Comments on: Clinton-Wallace: Round One Goes To ....

[tomb82279]

Vaughn,

A good PE follow up to this might be two-fold. First, no matter what the former president does, people will interpret it in 2 ways. Raw emotion and political calculation. His career and past necessitates the latter because of how few people in the media and the political world believe he has any geniune link to the former.

And second, how this affects Mrs. Clinton. She's pegged with exactly the same persona as he, rightly or wrongly, by the political elite and the media. No matter what she does, it will be looked at through the prism of political calculation.

A good discussion topic is how reporters talk about how how they deal with this. Applying the political storylines to the news and coming up with new ones for new stories (I'm thinking John Kerry flip flop story line).

The fact that the Hotline spotlight today was 100% centered on this duality of Bill Clinton I think will influence the rest of the political world to obsess over whether Bill faked this or not, but what I think readers don't know or understand is why they went their in the first place and why the rest of the media is following their lead.

TB

[zevgadol]

Fox continues to cite Clinton as being abusive, belligerent and discourteous. They portray Chris Wallace as maintaining a civil, respectful demeanor at all times despite the abuse.

Let's look at the introduction to Chris's question.

CW ... I got a lot of Email from viewers and I have got to say I was surprised, [asking] why you did not do more to put Bun Laden and Al Qaeda out of business.

He then goes on to cite Looming Towers that quotes Bin Laden as calling US weak and cowardly for pulling out of Somalia. Clinton starts to answer and Wallace wants to finish his question by embellishing the commentary that OBL dissed the US. And CW goes on to state Bin laden expected an impending attack so he dispersed his leaders.

That was civil? What he is saying and citing is that OBL dissed the US and Clinton didn't start a conflagration. (The implication is that a real man would have risen to the bait.)

Finally, Chris finishes the question with: Why did you not connect the dots?

He didn%u2019t want to be disrespectful; his viewers made him do it. Talk about disingenuous cowardice.

Clinton reacted to genocide in Serbia and Bosnia for which he was soundly criticized by the right, yet by not reacting to name calling he was a wimp.

Common, Fox, Chris was being a dishonest, disrespectful and following your direction. Integrity is lost at Fox.

[zevgadol]

In response to ken0122: Right or wrong in this particular instance, Clinton is still a piece of ___...

That says it all. Conservatives cannot fathom Clinton as having any redeeming qualities. Even if he is right in this instances, it is irrelevant.

His argument is worthless.

Despite lack of character and values in certain areas of his life (tragic flaws in my opinion) WJC effectiveness and resonance with Americans (and the rest of the world) is remarkably high. How else can one rationalize the 60-70% approval rating he still maintains.

Bush must be responsible for his actions, Clinton's indiscretions don't justify Bush's failures.

Ken, you have made my case. Thank you.

[apelavin]

Oh, and as for calculated vs. genuine emotional response, I'd guess a mix of both -- he certainly went into it knowing that he'd be asked some tough questions and planning to set an example by his responses, but I still think he was taken aback by the blatancy of Mr. Wallace's attack.

[apelavin]

To be clear (and I think this is very significant), Wallace didn't ask Clinton "whether there was more his administration could have done" about Bin Laden. Wallace claimed that there WAS more that Clinton's administration could have done and asked "why didn't you do more, connect the dots, put him out of business?"

If that doesn't qualify as a "when did you stop beating your wife"-type question, I don't know what does.

[ken0122]

Right or wrong in this particular instance, Clinton is still a piece of ***.

[ginibo]

Hmmmm... Why now? Why are the Bushies and Fox trying to point the finger towards the previous administration at this stage in the war game? Where was their whining and accusations back in 9/11/2001 that the Clinton administration didn't wipe out OBL? Why five years after the attack on American soil? Pick an one word answer or add your favorite:
SCAPEGOAT
ELECTION
COWARDACE

Perhaps we've underestimated this administration when everyone said they have no exit strategy for Iraq. Maybe blaming the Clinton administration IS their exit strategy. This exit strategy doesn't really relate to Iraq, but then again how did 9/11?

[rickb999]

I can't believe that so many people looked at this as an angry outburst, this was a very appreciated, calculated reaction to what he most likely knew was coming... He was in my eyes showing passion!! He stood up when most everyone else had let this debate die a quick, and quiet death. As far as I know, the president has yet to state why we went to war, and when he was interviewed a couple of weeks ago stated something along the lines of "my hardest job as connecting Iraq to the sept. 11th attacks!!!

[zevgadol]

Clinton has been the scapegoat for whatever has gone wrong in the Bush admin.

The 2001 recession was blamed on Clinton. In 2000 election, the country's 8 year economic growth was deemed by the Right to be independent of Clinton.

Nothing has changed. The Right blames Clinton for tolerating terrorism threats leading up to 9/11.

WTC garage bombing put us on notice that a comprehensive anti-terrorist strategy was required, Clinton administration took it seriously.

Bush was offered a comprehensive anti-terrorist strategy. Bush's response: we will do our own when we get around to it. Bush%u2019s direction after the intelligence community declared the Cole bombing was due to Al Qaeda: no swatting at flies.

Bin Laden was planning on an attack in the US, Bush's response: nothing to be done, without a date, target or method of attack spelled out. Hardly proactive.

Later Rice stated: Who could have imagined using planes as missiles?

An intelligence scenario had anticipated this very method of attack. Ms. Rice complained she was not copied. Turns out she was.

During the 17 months from Afghanistan invasion to going into Iraq, Bin Laden went free. Much of the hunt was delegated. Bin Laden is still free 5 years later.

Obviously this was all Clinton's fault. Draw the dots.

It is time Bush accepted responsibility. Anything else is dishonest. Fox wanted to perpetuate %u201Cblame Clinton%u201D theme. Clinton forcefully resisted.

Good for you President Clinton.

[cab_-2009]

As to whether Chris Wallace -was- doing a hit-job and deserved the harsh tratement. Note that Mr. Wallace had a long question, 130 words (about Osama) and -insisted- on finishing it even after Clinton started to answer. This is the tactic of someone who is more interested in getting the full text of his accusations aired on TV -- not someone that is mainly interested in what Clinton has to say about it. It was obvious early on (in that question) that Clinton knew precisely what it was about. A real interviewer would have let Clinton speak, and use follow-up questions if the response was not adequate. So yes, Wallce was was more interested in accusing than in listening to him.