Opinion Invective Satire Snark |
TNT Radio
Now available as a podcast
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster talks with APJ's editor-in-chief Gene Gaudette about Neocon Sociopathy, the John Fund debacle and the future of Congress
americanpolitics.com and correntewire.com present
Pundit Pap
for September 25, 2006
Sweet Vindication!
The Big Dog Savages FOX News, Ruins "Clinton Caused 9/11" Narrative With Facts
by Corrente's Leah
with Gene Gaudette
September 26, 2006 (correntewire.com / americanpolitics.com) -- Now, really -- do we need to tell you what the big media story of the weekend was?
FOX News Smackdown!
The Big Dog tells off Chris Wallace, at last bringing fairness and balance to America's No. 1 Source for Right Wing Propaganda
by Gene G
It should come as no surprise that Chris Wallace and his co-propagandists at FOX News Channel would take advantage of a scheduled interview with Bill Clinton to continue the right wing campaign to pin the attacks of 9/11/01 exclusively on The Big Dog.
It should also come as no surprise that FOX would lie to Bill Clinton about the parameters of the interview.
And there's no doubt that FOX expected a smashmouth interview, guaranteeing good ratings for their floundering Sunday morning pundit show.
What should come as a surprise is that this was not the sort of result FOX was expecting. Hours before the interview was broadcast on the East Coast, guess what crossed the wire from Reuters?
Clinton Faults Bush Team Efforts to Get bin Laden Before Sept. 11
Sunday, 24 September, 2006, 12:36 AM
/WASHINGTON/ Former president Bill Clinton, angrily defending his
efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, accused the Bush administration
of doing far less to stop the Al Qaeda leader before the September 11
attacks.
In a heated interview to be aired today on Fox News Sunday, the former
Democratic president defended the steps he took after Al Qaeda’s attack
on the USS Cole in 2000 and faulted “right-wingers” for their criticism
of his efforts to capture Osama bin Laden.
()
FOX was hoping to perpetuate the "debate about" (read: smears asserting) Clinton not being tough enough against terror. Instead, Reuters led with one of the most beloved presidents in American history saying that their current president -- whose F scores hover in the mid-to-high-30s -- has failed them. Period.
It's a surefire bet that Roger Ailes and Karl Rove are not terribly happy about the way this particular interview turned out. Chris Wallace got rigorously and thoroughly pwned by Bill Clinton, because when it comes to preparation for a media event, Clinton is second to none.
Some of the highlights of the interview:
Chris claimed that he got "a lot of email" asking him to ask Clinton, "Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President?" (We would wager that those emails came from Karl Rove and all of his pals, plus a few Newsmax-reading kool-aid drinkers.)
Clinton tied Chris's line of questioning to ABC's discredited crock-u-mentary, "The Path to Blaming Clinton for 9/11": "I’m being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative run in their little 'Pathway to 9/11,' FALSELY claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report! I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden." (Is that litigation against The Mouse and the producers and writers of "The Path to 9/11" I smell in the distance? I love a nice, slow-barbecued civil case...)
Clinton also touched on the issue of hawks and pre-PNACers speaking out of both sides of their mouths: "They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in black hawk down and I refused to do it and stayed 6 months and had an orderly transfer to the UN.... It would have shown the weakness if we left right away, but [Osama] wasn’t involved in that. That’s just a bunch of bull. That was about Muhammad Aidid, a Muslim war lord murdering... thousands of Pakistani Muslim troops." Later in the interview: "You falsely accuse me of giving aid and comfort to Bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew al Qaeda existed then!" A little later in the interview: "The people on my political right who say I didn’t do enough spent the whole time I was president saying, 'Why is he so obsessed with Bin Laden?' -- and 'That was wag the dog!' when he tried to kill him."
Clinton talked about the roots of counterterrorist and counter-al-Qaeda policy: "The country never had a comprehensive ant terror operation until I came to office. If you can criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: after the Cole I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack and search for Bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan -- which we got AFTER 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify."
Clinton still feels regret for not blowing Osama straight to Islamic Hell where he'd be tortured for eternity by 72 Ann Coulter lookalikes, and then smacks Chris again:
President Clinton: "At least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now.... They had eight months to try, They did NOT try. I tried. 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! So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. What I want to know is…"
What I want to know is…"
Chris: "Well, wait a minute, sir!"
President Clinton: "No, wait. No, no…"
Chris: "I want to ask a question. [assuming a smug and condescending tone] You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?"
President Clinton: "It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of." (Think Progress did a little research and found the answer, which you can read here and here.)
Clinton got in Chris's face about his smug attitude: "You ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re sooo clever." (Chris looked mighty miffed at the merciless mockery meted out by Clinton.)
Clinton on Rovian tactics: "Every even-numbered year -- right before an election -- [the Republicans and White House] come up with some security issue."
It was like watching Clinton pour a 55-gallon barrel of redass all over Chris. You can see the crux of the interview at http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/24/clinton-video/ or read the transcript at http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview for the full interview.
