http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/22/clinton-fox/
FULL TRANSCRIPT: Clinton Takes On Fox News
Today, President Bill Clinton taped an interview with Fox News´ Chris
Wallace, which is scheduled to be aired Sunday. He was told the interview
would focus on his nonpartisan efforts to raise over $7 billion to combat
the world´s biggest problems.
Early in the interview, Wallace attempted to smear Clinton with the same
kind of misinformation contained in ABC´s Path to 9/11. Clinton was
having none of it.
ThinkProgress has obtained a transcript of the interview. Here are some
highlights -
Wallace repeats Path to 9/11 misinformation, Clinton fights back:
WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday,
I got a lot of email from viewers, and I 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.
CLINTON: OK..
WALLACE: ...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.
CLINTON: No let´s talk about...
WALLACE: ...but the question is why didn´t you do more, connect the dots
and put them out of business?
CLINTON: OK, let´s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on
the merits but I want to talk about the context of 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 based on the
9/11 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 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 that I did too much. Same people.
Clinton takes on Fox News bias:
WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?
CLINTON: No, because I didn´t get him.
WALLACE: Right...
CLINTON: 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..
WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir...
CLINTON:...
WALLACE: I asked a question. You don´t think that´s a legitimate
question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how
many people in the Bush administration you 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...
WALLACE: We asked...
CLINTON:...
WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?
CLINTON: I don´t believe you ask them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of...
CLINTON: You didn´t ask that did you? Tell the truth.
WALLACE: About the USS Cole?
CLINTON: Tell the truth.
WALLACE: I...with Iraq and Afghanistan there´s plenty of stuff to ask.
CLINTON: 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...
WALLACE: [laughs]
CLINTON: You said you´d spend half the time talking about what we did out
there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different
commitments. And you don´t care.
Clinton on his priorities and the Bush administration priorities:
CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a
finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I
got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were
still president we´d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill
him. Now I never criticized President Bush and I don´t think this is
useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is
1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with
that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard
Clarke´s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to
try to protect the country against terror. And you´ve got that little
smirk on your face. It looks like you´re so clever...
WALLACE: [Laughs]
CLINTON: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried
and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did
everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against
sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and
no one thought we could do it otherwise...We could not get the CIA and the
FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until
I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had
three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them
about this. I think that´s strange.
Read the full transcript (rough) HERE.
http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview
Alamaine, IVe
Grand Forks, ND, US of A
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a
philosopher." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Don't ask about caste or riches but instead ask about conduct. Look
at the flames of a fire. Where do they come from? From a piece of
wood"and it doesn't matter what wood. In the same way, a wise
person can come from wood of any sort. It is through firmness and
restraint and a sense of truth that one becomes noble, not through
caste. -Sutta Nipata
~~~~~~~
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