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Clinton whines; Dems have collective orgasm

By Michael J. Smith on Wednesday September 27, 2006 01:47 PM

Democratic Party cheerleader John Nichols, writing in The Nation, was delighted by Bill Clinton's recent tantrum on Fox News:
... there has never been any doubt that Clinton was more serious about combating terrorism than his successor, George W. Bush....

Bush's supremely political presidency treats "homeland security" as a slogan rather than a necessity....

Clinton recognized that Wallace, one of the more competent members of the Fox team, was under pressure to mouth the Republican talking points that the network uses as its reference points. And the former president pounced on that vulnerability. When Wallace started in on the "Why didn't you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President?" line of questioning, Clinton leapt.

... Clinton was on a roll. Despite Wallace's stumbling attempts to interrupt him, Clinton went year-by-year, incident-by-incident, initiative-by-initiative through his anti-terror efforts. "I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill (bin Laden)," the former president explained....

Love Bill Clinton or hate him, but understand that his appearance on Fox New Sunday was one of those rare moments in recent American history when a target of our drive-by media shot back.

Sounds like Nichols got pretty excited. I watched the same clip and had a very different impression: Cllinton seemed petulant and over-talkative, gabbling about six different topics simultaneously and ready with a different self-exculpation on each one. And of course the bottom line was that Clinton was a better George Bush than George Bush is. Which is pretty much the party's story lately.

But I'm glad Nichols enjoyed it; there can't be much else for him to enjoy these days. And no doubt my attitudes affected my perception just as much as his did.

Comments (6)

J. Alva Scruggs:

How could anyone in his right mind willingly participate in a Fox News freak show? The only outcome is to legitimize and affirm the power of the know-nothing right. Was Bill sucking up to Murdoch on Hillary's behalf?

I agree. Chris Wallace is as big a turd as his old man. Why would any thinking person expose himself to either>

js paine:

"ready with a different self-exculpation on each one"

that is precisely the sub text of all this
swamp water bivalve's flushings

christ he's more shameless then ten thousand nixons..

yikes ten thousand nixons ....

Reechard:

Was Bill sucking up to Murdoch on Hillary's behalf?

In a manner of speaking. Like stepping through the mirrors in Cocteau's Orpheus that are portals to the underworld, Bill's heroic soundbites had barely pealed across the Fox studio before they were being repackaged as fundraising letters. See:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/sep/25/howard_dean_blasts_fox_for_cover_up_uses_clinton_appearance_to_raise_cash

The former is a Donk wonkery site that reproduces the letter, a shameless little exercise in image polishing meant to stun donors with an 11th-hour display of Democratic Party vigor. Has the party been little more than concupiscent curds, as W. Stevens might say, before Bushism? Howard Dean readily admits so:

"...the problem until now has been our willingness to stand up and fight. . .in the face of fear mongering, bullying and intimidation from the other side."

But no more, Bill's Fox appearance being nothing less than a Normandy Landing:

"That's why we're going on the offense on national security...

"Yesterday Bill Clinton did exactly what Democrats need to do in this election -- to stand up to the right-wing and tell the truth."

Etc. etc.

Yeah, and five to one your wives and daughters were safer around Nixon, too. :p

Wtf...?

Stand up to the...who? And tell the...what?

D'ahh ha ha ha ha haahh.


So much of this Clinton tantrum reminds me of some of the WaPo's gushy coverage of the Clinton side presenting its arguments in the impeachment trial. I watched one of Clinton's attorneys -- long since forgotten her name -- a black woman, making a big deal of Bubba's civil-rights record (gag), while wearing the most blandly-colored, shapeless, sexless power suit imaginable, while delivering her arguments in tones just a notch above "loaded up on Ludes", wondering to myself if the Clinton team's strategy was to win the opposition over by boring it to death.

The WaPo, next morning, writes this whole scene up as if it were a goddamn' Law'n'Order re-run, hardly able to contain itself, using words like "feisty" (talk about a word that the media's pretty much beaten the living juju out of), and I thought: jayzus, what fucking impeachment trial were _they_ watching, the impeachment of Bubba's antimatter counterpart in a conjoined parallel universe or something?

...and that's pretty much the impression I get when listening to your partisan DP Kool-Aid drinkers' reactions: what a brave, noble guy Bill was to fight back against that mean old Fox News guy. It's like they're reacting the same way the WaPo did the morning after the opening arguments in the impeachment trial...like something they glimpsed by accident being transmitted from an antimatter universe -- instead of what, I'm sure, many regular folks saw, which was basically a total failure of Bubba to maintain any kind of class in the face of pointed, rough questioning. True, the Fox News guy was pulling the same crap that all the Fox News "reporters" like to pull, but that doesn't change the fact that after all that time in public life, XPresident Bubba still just can't hold his shit together when his back's to the wall and can't triangulate his way out.


Btw, am I the only one here who saw this footage and thought it was a re-enactment of the I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman speech -- the pissy attitude, the fuck-you tone of voice, the finger-wagging as if scolding a child -- only way creepier?

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