Bill Clinton Takes On Fox News

Thomas,

I may be wrong, but I think kickkycan (who I don't necessarily associate with the conservative right in any consistent fashion) was referring to this statement:



I was referring more to the Bigfoot and body count things, and the always popular sex and Monica business.

And I was referring to "two posts before yours", which is Lash's, not kickycan's.

Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column, is very confrontational with the media. One of his trademark talking points is that if Bush says the Earth is flat, FoxNews will report "The Earth is flat, and anyone who doubts it hates America", whiile the New York Times' title will be "Shape of Earth: Views Differ". That's confrontational. But so what? In most cases, I think Krugman is right on the merits. Consequently, I admire him for speaking up. I also like how, about two years ago, he refused to take BS when Bill O'Reilly interviewed him, and shot back instead of playing nice. That's why I do take Lash's "turning tables" comment as a compliment, and why I agree with her on this one.

The biggest lie Slickkk KKKlintler ever told:



That's by definition the one most major thing a psychopath like KKKlintler cannot do, and Slickkk knows that. He was laughing at us every time he made that statement.

How is that different from "my heart goes out to you"? Different liar, same lie.

It's not my fault that Billy had all those people killed......

Talk about rude and disrespectful, this bully was wagging his fat finger in this guy's face and tapping his notes in his lap. I wonder if would have done that to Dan Rather.....

BTW, I am not a member of the "conservative right" so save your breath with the accusations....

So Clinton had enough, got pissed off and went off on the guy. I thought that was type of behavior that the right cums their pants for.

All I got out of the interview was the obvious.

Clinton tried and failed.

That sums up his time in office.

So, it was great for Clinton--but not for conservatives, Joe?

I didn't see the footage--it sounds rude--but I'd love to see some people give reporters a dose of gotcha-ism.

Everybody knows the whining leftist media make Baby Jesus cry.

But thanks to the clear-sighted vision and forceful, competent leadership of President Bush, victory is just around the corner, and the Iraqi people will be lead to the sunny uplands of peace, freedom and democracy.

Chris Wallace lied when he told Clinton that he had asked tough questions of the Bush administration concerning the failure to destroy al Qaida and bin-Laden.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200609240002?src=other

I saw the interview and didn't think that Clinton was rude. He was firm and direct, but not offensive. Wallace made very serious charges (in the form of questions) that were very false and questioned Clinton's integrity.

About time Bill stood up to his accusers instead of "...that depends what the definition of "is" is", or "Hi, I'm Bill Clinton, and I am not here".

You forgot to mention that the war in Iraq is turning a corner. George Bush has been declaring that about once per quarter -- ever since the gig where he strutted in a flightsuit on a battleship under a "mission accomplished" sign.

Froth at the mouth all you want, gungasnake, but Clinton wouldn't be obliviously jacking off in his office for several days while a major American city was under water.


Sure Bill liked his BJ's, but at least he paid attention to the job while he was getting them.

Oh yeah, Monica, it's floodin' down below!

And Clinton wouldn't spend 7 1/2 minutes reading a story about a goat after being told that the country was under attack.

Bill Clinton's Bipartisan Love-In Blows Up in His Face by Arianna Huffington
Hooray! Good for Bill Clinton. He finally called Fox News and the right-wing on their BS, right? Well, sort of.

Sure, Clinton said exactly what he should have said during his interview this weekend with Chris Wallace on Fox News. Sure, it felt good to hear Wallace's RNC talking points thrown back at him.


But instead of popping champagne corks, let's make use of this moment by stepping back and giving it some context. What can we learn from what happened?

More specifically, what can Bill Clinton learn? That the bipartisan love-in he's been engaged in over the last several years has resulted in jack-squat.

After providing President Bush cover for his disastrous handling of Katrina, after trying to get himself adopted by George Bush, Sr., after giving Laura Bush the keynote slot at his Global Initiative Conference, after going along with Rupert Murdoch's fundraiser for Hillary -- after all that, he got exactly nothing.

All of Bill Clinton's tireless "bipartisanship" has been of no benefit to him, of no benefit to the country, and has only benefited George Bush and the right-wing.

I'm glad the Chris Wallace interview is flying all over the internet, but I really hope that one person who will watch it over and over again is Bill Clinton. And that on the fifth or sixth viewing it might occur to him that the more cover he gives Bush and his cronies, the more they're able to increase and entrench their power. Power they use to destroy everything that Clinton purports to stand for.

Taking the "high-road" has a nice sound to it, but Clinton shouldn't fool himself -- and insult the rest of us -- by thinking that the time he's spent traveling that elevated path has made the world a better place. Or made the gang at Fox News hate him any less than they did the day he left office.

The people who tried to hound him out of office haven't changed much, though they do now control both houses of Congress and the White House. Back then, he seemed to think fighting them was worthwhile. Now that he's got his back up again, maybe he'll rejoin the battle. Nov. 7 is only six and a half weeks away. And nothing less than oversight of the fanatics of the White House is at stake.

Nice Little Conservative Clip Job
"Nice Little Conservative Hit Job": And Also, Nice Little Conservative Clip Job
September 25, 2006
ThinkProgress

As ETP and TVNewser mentioned yesterday, Fox milked its Bill Clinton interview all day yesterday, including showing several clips including this one, which was also the top video on the Fox site (and about which ETP also wrote specifically yesterday). This clip has since had more than a million views (1,001,556 as of this morning, to be precise) and I think it's worth noting what was included in it ?- and what was left out:

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed.

The "I tried, and failed" is a pretty deliberate note to go out on ?- did you hear that, everybody? Clinton admits it! He failed! What was also deliberate was to have included it in the first place, because the "I tried and failed" was not the completion of a thought, but the beginning of a new one.

The full paragraph from ThinkProgress's unexpurgated transcript:
http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview

So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.

Hmm, that leaves a sort of different impression, doesn't it? Too bad a million YouTube viewers didn't see that.

NB: Thoughts on the interview as a "conservative hit job" after the jump.


As for the allegation that this was a "conservative hit job" ?- Wallace has adopted a wide-eyed "don't look at me" position, claiming that "All I did was ask him a question" and that he was "I was utterly surprised by the tidal wave of details--emotion--and political attacks that followed." In fact, Wallace's so-called "non-confrontational question" was multipart, not only asking "Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaida out of business when you were president?" but also bringing up Somalia in 1993, the bombings of U.S. African embassies and the U.S.S. Cole, and brought up allegations raised by the book The Looming Tower, which is highly critical of Clinton in the pre-9/11 years. So it actually was very much a question that required breaking out element by element to properly answer, which is what Clinton said when he heard it ("Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises"). As the conversation proceeded, Wallace several times tried to interject and interrupt, with Clinton responding like so: "You brought this up, so you'll get an answer."

Clinton also attacked the notion of fairness and balance on Fox in this (edited) exchange:

WALLACE: You don't think that's a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of.

WALLACE: But, President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you'll see half the questions are about [the Clinton Global Initiative]. I didn't think this was going to set you off on such a tear.

CLINTON: You launched it -- it set me off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side.

The whole thing is really just a fascinating TV moment, and it's also fascinating to see Clinton go on the offensive that way (or, rather, defensive but it sure felt like an offense). The most amazing part was seeing him frankly articulate the subtext that is so often never spoken.

Wallace asked Clinton if he watched Fox News Sunday; to be honest, ETP typically does not. What we know of Chris Wallace we learned from his appearance on The Daily Show last year. We thought he was a bit of a weasel then, too.

I have a hunch his father is none to pleased with Chris either.