Clinton/EJ Dionne

[malwords]

Did anyone catch EJ Dionne's piece in the Washington Post? I sent this to EJ, just hoping it might get through.

A few points:

Regarding Rush Limbaugh’s comments: My goodness. Talk about cherry picking. I suppose if I went through all the records for everything said about the President by every Democrat immediately after 9/11, I am quite sure I could find a couple bomb throwers. You want to slam Rush Limbaugh; how about I mention Michael Moore—a celebrity commentator in the Democrat Party? I’m sure he was all about unity after 9/11. After all, Fahrenheit 9/11 was an homage to the President’s response to 9/11, wasn’t it? And all the Democrat politicians who went to the premier? And Moore sitting with former President Carter at the Democrat Convention? Oh, and about that other, former President: he was all about unity, wasn’t he?


And Mr. Gephardt’s comments? I’m sure they were uttered completely devoid of partisanship—solely for the sake of the country. Please. Gephardt, Cheney, and every politician worth his salt knows that comments can be factually accurate (as both those comments were), good politics (both those comments were), and divisive at the same time.


Bill Clinton was just getting back at the neocons for smearing his name all these years? Will you support President Bush when he exacts rhetorical revenge after he resigns (you know: when he tries to refute the BushHitler smears, the consistent references to imperialism, American hegemony, Cowboy diplomacy, etc.)?


No politics involved? President Bush goes on the offensive for the whole month of September, and then this takes place. The election looms in November and his wife is a serious Presidential candidate in 2008.


Everything he said was factually accurate? Do you believe Chris Wallace’s question was a hit job? And that he didn’t spin anything? He was just getting the truth out? I guess he just forgot to mention Louis Freeh or James Woolsey in his remarks.


Lastly: The fact that he leaned over and repeatedly poked Chris Wallace on his knee (or on the notes resting on his knee) is what I most take away from that little episode. Everything else about this is just civilized human beings getting into the political/media give and take. But after the second or third poke, Chris Wallace would have been completely within his legal rights to slap his hand away and say, “Don’t you ever touch me. You can’t intimidate me physically. I don’t care who you are.â€

[MrSinatra]

as Dick Morris said, the more truthful the allegation, the more angry and finger wagging he gets.

[Jeffreydan]

Welcome to the forum, Mal.

Do you (or does anyone else out there) have a link to the Dionne piece?

[WeaponOfMassInstruction]

Anyone who doubts that Clinton lies need only watch the part of the interview where he tells Chris Wallance that he has 'never criticized President Bush'.

Maybe the evil Fox News edited out the rest of what Clinton said in that bite. Furious research on my part reveals that he went on to say that he 'has never criticized President Bush in the past two seconds.'

[fedupintexas]

The sarcasm is too thick to swallow Weaps, I almost threw a brick at the TV the night of the great celebration of naming 41 Bush and Clinton to that fund raising job for Katrina and Clinton took jabs at Bush on THAT stage???? He couldn't even leave the Prez alone on such a neutral ground and solemn night. He's nothing but a cheap shot artist and can't even remember that last lie he told. I am truly disappointed in slick willy and peanut carter for both being the first to break the "past presidential" code of honor. but then again that shouldn't surprise me that anything having to do with HONOR would escape slick willy and the peanut man, they wouldn't know HONOR if it bit them in the back side.

[malwords]

Here it is. Sorry for the wait.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01454.html

You know the word that was missing in all the Wallace/Clinton after action reports: chill.

Not as in, "The former President really needs to chill out," although this would be accurate.

No... as in, "If a powerful leader whose wife is still in the Senate (and could possibly be the next President) is allowed to intimidate (both physically and psychologically) an (arguably) conservative reporter affiliated with a news organization that is perceived to be hostile to said senator, that will have a chilling effect on reporting at large."

You know why we didn't hear conservatives talking about a chilling effect? Because, generally, we realize this talk is foolishness pure and simple. Remember when a throwaway line by Ari Fleischer (about how he said early on in the war that we need to watch what we say) had liberal columnists clutching their MACS in a GI JOE Kung Fu Grip? There was no intent to censor anyone in that comment, but you know that's how some of them interpreted it then, and still do today.

Could go on and on about this stuff, but things to do...

[malwords]

Here it is. Sorry for the wait.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01454.html

You know the word that was missing in all the Wallace/Clinton after action reports: chill.

Not as in, "The former President really needs to chill out," although this would be accurate.

No... as in, "If a powerful leader whose wife is still in the Senate (and could possibly be the next President) is allowed to intimidate (both physically and psychologically) an (arguably) conservative reporter affiliated with a news organization that is perceived to be hostile to said senator, that will have a chilling effect on reporting at large."

