Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Big Dog Runs the Fox to Ground

God bless Bill Clinton. Fox doesn't have the whole interview up on its site--for fairly obvious reasons. But the transcript is here at Crooks and Liars. Holy smokes, he not only wipes the floor with Chris Wallace, he kicks his ass up one side and down the other.

Up until now, Democrats have basically gone on Fox news and gone along with the charade, knowingly walking into the ambush and smiling all the way through it, pretending that it's an actual interview. But Clinton's righteous indignation came shining through...and who on Earth could blame him? Wallace started in right away with the bullshit criticisms disguised as questions, but he was fighting way, way, way out of his weight class on this one. Clinton obviously has about 50 IQ points on him, in addition to having the actual, ya know, facts at his fingertips. Cripes, what a massacre.

The double standard in play, however, is an astonishing thing: since Clinton recognized the threat from bin Laden and tried to take him out, despite foot-dragging and outright opposition from the Republicans, the CIA, and the military, and since he only came very, very close to getting him ("bombing an asprin factory," said the righties), and since he only halted the efforts so as not to hand Bush a war upon entering office, and despite the fact that his people warned Bush's people repeatedly about the threat, and despite the fact that the Bush people proceded to do absolutely nothing even despite e.g. "bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."...it's Clinton's fault.

The principle presupposed here:

No matter how much Clinton did, and no matter how little Bush did, it's still Clinton's fault.

How does one reason with a group of people who are afflicted by such partisan blindness that they have made themselves immune to evidence?

Wallace in essence sat across from Clinton on national television and knowingly fired false accusations of the most scurrilous kind at him, after having brought him there under false pretenses.

Clinton is a much better man than I am, because, to tell you the truth, I'd have punched that SOB's lights out.

LISTEN!: just because we've gotten used to this shit doesn't mean it's not an outrage.

In case anybody's interested, I'm going right now to give some money to Jim Webb.

Thanks, Chris Wallace, for reminding me what a bunch of dishonest lunatics infect the once-noble GOP.

18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Uh...when you say "noble GOP," you mean Lincoln, right? Has any (successful) American political party come close to deserving to be called "noble?" Are successful and noble more or less mutually exclusive in politics?

7:47 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

How about Eisenhower?

10:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good man, great soldier, decent president, but was he a Republican? He earned his reputation as a non-partisan military leader, to the extent that there was much speculation as to whether he would run as a Democrat or Republican. Much more representative of what the GOP stood for in the 50s are Joe McCarthy and VP Dick Nixon, and that ain't noble.

8:15 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

I myself don't have much good to say about the GOP before Buckley and Reagan.

I'm sure I'd have been more of a Harry Truman Democrat. ;-)

As for Clinton's performance on Sunday, he has a good fisking coming, but I'm not the guy to do it. I thought he was an OK president, altho I'm not sure either of us are enjoying his ex-presidency. Most ex-presidents just go home, if they have one.

9:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've yet to see any falsification done on the statements that Clinton made, while Condilair has told the media a lie that is clearly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report,

Perhaps tvd is right that only a fisking, done already on an editorial on newswacx.com or powerlesslineblog.org can be a relevant response in this situation.

8:13 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

I remember once being entreated not to read a certain newspaper lest it might change my opinion upon free-trade. "Lest I might be entrapped by its fallacies and misstatements," was the form of expression. "You are not," my friend said, "a special student of political economy. You might, therefore, easily be deceived by fallacious arguments upon the subject. You might, then, if you read this paper, be led to believe in protection. But you admit that free-trade is the true doctrine; and you do not wish to believe what is not true."

I have often known this system to be deliberately adopted.

6:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Falsification requires research, so it's the exact opposite of the situation you describe.

and

Yes, much as many Christians these days would declare the Gospel of Thomas a heretical text if they knew of it.

And your point is?

8:21 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

So how's your research going so far? Surely you're seeking out counterarguments to the position you're already familiar with. Please do report back.

Gospel of Thomas is pretty boring---nothing really out of line with mainstream Christianity. Certainly nothing as radical as newsmax.

6:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry Tom, if you can't find facts to support your POV that Clinton made falsifiable statements and worse in the interview, it is not needful that I take up this burden for you.

nothing really out of line with mainstream Christianity.

Ever see the movie Stigmata?

If you can find a Protestant minister to preach on a text from it upon a Sunday, that would be interesting........

11:13 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

I take it, then, by your denounciations of websites that are not congenial to your worldview (altho they're not on my "A" list either) that you're unfamiliar with any challenges to former President Clinton's assertions about his record to Chris Wallace. So be it.

On the other hand, tho I don't know what's in the Stigmata movie, you're correct: I had leafed through Thomas while reading The Five Gospels some years back, and it resembles the canonical gospels in many verses, like the story of the Prodigal Son.

But its underlying theology is indeed gnostic, featuring an immanent rather than transcendent God, which is to say God is Us or We are God (or can be, with proper knowledge) as opposed to God is God and we are men, i.e., not-God.

I appreciate the correction.

3:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

tvd, I accept Clinton at his word, and you do not.

Therefore, when you question his statements, you are obligated to demonstrate the facts and logic behind your questioning.

that you're unfamiliar with any challenges to former President Clinton's assertions about his record to Chris Wallace

Correction: I am unaware of any successful challenges of his statements in the interview, and you are free to use the resources of the internet to do it yourself or quote others who have done so and post them here for all to see.

Your arguments are beginning to remind me of cotton candy: Solid enough looking, but in reality insubstantial spun sugar, philosophically speaking.

6:41 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

No need to characterize my arguments. That is not argument either.

8:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Neither is telling people to break free of their cocoons, as you remarked in another thread.

8:56 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Yes, but the difference is that my comment had a point. And facts.

2:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Points and facts haven't been a priority on this thread, but your habit of making a statement and asking others to do the heavy lifting neccessary to back it up could be replaced by employing points and facts more often than in the past.

1:22 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, you didn't respond to the other one either, so what's the difference?

4:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Seeing as someone else has made a hash of your 'point' and 'facts' there, I refuse to indulge your gluttony for punishment, or 'gang-up' on you so that you can play the martyr card in return.

6:09 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Yes, made a hash of it is an accurate description.

But thank you.

3:41 PM  

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