Bill Clinton Fights Back- Page 2

[kelzama]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:23pm

meh. Looked like a meltdown to me.

[Calvin]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:26pm

When Bush gets catty with the White House press corps, Fox News just wets itself about how he is standing up for his administration, policies, the liberal media, yada yada yada.

Clinton has the nerve to react negatively when a reporter basically insinuates that Sept. 11 was all his fault, and it's a meltdown. Go figure.

eta: make that "against the liberal media..."
oops
Updated On: 9/24/06 at 12:26 PM

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:30pm

i can see the point of the people who say that dems should not even appear on fox...the hand that controls the editing suite writes history.

or something like that.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:33pm

But who's the better/bigger person? The one who goes in and faces whatever the "opposition" throws at them or the ones that ONLY preach to the biased choir?

Clinton went in there, and he reacted honestly. If somebody wants to call it a meltdown, tough. If you can't stand the heat, FOX news, don't invite a man who can think on his feet without an earplug feeding him the answers into your kitchen!

[kelzama]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:38pm

I'm not much of a Bush fan, was never much of a Clinton fan. But this interview struck me more like whiny rhetoric than outstanding statesmanship. I don't understand where you see brilliance.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:40pm

But here's the point. He was on FOX News. When you're being goaded by one of their toadies, "fine statesmanship" isn't called for. It would be an insult to fine statesmen everywhere.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 1:00pm

He had the right to correct the record as the revisionists try to re-write history.

He either corrected the record, or would be accused of accepted the "truth" as presented by those who are intent on molding it to meet their objectives.

Clinton is not faultless regarding 9/11, and neither is Bush 1 or Bush 2.

And, until recently, he has pretty much done the bidding of Bush 2 on some major issues, such as Tsunami and Hurricane Relief. It was not until the revisionist came along and wanted to rewrite the past that he spoke up.

It is amazing how frightened the Right is of Bill Clinton, even though he has been out of office for 6 years now. And, though a private citizen, he appears in many ways to be far more a statesman than the White House's current occupant.


Updated On: 9/24/06 at 01:00 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 1:22pm

You're right about their Clinton Fear Factor. It's one of the few things they're so obvious about. I don't think of it as the "Right," though, more like the Talk Radio Extremists and their carbon copy fans, which is short for fanatics.

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 1:45pm

I didn't see the interview, so I'm depending on the rough transcript posted here.

I pulled out the things Clinton said that directly answered the question he was asked, but I had to dig through mounds of..well, whatever...to get to it. He would have come off so much better if he had simply stated these things up front - here they are:


CLINTON: I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. . .The country never had a comprehensive anti terror operation until I came to office. . . after the Cole I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack search for Bin Laden. But we needed baseing 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. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred special forces in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that.


...I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke…


Me again. Hey, fair enough. Good points. Okay. There was also his statement about "No one knew Al Quaida existed then" which is a perfectly valid response, but hard to extricate from the complaining. And that's my point. Can he get his ego out of the way for two and a half seconds? He made the whole issue about HIM. First, how does it affect him, then what is the issue at hand. Wrong order, Bill!!!

That's what comes from the reading. I didn't hear the tone in his voice or see his expressions, so I can't tell - for instance, how did he say the following - was he joking, kind of teasing, or was he serious when he said:

"And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re so clever… "

I hope he put that line over as joking banter (even if he meant it). Did he?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 2:03pm

So your complaint is that his EGO gets in the way of a valid response?

What's your complaint about Bush's idiocy getting in the way of a valid response? Where's your complaint about BUSH NEVER EVEN GIVING A VALID RESPONSE?

You continue to demonize this man and you have nothing better to offer on the other side. NOTHING!

His ego! His ego! His ego!

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 2:30pm

I thought this thread was about the Clinton interview, not about Clinton's policies vs. Bush's policies. And since when is pulling out sensible quotes from Clinton's interview interpreted as demonizing?

I guess he was serious about the smirk comment, then?

Anyway, take a chill pill. Everyone doesn't have to adore your boy.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 2:33pm

Yeah well NO ONE adores yours anymore.

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 2:50pm

Okay. I'm laughing. I surrender the field to you. I gotta go - I have tons of housework to do and I'm having too much fun in here.

I was right about the "smirk" though, wasn't I? (she snickered smugly, smirking.)

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 3:40pm

Bush is a liar and those who still believe his lies and support his failed policies are either fools or idiots.

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 6:24pm

The interview is being rerun now, and I just saw that part - I want to get back to it. It comes off much better in delivery than it does in print - actually, I think he was fantastic.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 6:48pm

Of course he does. He's an engager, not an enrager.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 6:59pm

I think that justthefacts's turnaround will be played over many millions of times today, all across the nation.

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 7:16pm

I try to call them as I see them. Clinton shouldn't back away from doing interviews on Fox; he was very effective. Clearly he was touchy, but he was genuine.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 7:55pm

Genuine....

Remember when presidents were intelligent, articulate, distinguished and genuine?

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 8:32pm

I too just finished watching the video after only having read the transcript, and the transcript does indeed make Clinton come off as worse than his actual performance. It's a literal word-for-word transcription including all of the ers, ums, and false starts that accompany actual human speech.
I have a friend who does transcription work, and she was telling me that there are TWO types of transcription gigs that she gets. One is the literal word-for-word kind, and the other is where you remove all of the extraneous content and only transcribe the main idea of the statement. The client specifies which type of transcription they would like at the time they place the order. There's an actual term for it (the edited transcript, that is), but we were in a bar and drinking as she was telling me this so I can't remember it. I do know that it was in the context of her telling me that almost all of the transcripts involving W were of the edited kind. Although honestly, I don't know if that's conspiracy or expediency.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 11:33pm

It saves a LOT of trees to cut out the extraneous verbiage of the man called W.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 11:50pm

That's the truth. You can watch a Bush speech and see what a moron he is, but if you read a transcript of the same speech (edited, of course) he sounds intelligent. Well, I imagine his speech writers are.

Bravo to Clinton for this--for someone speaking out and speaking the truth and cutting through all the bull****. I pray we get back to that in this country. I pray.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 11:55pm

I want to add that the use of "meltdown" has truly become banal and useless. Anytime someone is passionate or even angry about an issue and one disagrees with that person, that person is automatically labeled as having a meltdown.

Bull****. "Meltdown", which in it's purest form conjurs perfect imagery, should be reserved for people who lose their ****ing minds and start raving like a madman. Or for people who implode and crumble. Call me a purist.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 12:01am

It will be instructive to watch which story gets more play (and not too much of a chore to guess): the US Government's own intelligence agencies talking about how Iraq has made all of us less safe, or Bill Clinton standing up to Junior Wallace (which biased news services call a "meltdown" when it was actually Wallace suffering a "beat down").

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 12:19am

An interesting perspective from Ariana that saddens me as I would rather see the country start working together. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon and she may just be right. Perhaps we do need to fight fire with fire.

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
"I'm glad the Chris Wallace interview is flying all over the internet, but I really hope that one person who will watch it over and over again is Bill Clinton. What can Bill Clinton learn from it? That the bipartisan love-in he's been engaged in over the last several years has resulted in jack-squat. After providing President Bush cover for his disastrous handling of Katrina, after trying to get himself adopted by George Bush, Sr., after giving Laura Bush the keynote slot at his Global Initiative Conference, after going along with Rupert Murdoch's fundraiser for Hillary -- after all that, he got exactly nothing. Now that he's got his back up again, maybe he'll rejoin the battle. "