And let's face it: when it comes to the "ambush interview," Chris Wallace is no Tim Russert -- or, for that matter, no Mike Wallace.
The round table began with selective quotes from Clarke's book to make Clinton look bad. The talking points:
Finally, we were treated to FOX's political "Power Player of the Week": Taeshon, the baby panda at the Washington Zoo! Well, let's review: Lindsey Graham, John Warner, John McCain and the Bush boy all "compromised" (to use the FOX/Beltway wisdom of the moment) on torture. George Allen's campaign has gone from macaca to meshugah. Karl Rove's "genius" is being openly questioned by authors and the press. And Bill Clinton raised billions this week to make the world a better place -- and still found time to expose FOX News's "emperor's clothes" for what they are. Therefore, in Brit Hume World, Taeshon becomes the logical choice for Political Player of the Week.
Yep, that makes sense...
Sunday Gasbaggery: This Week!
Bill Frist; WHAT NIE? Then, Melendez v. Kean Jr, and The Roundtable
by Leah
Frist was the headliner, and damn if he didn’t provide THE headline of the day (leaving aside the President’s “Iraq as comma” comment to Wolf Blitzer) when the Senate Majority Leader and contender for Republican Presidential candidate in 2008 mentioned, almost casually, that he hadn’t read the National Intelligence Estimate, which was completed in April of this year, some six months ago.
That would be the NIE, the major conclusion of which, spread across front pages across the nation today, is “that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks,” according to the NY Times, which broke the story.
Not only hadn’t Frist read it, he had no idea whether it had ever been presented to the Senate, the usual procedure for NIEs, even though they are classified, nor any idea if any other Senators had read it.
Although it must always be remembered that Stephanopoulos is a short, piss-ass sellout, credit where credit is due: George led with the NIE story, and asked as his first question if Frist agreed with the conclusion of the report, which, let us not forget, represents the best consensus opinion of the entire American intelligence community.
Frist’s first answer was that, although he’d read the NYTimes story, not having read the NIE, which is classified, he can’t comment — or so it appeared that he was about to say, until George leaped in to ask, why hadn’t he read it? The only answer Frist ever came up with was that “it’s classified.”
Don’t you wonder how in hell Frist couldn’t see George’s question coming, or how on earth he thought he could get away with a “no comment” on the substance of a story that says, among other equally devastating critiques of our security situation under George W, Bush, the following?
An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of
the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for
the diffusion of jihad ideology.
The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism
problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.
Here’s the answer; clearly Frist intended the “can’t comment ’cause I ain’t read it” response to provide a quick transition for him to get back to the Republican talking points we’ve been hammered with over the past month.
Despite two attempts by Stephanopoulos to get Frist to explain his disinterest in the report, beyond his mutterings about it being classified, Frist insisted on diving ass-first into those talking points: his problem, in the context of the NIE’s conclusion about the impact of Iraq on the GWOT, those familiar talking points sounded ludicrous.
For instance, Frist reassured Stephanopoulos that the response of the average American to reading that NYTimes story will be to dismiss it in favor a cry to the current Republican government to just protect us, we don’t need to know the details, or, presumably, whether what you are doing is working or not. And when Americans take the long view, Frist continued, they understand (especially if they saw that ABC 9/11 atrocity) that this goes back to 1993, when the Trade Center was first attacked, and then came the Khobar Towers, and then came the dual embassy bombings, and then the USS Cole, and then 9/11, and then Americans will realize that there have been no attacks since 9/11 and they will understand… IT WAS ALL BILL CLINTON’S FAULT!
Swear to the God of your choice, that’s what he was saying, in essence.
Once and for all, can we establish one fact about this particular reoccuring talking point: After the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, which happened a month into Clinton’s first term, and unlike the situation of the Bush administration after 9/11, just who the perpetrators were was totally unknown because the previous Bush administration had decided to ignore what was happening in Afghanistan once the Soviet’s had withdrawn, so that the Clinton administration was starting from square one, despite which there were no attacks here in the USA for the next eight years; that beats Bush’s five by three years. As for the attacks on us and the west abroad, well, there is simply no comparison between Clinton’s record and the nightmare Bush has unleashed around the world, which is more or less the point of this new NIE report.
At no point could Stephanopoulos get Frist to deal with the content of the NIE, because all of the Republican recent talking points, designed clearly for the November mid-terms, make no sense in the context of a report which says that Al Qaeda and all the forces of reaction, fundamentalism and extremism in the Islamic world have been strengthened by the actions of this administration, and the congress which has continued to rubber-stamp it’s every decision.
Frist experienced a second difficulty: on the one hand he wished to take advantage of the NIE’s assessment that we face a serious and growing threat from Islamic extremism, but this report says that for all the effort, lives and money this country has expanded on fighting the so-called war on terror, there are more terrorists aiming their fury at us today than there were on 9/11 20001.