You know why we didn't hear conservatives talking about a chilling effect? Because, generally, we realize this talk is foolishness pure and simple. Remember when a throwaway line by Ari Fleischer (about how he said early on in the war that we need to watch what we say) had liberal columnists clutching their MACS in a GI JOE Kung Fu Grip? There was no intent to censor anyone in that comment, but you know that's how some of them interpreted it then, and still do today.

Could go on and on about this stuff, but things to do...

[flyohiou]

Lastly: The fact that he leaned over and repeatedly poked Chris Wallace on his knee (or on the notes resting on his knee) is what I most take away from that little episode.

that's what you impressed you the most about this interview? not the content of what clinton said?




clinton was upset because he was there to promote his global initiative fund. he was not there to discuss politics. he came on a republican talk-show to open up to the right. bush won't go on "left" talk shows. clinton gets asked questions about his decisions. condi rice gets asked questions about whether or not she dates.

[WeaponOfMassInstruction]

fly-

Just to correct you once again...

The ground rules for the Wallace interview with Clinton was for a 15 minute interview to be approximately equally divided between his Global Initiative and other political matters. Unlike the Hildebeast, who deamds from her interviewers the exact questions they will ask her and she reserves the right to axe any question she doesn't like, Bill Clinton did agree to those provisions and no questions barred. For that, I give him some credit.

If you'll watch the entire interview, you'll note that Chris Wallace tries at several points to get Clinton back onto his global initiative, but Clinton rebuffs him each time and says that he wants to continue discussing his failed anti-terrorism policy.

Oh...and if you're going to charge that Fox News is a Republican moutpiece, then you'll have to admit that ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, et. al are DEMOCRAT mouthpieces because their coverage of the same story is so often the complete opposite of how Fox covers it. Are you prepared to admit that?

[flyohiou]

Oh...and if you're going to charge that Fox News is a Republican moutpiece, then you'll have to admit that ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, et. al are DEMOCRAT mouthpieces because their coverage of the same story is so often the complete opposite of how Fox covers it. Are you prepared to admit that?

fox is on the far right which is why is seems everything else is opposite (kinda like you guys think i am opposite and liberal). the rest are still conservative networks - some less than others - just not as neo-conservative

[MrSinatra]

to say that cnn, msnbc, cbs, abc, nbc, and whatever are "conservative" is to simply prove you don't know the meaning of the word.

i would say that fox is more geared to traditional people, and in that way is conservative, but it is not far right and it frequently airs both sides of many issues.

[flyohiou]

nbc fired charles grodin because he allowed kennedy jr to discuss environmental issues on air

nbc wouldn't show their tom brokaw special on nbc, yet they still produced it for the discovery channel

abc just showed the biggest crap special on clinton not too long ago.

katie curik's has a segment called free speech, but they won't let people talk about anything they want. there is a certain selection of topics people can discuss.


fox is geared toward traditional people? i think what you mean is traditional white people from the 50s.

[WeaponOfMassInstruction]

Even I stipulated for the sake of discussion that Fox was conservative- which I do not, by the way- it amuses me how the Liberals get their collective panties in a wad that all news media is no longer monolithically liberal in its viewpoint on issues. One network deviates from the norm and you'd think that it was the end of the world for the MSM.

Actually, it is.

Turn back the clock to, say, 1984. Dan Rather airs a story on how Ronald Reagan managed to avoid service during WW2 by using his contacts in the film industry. Rather, knowingly or unknowingly, uses forged documents to make his case. However, because there is no alternative media out there to check into the veracity of the report, everyone assumes that the story is true- there's no one to point out the anachronism that the typeface presented, no one to point out what a nutjob the source of the documents is, no one to do research that counters the claim. Might the result be that the American voters turn their backs on Reagan because they believe he's a draft dodger -after all...Dan Rather said so!- and elect Walter Mondale President?

All Fox and others in the New Media does is present the other side of the story and cover stories from a less-biased perspective (and, yes, an occasionallky differently-biased perspective). Since most of the Old Media were monolithic in their ideological viewpoints, you had no way really to check their data. In the real old days, that wasn't a problem- or rarely was- because the Cronkites, Huntleys and Brinkleys, the Chancellors and the Severids didn't let their own personal viewpoint cloud their reporting. Generally, we got "just the facts". Do we get that from Williams, Couric, Olbermann, Matthews and the gang? Nope...we get opinion masquerading (badly) as news.

Sorry, but if you have no problem with liberal opinion bleeding over into the way a given network reports, then you can't complain that another network allows conservative opinion to bleed into the way it reports issues. Not unless you enjoy being a hypocrite anyway.

[steve1633]

All conservatives need to watch the movie Outfoxed if you really think fox news is fair or balanced or at all equally representative of both sides of any issues. You can also look at FAIR's assesment of the channel here
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067

[MrSinatra]

ever read orwell?

he'd laugh at that site being named "FAIR"

get real.

u don't know completely partisan from impartial?