Okay, I have never denied that I love Bill Clinton. I unapologetically love the man. I consider him to be far and away the greatest president in my lifetime and I am as confident that history will prove me right as, say, Christopher Hitchens is that it won't. I realize that to most progressives, this confession will immediately mark me as a middlebrow savvy-free neocon-appeaser with zero political acumen and little understanding of the platform progressives thought he ought to have been pushing. So be it.
He's not popular with progressives. They've viewed him, at best, as the lesser of two evils. The Huffington Post roughs him up from time to time for not being sufficiently liberal. See, e.g., Arianna Huffington, Bill Clinton and Laura Bush: Homogenizing the '06 Election. He's just not partisan enough to suit the original and true left wing of the Democratic party.
But I was a centrist and a moderate for as long as it was still possible to be and I will always prefer the pragmatist with generally liberal objectives to the idealist or ideologue. I used to think effective---as in lasting---change requires a slow chipping away at the premises on which the opposition to it rest. Except with respect to infringements by the government on personal freedom, and national emergencies, I think the government should be cautious, not precipitate, and should find out all the questions before proposing any answers.
And I am so glad that someone from our team---the Centrist Democrats--- has actually managed to confront Fox and get a word in edgewise.
Here's a link to the full transcript, posted at Think Progress. In it, Clinton unambiguously sets the record straight about his efforts to deal with bin Laden while Chris Wallace does his best to make the interview go according to Fox's all to obvious agenda. The interview is supposed to air today, according to this.
But that wasn't the part I liked best. This is:
[quote begins from transcript of Fox News Interview with President Bill Clinton, 9-22-2006]
WALLACE......President Bush says that the fight against Islamic extremism is the central conflict of the century and his answer is promoting democracy and reform. Do you think he has that right?
CLINTON: Sure. To advocate democracy and reform in the Muslim world? Absolutely. I think the question is what’s the best way to do it. I think also the question is how do you educate people about democracy. Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power. And there’s more than one way to advance democracy but do I think on balance that in the end after several bouts of instability do I think it would be better if we had more freedom and democracy? Sure I do. …The president has a right to do it? Sure I do. But I don’t think that’s all we can do in the Muslim world. I think they have to see us try to get a just and righteous peace in the Middle East. They have to see us as willing to talk to people who see the world differently than we do.
[quote ends]
Is he right or is he right? He's not Right, that's for sure. But can anyone with a grain of intelligence and even an elementary knowledge of our country's history doubt that what he said is true?
Wallace evidently did what he could with the incredulous laughter and so on, but he didn't stand a chance. And you've got to love his final word: "Mr. President thank you for one of the more unusual interviews." Meaning, I guess, that it didn't accord with Fox's well-known "fair and balanced" views.
BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!.... Sorry.
Here's Arianna Huffington's take on it. She, like me, thought he got the better of Chris Wallace, but proceeds from there to point out that his "tireless bipartisanship" has brought him "nothing." I suppose it goes without saying that I don't agree with her; that is to say, I don't agree with her that he is wrong or misguided to advocate bipartisanship because I think that's what this country desperately needs. As to what he gets out of it, I'm not sure she or I is in a position to say. If he thinks it's the right thing, he gets the (admittedly temperate) satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing, even if people still throw eggs at you and think you are a dupe.
OBVIOUSLY, Nora Ephron didn't see it the interview in the same way I did. She saw it as a "meltdown" resulting from BC being "sandbagged" by Chris Wallace. Here's a link to her blog at the Huffington Post. I thought he rocked it. And as for what he could have said, if Democrats running for Congress can't make their case without him, they don't deserve to win (in my opinion...). Frankly, I'd like to throw them all out and start over from scratch.
According to this, the full interview got strategically clipped. Check it! Frankly, I was glad to see him on the offense---which is how I saw it----but there again I read the whole transcript first and so I must have mentally filled in the missing bits. Take note, Nora Ephron! Maybe---just maybe---he really IS a victim.
Finally, here's the New York Times article, "Clinton Faults Bush Team Efforts for Not Getting Bin Laden before Sept. 11."
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