rush Limbaugh expounding on Morris’ explosive revelation back in 2010. Limbaugh then reads an excerpt from Bill Clinton’s book which is at complete variance with what Morris revealed about Reno: