Sunday, September 24, 2006

Sliming Clinton -- Corporate Media Spins Out Fox Lies

In this handout photo provided by Fox News Sunday, former President Bill Clinton responds to host Chris Wallace during a taping of an interview for 'Fox News Sunday', on Friday, Sept. 22, 2006, in New York. (AP Photo/Fox News Sunday, Michael Simon)

Chris Wallace, the weaselly son of real newsman Mike Wallace, ambushed Bill Clinton on FoxNewsSunday today. [From here on in, he will be referred to as 'Wallace the Weasel'] Surprised? Of course not. Clinton was invited on the show to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative and all the money he raised to fix the world's problems last week. So of course the first question out of Wallace the Weasel's mouth was, essentially, don't you feel responsible for 9/11 'cause you didn't get Bin Laden. Good for Clinton, he defended himself with his best weapon -- the truth, and his enormous capacity to marshall the facts to support his case.

And the truth is, as he said, Clinton tried to stop Bin Laden, and Bush sat on his hands then went on vacation. And Clinton also pointed out the hypocrisy of FoxNewsSunday in pushing him on these issues when they have never asked the Bush Administration officials who appear regularly on their in-house propaganda channel the same questions. As ThinkProgress points out, Wallace the Weasel himself interviewed Condoleeza Rice days after she testified in front of the 9/11 Commission, and unbelievably didn't ask her about the August 6, 2001 PDB, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US". While Wallace the Weasel hammered Clinton about the USS Cole bombing, Fox had never before asked a Bush Administration official about their failure to act after the FBI and the CIA certified that Bin Laden was responsible for the Cole bombing early in 2001, despite FoxNewsSunday having interviewed Cheney 6 times, Rumsfield 9 times, Rice 23 times, and Hadley 4 times since then.

And Wallace the Weasel has interviewed those same 4 officials forty-two (42) times and never once asked the sensible question, Why did you demote Richard Clarke, the most experienced anti-terrorism official in government.

So all that is bad enough. And Clinton was mad, and he was wagging his finger as he responded point by point with the truth. Today as I drove home from the Craft Center after a nice Sunday afternoon of making pots, I had WBZ Radio on to see what the weather report is (the clouds were black). And the perky little Clear Channel announcer said, I kid you not, "Bill Clinton was angry and defensive while being interviewed about Bin Laden. Story in a few minutes." Can you say 'slant'? Clinton was being interviewed about the Clinton Global Initiative. He was being interviewed by Fox News. And the question was unfair and had never before been asked of any Bush Administration official on the same network. But all those facts are dropped so the corporate media can spin out the lies that Commander Codpiece needs to keep his sorry ass in office. It just makes me sick.

Crooks & Liars has the video.

1 comment:

1138 said...

What makes me sick is the way the other networks seem to fear NewsCorp and Fox News.
There's a culpability among all the networks in not singling out and exposing the misinformation and flat out propaganda of this nefarious web of Murdoch's.