Clinton Bitch-Slaps Chris Wallace

As everyone has heard by now, former President Clinton did on Friday to Chris Wallace, what Democrats should be doing every single time they’re confronted with right-wing media bullshit: give the facts in no uncertain terms.

For those who haven’t had the chance to see it yet, I’m hosting the video below from C & L. Launch the video, and when enough of it downloads, forward to about 4 minutes in, when it starts to get good.

After watching I would ask everyone to ponder several different, yet equally important aspects of the interview.

1). Listen to the facts of which Clinton assertively speaks. If you have visited the Iraq section of this site, I have depicted verified information that clearly illustrates the differences in the significance and priority of Clinton’s counterterrorism actions, versus those of pre-9/11 Bush. Clinton raises some of these points in his interview, but didn’t name them all. Clinton mentioned that he left a comprehensive plan regarding Al Qaeda that was ignored, that the CIA refused to certify the attack on the Blackhawk in Somalia was bin Laden and the Republicans wanted no part of retaliation, that Richard Clarke was ignored and demoted by the White House, and that the right-wing Republicans accused him of Wag the Dog when going after bin Laden in Sudan. All of those are legit and should be considered. Other points he could have made were the following:

Dick Cheney, head of the counterterrorism task force for the Bush administration was urged by Richard Clarke to hold a series of meetings, and failed to hold a single one.

Then National Security Advisor Condi Rice had a speech slated to be delivered the morning of 9/11 that was obviously cancelled. Not anywhere in her speech did she mention Al Qaeda. Her topic that morning? Star wars. The public speech has since been classified.

While Clinton continued to ask for increases in spending regarding counterterrorism, he was continually shot down by Republicans in Congress including Orin Hatch. Want a good memory refresher? Read this archived CNN article.

But then again, Clinton lied about a blowjob, and I don’t know what threatens national security more than that.

2). For one second, try to imagine President Bush using the same terminology, sophistication and off-hand recollection of facts, and general humbleness that Clinton used during this interview. Bush’s continual use of vague “evil vs good,” intellectually empty view of the world reminds me that comparing the two presidents would be something like comparing a 3rd grade history paper to a college level dissertation. Further, Clinton also admits he made mistakes and failed to get bin Laden. He’s right, but at least he’s admitting it. He also urged the 9/11 Commission to make those mistakes public. I was quickly reminded of one of the presidential debates during 2004 in which Bush, when directly asked, could not name a single mistake, while Clinton wanted to make his public so we could learn from them. If that’s not an exercise in the amount of humility and level of arrogance on which these two men contrast, I’m not sure what is.

3). Over and over again conservatives on this blog and others try to tell the rest of us that there is a liberal media bias. While examples pile up each and every single day, I can’t think of a better example of the media’s coverage regarding Clinton’s interview, and the tantrums Bush throws almost weekly while answering questions posed to him. On every major news outlet, Clinton’s facts were ignored, and the sensationalist headlines of him “blowing a gasket” were shown the spotlight. The Daily Show has more on this (see below).

4). Mike Wallace is a squirming, lying, jackass. He and Fox get called on their conservative bullshit, and it’s fantastic. It makes Wallace look so bad and so biased, that I’m actually surprised they decided it air it uncensored. But then again, when choosing between money (in this case ratings) and ideology, conservatives will abandon their own principles (see: the Iraq war).

And now here is the video of the interview – an absolute MUST watch:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/26/daily-show-rips-cable-news-for-clinton-coverage/

And the coverage of the video. Go liberal media!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/24/fox-clinton-interview-part-1-osama-bin-laden/