Gene Lyons: Clinton fights back

[CatWoman]

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/167908/

Something shocking and unusual happened recently on “FOX News Sunday.”

A prominent Democrat took issue with host Chris Wallace’s cheap-shot interview techniques, made him look foolish and completely out of his depth, and left him whining about his subject’s bad manners. Unfortunately, that prominent Democrat was former President Bill Clinton, whose political career is history. Even so, after a week most Democratic officeholders spent huddled under their desks like schoolchildren in a 1960 s nuclear bomb drill, seemingly fearful of challenging the Bush administration’s disgraceful advocacy of torture, it was bracing to see at least one Democrat speak his mind. Instructive, too. Apparently, Clinton’s had enough of right-wingers’ attempts to hoodwink voters by waving Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress all over again.

Two weeks ago, it was ABC’s fictive docudrama, “The Path to 9 / 11,” combining imaginary events with make-believe dialogue to make Clinton look soft on al-Qa’ida and George W. Bush full of manly resolve. History records something else: that it was Clinton who tried to kill or capture the al-Qa’ida leader and Bush who downgraded terrorism from a Category 4 threat to the equivalent of a tropical depression, waved off a presidential briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U. S.” with a flippant remark about the CIA’s need to “cover ass,” then went fishing.

But let’s go to the tape. Clinton clearly anticipated Wallace’s tactics and took him head-on. Citing viewer e-mails, Wallace asked, “Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and al-Qa’ida out of business when you were president ? There’s a new book out called ‘The Looming Tower,’ and it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, ‘I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U. S. troops.’”

Clinton immediately challenged the context of the question, putting Wallace on the defensive and keeping him there. After all, exactly why are we talking about something bin Laden reportedly said 13 years ago when he remains at large five years after 9 / 11 ? Clinton said the ABC docudrama “directly contradicted by the 9 / 11 Commission report.”

“All the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden,” Clinton said. “All of President Bush’s neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office.”

Then Clinton did something Bush rarely does when journalists irk him. He answered the question. See, for months, GOP propagandists have argued that Clinton emboldened Muslim terrorists by withdrawing after rebels dragged the bodies of U. S. soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu.

[question everything]

1. Brilliant. K&R

[oasis]

2. Don't Mess With Bill (eom)