26.9.06

clinton vs fox news

chris wallace of fox news attampted to sandbag billl clinton the other day. what was supposed to be an interview partly on the clinton global initiative and partly on anything else fox news wanted to talk about turned into a full on attack. but the attack that is in question is clinton's counter-attack at chris wallace. he attempted to get clinton, to hit him with questions that he'd never ask the bush administration, but clinton just went off when he tried it.

the question was the following: why didn't you do more to put bin laden and al qaeda out of business when you were president?

does clinton get angry? yes. of course he does. he has every right to be pissed off because walace and fox news is avoiding the facts and merely acting as a mouthpiece for the bush administration, who is of late trying to blame clinton for 9/11. the reality is, clinton did more to get bin laden than the bush administration before 9/11. the reality is, the bush administration thinks iraq is more important than getting bin laden. the reality is, chris wallace has no credibility, and neither does fox news, despite what their trade-marked "fair and balanced" b.s. might say.

as onegoodmove.org pointed out, thinkprogress.org has been doing some investigating into chris wallace's claims that he asks the bush administration the tough questions. they found that he never asked the bush administration why they demoted terrorist specialist richard clarke and he's never asked them about the uss cole. you can go here and here to read their findings on wallace's so-called journalism.

the result of this interview, is a lot of focus on clinton's outburst rather than the facts he produces, which are sound. what is to note here, is the fire that clinton has in his words, in his demenour, in his forceful counterattack in general. this is a fire that is lacking in the democratic party today. clinton saw what was coming, and he blew wallace out of the water for trying it. he hit them back harder than how they were trying to hit him, and that's part of the reason why he won two terms as president. clinton shows you don't have to be dirty in order to fight dirty politics; you can be pissed as hell, but argue with facts. (yes, he does do some chiding, but you can't really blame him). this is the type of stuff that democrats need to feed off of. they need to take this and run with it. they should be asking - no, demanding - repeatedly, where the fuck is bin laden and why aren't you doing anything about it?

fox has been going around the internet, trying to scrub out the video footage of the interview. they've already hit youtube, and google video is probably next, so enjoy this video while you can. it really is quite something. if it is no longer available, try here.

in the end, clinton admits about trying to get bin laden: "i tried and i failed to get bin laden. i regret it. but i did try." a man who admits his mistakes. bush could take a few pointers. even after all these years and all these attacks, clinton still stands tall.
the democrats really have to learn to at least strike back as hard as they're hit. they can't take this stuff lying down.



this is keith olbermann's rant which is both in defence of clinton, and another blatant attack against the bush administration. i love it.