Frist had no choice but to simply ignore the implications of most of Stephanopoulos’ questions. He returned again and again to the fear factor: be afraid, depend on us to make you feel not afraid, even if you are in greater and greater danger because of our actions, according to our own intelligence agencies’ best estimates. That was his essential position.
As for the notion that the NIE might suggest we need to rethink our policies in Iraq, as well as the terms of our current presence there, as George quoted Senator Kennedy suggesting, Frist employed that favorite Republican talking point that demands that the stuffing into the mouths of absent Democrats all sorts of things they’ve never said, like cutting and running, and “defeat is an option,” followed by a point which I had assumed is such empty nonsense even Frist would be embarrassed to say it; I was wrong, and yes, he reminded the viewers several times that we either fight them over there or we fight them here - as if the two possibilities were mutually exclusive.
George moved to the torture compromise achieved on Friday; Frist was ecstatic to leave the NIE as far behind in the dust as possible; yes, indeed, what a fine compromise. What followed was a mass of lies; there is no other way to say it. In fact, the lies were so thick on the ground, and yet so ungrounded in any concrete reality that Frist often seemed to be saying contradictory things. On the one hand, the compromise legislation meant to respond to the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision will spell out very clearly what is and is not acceptable in the way of alternate interrogation techniques; on the other hand, Frist said he couldn’t talk about whether or not waterboarding would be considered acceptable in the future, because it would be a mistake to be too specific.
To his credit, despite being a short piss-ass sellout, George mentioned that this country prosecuted Japanese soldiers after WW2 for waterboarding, which was then considered a war crime. Frist kept coming back to his lying talking points; there is somewhere out there an interrogation program that has saved American lives, which can’t go on without this legislation, but which is consistent with the Geneva conventions, to the extent that anyone cares about that, and since McCain did, we needed to come up with a smoke screen. (That last being the not mentioned truth)
Frist made clear that they intend to pass all legislation pertaining to national security next week - else all interrogations will have to stop.
Think about that claim for a minute: there is more information to be had from those 14 prisoners they’ve transferred to Gitmo? Or more information from the people they’ve held there for years now? And even if there were, nothing is stopping anyone from interrogating them in ways which do not violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
Frist also claimed that the military and the intelligence community are in agreement with the compromise; I doubt that, and the willingness of members of the intelligence community to talk to the NY Times about an NIE which the administration has clearly been sitting on since April is an indication that even if they pass this legislation, an unhappy military and CIA and FBI are going to continue to be unhappy, and dangerous to this administration.
There was some discussion of immigration, which was meaningless, except in the way that Frist tried to blame every problem on the Democrats’ crass politicization of the legislative process in which they are determined to block anything that the Republicans try to pass, yet another lie.
George’s next topic was the New Jersey Senatorial race between Robert Melendez, currently the appointed Senator, and Tom Kean Jr, the son of the former Governor and co-chair of the 9/11 commission.
From watching these separate interviews conducted by George, I can’t believe Melendez isn’t beating Kean by ten points. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more oily, mud-slinging preppie.
He’s going after Melendez for corruption by focusing on his role in helping to clean up local politics, and Kean’s tactics are pure Rove. Attack at Melendez’s strengths; he’s been praised for his role in unearthing that corruption, and both the NYTimes and the Ledger in New Jersey have insisted that Kean’s insistence that Melendez was part of the corruption are not born out by a study of the cases involved. Kean also repeated again and again that Melendez had pocketed over three hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money, which sounded quite terrible. It turns out that Melendez leased a building he owns to an organization that receives tax payer monies - and the amount of the lease is set by a formula that preceded that organization’s interest in his property.
Melendez was good, tough, confident, and clear on the issues. He also called Kean a “liar.” I’m beginning to think that the notion that Melendez is in trouble is being spread by a SCLM that is more comfortable with a Kean than a Melendez.
Bottom line; though I have long respected the father, even if I might not have voted for him had I been a New Jersey voter, I believed precisely nothing that the son said; nothing.
What surprised me about the roundtable was how little attention Frist’s frightful performance received from Frank Rich, Martha Raddatz, or George Will. That might have been because George S. started with Senator Allen’s Jewish problem. There was unanimous agreement that he brought those problems on himself.
Then the NIE was discussed along with Frist’s disinterest in reading it. Nothing significant was said by anyone.
On Iraq, the consensus was that Republicans are vulnerable, but that Democrats still don’t have a plan, and you can’t find a flawed plan with no plan. George S tried to suggest that Democrats are talking about a plan, but against the resistance of the SCLM, including BTW, Frank Rich, in ceding any dignity to Democrats, the discussion was left with the possibility that Republicans may be able to play that security card one more time in November.
There was a far livelier discussion that went on in the Green Room, but if you’ve been interested enough to read this far, you’ve heard every bit of their conventional wisdom, and once again I include Mr. Rich here, more times than you or I would care to count.
Universally acclaimed as boldly shrill members of the reality-based community, the Bloggers of Corrente can be reached off the record, on the Q.T., and very hush hush at their highly fortified headquarters, The Mighty Corrente Building.
Search the APJ Site Archive