Looney Liberal of the Week: Bill Clinton

This week's award goes to former President William Jefferson Clinton for his angry outburst on 'FOX News Sunday' with Chris Wallace. The competition was stiff this week, with scores of liberals voting against anti-terrorism legislation and then seeking to confer the Constitutional rights of Americans upon foreign illegal enemy combatants and terrorists. But despite the whacky antics of libs on Capitol HIll, the performance of Bill Clinton was a real "show-stopper". You can read the transcript HERE.

What struck me most about Clinton was his body language. He was pointing his index finger at Wallace, leaning forward, tapping the notepad on Wallace's lap. His demeanor was domineering and somewhat threatening. He was clearly invading the personal space of Chris Wallace... trying to impose his will on Wallace. It was reminiscent of Clinton's news conference during which he told America that he "did not have sex with that woman... Ms. Lewinsky". His finger was out and pointing at the cameras then too. So, I can only conclude that if he was lying then (as we know he was), then perhaps he is lying now as well. People have a tendency to lie using the same body language each time.

The conversation went pretty much as follows. The editorial comments are some of my thoughts on the subject...

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WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on "Fox News Sunday," I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I've got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?

[...]

CLINTON: OK, let's talk about it... but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.

I'm being asked this on the FOX network. (EDITOR: The FOX network is A.K.A. as 'the political tool of the Neo-Con Bourgeoisie'.) ABC just had a right-wing conservative run in their little "Pathway to 9/11," (EDITOR: The only network farther to the political right than FOX is ABC.) 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. (EDITOR: Too bad Mr. Clinton didn't enlighten us as to which three things those might be.)

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. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. (EDITOR: Funny, nobody seems to able to find any support for this statement.)

[...]

CLINTON: No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.

The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, "He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things."

The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there. (EDITOR: And the country didn't have a comprehensive anti-terror operation when he left there, either.)

Now, if you want to 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 search for bin Laden. (EDITOR: Funny, he never mentioned this before... not even in his autobiography which weighs as much as a boat anchor.)

But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11. (EDITOR: Hmmm... why did we need to invade Afghanistan when Clinton blew as many as 8 to 10 opportunities to kill bin Laden outright?)

The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify... (EDITOR: AHH! Here's the answer! Clinton wanted 'absolute' proof that bin Laden was the guilty party. He wanted the CIA and FBI to "certify" that bin Laden was responsible. What was he expecting... fingerprints maybe?)

[...]

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn't get him.

WALLACE: Right.

CLINTON: 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. (EDITOR: The 'right-wingers' had all of eight months to try and get bin Laden while Clinton had at least four years.)

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. (EDITOR: The "comprehensive anti-terror strategy" consisted of a four or five page report written by Richard Clarke.)

So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. (EDITOR: Chris Wallace is well-known as the conservative 'power behind the throne'. He has been suspected to be Karl Rove's mentor.) 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. (EDITOR: FOX News interviewers are only allowed to ask questions of Democrats that they have already asked of Republicans.)

[...]

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that?

You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change. (EDITOR: Chris Wallace knew that the owner of FOX News was supporting Clinton's work on climate change, and he was expecting a tidal wave of negative E-mails to come flooding into 'FOX News Sunday'... therefore, he asked Clinton to come onto the show so he could ask him embarrassing questions.)

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. (EDITOR: The show was not yet half over, but Chris Wallace was now being accused of not spending half the show talking about Clinton's pet project. In fact, Wallace apparently "tricked" Clinton into coming on the show under "false pretenses" so he could bash Clinton.)

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.

CLINTON: You launched it — it set me off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side. (EDITOR: Unless the questions are "softball" type questions, then they are not formulated in an honest way. Only "softball" questions are "honest" questions.)

WALLACE: That's not true. Sir, that is not true.

[...]



CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaeda existed then. (EDITOR: Funny, but I can't find where Chris Wallace accused Clinton of anything remotely related to Somalia.) And...

WALLACE: But did they know in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998 ...

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: ... when he bombed the two embassies?

CLINTON: And who talked about ...

WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. (EDITOR: President Clinton's legacy will be that he "almost" killed bin Laden.) And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. (EDITOR: It is unclear exactly how 20,000 troops stationed in North Carolina would be able to kill bin Laden.)

[...]

And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive thing? 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. (EDITOR: Clinton refers to Clarke's book because, until he read it, he had no idea what was going on.)

And you've got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever...

[...]

WALLACE: I just want to ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative, but what's the source? I mean, you seem upset, (EDITOR: Chris Wallace has rarely been treated with such contempt in his short 31-year career. Although Wallace has won three Emmy Awards, the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, and a Peabody Award, he was obviously inexperienced enough to expect that a former President would act with dignity and decorum.) and I ...

CLINTON: I am upset because ...

WALLACE: And all I can say is, I'm asking you this in good faith because it's on people's minds, sir. And I wasn't ...

CLINTON: Well, there's a reason it's on people's minds. That's the point I'm trying to make. There's a reason it's on people's minds: Because there's been a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression. (EDITOR: There is a vast right-wing conspiracy which is secretly trying to destroy the image of Bill and Hillary Clinton. President Bush undoubtedly asked Karl Rove to feed Chris Wallace with questions that would make Clinton look like more of a loser than he already is.)