After all, even before ABC’s Path to 9/11 “hit piece” on his war-on-terror record, Clinton and his political operatives were doggedly spinning and revising every aspect of his presidency (so much so that they would have you believe that intern Monica Lewinsky was a Trojan Horse sent by right-wing conspirators to entrap Clinton for impeachment). Indeed, as I watched Clinton spew moral indignation at right-wingers for lying about his record during this interview, I could not help recalling how his wife Hillary blamed these same right-wing boogeymen for lying about her husband having an affair with that woman during an NBC interview she gave almost a decade ago. (And, for the record, I think he was as truthful on Sunday as she was back then….)
Moreover, episodes of Clinton going ballistic (at the slightest provocation) at reporters, but more frequently at helpless staffers, are legendary in Washington, DC.
But then I realized that, despite many documented accounts of Clinton unhinged – in books like Primary Colors – until Sunday, most people were not aware of his whining, petulant temper. And that, for these people, seeing it in living color for the first time – even at half throttle (as it was) – was quite a riveting sight.
Incidentally, if you haven’t seen or heard about this infamous interview by now, then you must be hopelessly disinterested in international current events. And shame on you!
On the other hand, if you’re like my friends and colleagues – from Africa to Australia and all over America who can’t stop talking about it – here are a few points to bear in mind:
First of all, it’s important to appreciate that – even though a FOX News anchor – Chris Wallace is hardly the right-wing hit man Clinton accused him of being. In fact, even Clinton’s defenders would concede (as some have) that there is no fairer or more unbiased reporter in Washington than Wallace. Therefore, it was clearly a strategic blunder for Clinton to pick on this reporter as the agent provocateur for his latest woe-is-me rant.
It is also important to appreciate the ground rules Clinton set for this interview; namely: 1) that the interview last 15 minutes; and 2) that it be divided equally between questions relating to his Clinton Global Initiative and anything else Wallace wanted to ask about.
Nonetheless, within minutes, Wallace asked a perfectly reasonable, almost generic, question which proved to be a fuse that set Clinton off on a bellicose and defensive diatribe about how much more he did to kill Osama bin Laden compared to what President Bush has done. And, if you’d like to witness a grown man throwing a sustained hissy-fit, I invite you to watch the entire interview (or read the transcript) by clicking here. Otherwise, the following excerpts should suffice:
WALLACE: …but the question is, why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?
CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.
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.
And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden….
No, wait. No, wait. Don’t tell me this — you asked me why didn’t I do more to bin Laden.
But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. 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…
WALLACE: Well, wait a minute, sir.
CLINTON: No, wait. No, no …
WALLACE: I want to ask a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of?
WALLACE: Do you ever watch “FOX News Sunday,” sir?
CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of …
CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7-billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.
WALLACE: But, President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you’ll see half the questions are about that. I didn’t think this was going to set you off on such a tear….
WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative?
CLINTON: No, I want to finish this now….And you’ve got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever.
______________________
It is ironic, however, that the strongest point Clinton raised in his defense is also the one which undermines not only his record on bin Laden but his entire presidential legacy. And here’ why:
Clinton is absolutely right to assert that those now criticizing him for not doing enough are the very ones who criticized him for being “too obsessed with bin Laden.” But he’s so consumed with self-pity (and self-righteousness) that the irony seems completely lost on him that people did not criticize him for “not doing enough” as much as they questioned what motivated him to do what little he did. After all, even his supporters wondered aloud whether his feckless cruise-missile attack on a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan in 1998 was not merely a craven, if not criminal, example of life imitating art: namely, a Wag-the-Dog effort to divert the country’s attention away from his Monica Lewinsky affair.
NOTE
: Some political pundits are proffering the fatuous notion that Clinton threw this temper tantrum to help Democrats frame the war-on-terror debate for Congressional elections in November. But I do not think his motives were quite so altruistic.
Instead, I suspect Clinton was still fuming over the way he was portrayed in Path to 9/11. And, like almost every other documented outburst he’s had in his political career, this one appeared to be a completely spontaneous emotional combustion. Yet he has no scruples about his spin doctors now diagnosing his breakdown as part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to discredit Chris Wallace and regain control of Congress….)
ENDNOTE: Meanwhile, completely overshadowed by Clinton’s temper tantrum was the truly inspired information he conveyed about his Global Initiative, which raised $8 billion in pledges during the week of the UN General Assembly 61st Session – to help reduce poverty, reconcile religious and ethnic conflicts, meet increasing energy needs, address climate change and improve global health.
Indeed, it’s also ironic that – had Clinton focused on his Global Initiative – it would have done far more to enhance his legacy than embarrassing himself trying to defend his irredeemably-flawed presidency.
FOX News Sunday, President Bill Clinton, Chris Wallace
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.