Clinton blasts Fox.
Clinton was on blistering form during an interview on Fox News. They had invited him along to discuss his work on climate change and then attempted an ambush. He blasts the interviewer out of the water.
ThinkProgress has obtained a transcript of the interview. Here are some highlights:
Wallace repeats Path to 9/11 misinformation, Clinton fights back:He's still got it...
WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I 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? There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read 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 US troops.” Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.
CLINTON: OK..
WALLACE: …may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the book says, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20/20.
CLINTON: No let’s talk about…
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. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.
Clinton takes on Fox News bias:
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 and they didn’t…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… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..
WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…
CLINTON:…
WALLACE: I asked 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. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know…
WALLACE: We asked…
CLINTON:…
WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?
CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…
CLINTON: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.
WALLACE: About the USS Cole?
CLINTON: Tell the truth.
WALLACE: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.
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 is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…
WALLACE: [laughs]
CLINTON: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.
The whole interview is to be shown on Sunday morning. Hopefully, someone will YouTube it and I'll be able to post it here.
The only clip currently available is trying to make out that "Clinton loses it."
Personally, I find such passion inspiring.
Click title for full transcript.
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4 comments:
Ha Kel, I have to say, you're in top form. I have no time to watch any news type show at night (with kids, it's getting them to bed and then getting ready for my own!) so I am always happy to be informed by my fellow bloggers..Ingrid
btw..I'll link to this post..
Thanks Ingrid. And I appreciate the link as always!
Impressive to see Bill Clinton stand up against the people in Fox Pravda-like news.
Yohay,
I'm glad you agree that he was impressive. I thought he nailed him good! It's nice to see passion from a Democrat for a change.
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