Clinton Shows Liberals How to Take on Fox News: Come Loaded for Bear and Be Prepared for Ambush

Pres. Bill Clinton agreed to be interviewed on Fox News to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative. But when the cameras started rolling, all Fox’s Chris Wallace wanted to discuss were accusations by rightwingers that the Clinton Administration let Osama bin Laden escape during the 1990s, as depicted in ABC’s “Path to 9/11.”

But Pres. Clinton would have none of it and he fired back at Wallace in a way that rightwing bullies rarely see from liberals. Crooks & Liars has the transcript and the video. Read the whole thing but here are a few choice excerpts:

CW: When we announced that you were going to be on FOX News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I’ve 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

WJC: Okay…

CW: …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…

WJC: No, let’s talk about…

CW: …but the question is why didn’t you do more? Connect the dots and put them out of business?

WJC: Okay, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits, but I want to talk about the context (in) 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 falsely based on the 911 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 (then) 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 (then) that I did too much. Same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993, the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down. And I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the UN. Okay, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk Down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down or was paying any attention to it or even knew al Qaeda was a growing concern in October of 1993.

CW: I understand…

WJC: No wait…no wait…don’t tell me. You asked me why I didn’t do more to Bin Laden. There was not a living soul…all the people who criticized me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer.

CW: I’m perfectly happy to. Bin Laden says…

WJC: And secondly…

CW: Bin Laden says…

WJC: Bin Laden may have said that…

CW: Bin Laden says it showed the weakness of the U.S. …

WJC: It would have shown the weakness if we left right away, but he wasn’t involved in that. That’s just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohammed Adid, a Muslim warlord murdering…thousand Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission. We had not one mission – none – to establish a certain kind of Somali government or to keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic.

CW: But Mr. President…

WJC: There was no al Qaeda…

CW: …with respect, if I may, instead of going through ‘93…

WJC: You asked, you. It (was) you (who) brought it up.

CW: May I ask a general question that you can answer? The 9/11 Commission, which you talk about–and this is what they did say–not what ABC pretended they said…

WJC: Wait, wait…

CW: …They said about you and 43 and I quote, “The U.S. government took the threat seriously, not in the sense of mustering anything like that would be….to confront an enemy of the first, second or third rank”…

WJC: That’s not true with us and Bin Laden…

CW: …the 9/11 Commission says…

WJC: Let’s look at what Richard Clarke says. You think Richard Clarke had a vigorous attitude about Bin Laden?

CW: Yes, I do.

WJC: You do?

CW: I think he has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes.

WJC: He has a variety of opinion and loyalties now but let’s look at the facts. He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H.W. Bush and he was loyal to him. He worked for me and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him. They downgraded him and the terrorist operation. Now, look what he said. Read his book and read his factual assertions – not opinions–assertions. He said we took “vigorous action” after the African embassies. We probably nearly got Bin Laden.

[..]

WJC: 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 you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

CW: Now wait a minute, sir…

WJC: [..]

CW: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

WJC: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you’ve 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…

CW: We asked…

WJC: [..]

CW: Do you ever watch FOX News Sunday, sir?

WJC: I don’t believe you ask them that.

CW: We ask plenty of questions of…

WJC: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth.

CW: About the USS Cole?

WJC: Tell the truth…

CW: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

WJC: 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…

CW: [laughs]

WJC: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

[...]

CW: Would you like to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative?

WJC: No, I want to finish this.

CW: All right…

WJC: All I’m saying is you falsely accuse me of giving aid and comfort to Bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew al Qaeda existed then…

[...]

CW: Can I ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative?

WJC: You can.

CW: I always intended to, sir.

WJC: No, you intended to move your bones by doing this first. But I don’t mind people asking me. I actually talked to the 9/11 Commission for four hours and I told them the mistakes I thought I made. And I urged them to make those mistakes public because I thought none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things. I always get these clever little political…where they ask me one-sided question. It always comes from one source. And so…

[...]

CW: I know we’re over, but can I ask you two political questions? Let’s talk some politics. In that same New Yorker article, you say you’re tired of Karl Rove’s BS. I’m cleaning up what you said.

WJC: I also say I’m not tired of Karl Rove. I don’t blame Karl Rove. If you’ve got a deal that works, you just keep on doing it.

CW: So what is the BS?

WJC: Well, every even number year–right before an election–they come up with some security issue. In 2000, right before the election. In 2002, our party supported them in undertaking weapon inspections in Iraq and were 100% behind them in Afghanistan and they didn’t have any way to make us look like we didn’t care about terror. And so they decided they would [push] the Homeland Security bill that they opposed and they put some pill in it that we wouldn’t pass–like taking the job rights away from 170,000 people–and then [they could] say that we were weak on terror if we weren’t for it. This year I think they wanted to make the question of prisoner treatment and intercepted communications the same sort of issue until John Warner came and Lindsey Graham got in there and it turns out there were some Republicans who believe in the Constitution and their convictions…some ideas about how best to fight terror.

As long as the American people believe that we take this seriously and we may have our differences over Iraq, but I think we’ll do fine this ection.

Even if they agree with us about the Iraq war, we could be hurt by Karl Rove’s new foray if we don’t make it clear that we care about the security of this country. We want to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations, which they haven’t [done] in four years. We want to [..] Afghanistan against Bin Laden. We want to make America more energy-independent. If they want to talk about Iraq, say what they really want about Iraq.

But Rove is good and [that is] why I honor him. I’ve always been amused by how good he is. But on the other hand, this is perfectly predictable. We’re going to win a lot of seats if the American people aren’t afraid. If they’re afraid and we get divided again, then we’ll only win a few seats.

CW: Do you think the White House and the Republicans want to make the American people afraid?

WJC: Of course they do. They want another Homeland Security bill and they want to make it not about Iraq but some other security issue, where if we disagree with them, we are by definition endangering the security of the country. And it’s a big load of hooey. We’ve got nine Iraq war veterans running for House seats. President Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy is the Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia. A three-star admiral who was on my NSC staff – who also fought terror, by the way – is running for the seat of Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania. We’ve got a huge military presence in this campaign and you can’t let them have some rhetorical device that puts us in a box that we don’t belong in.

That’s their job. Their job is to beat us. But our job is to not let them get away with it and if we don’t, we’ll be fine.