Clinton’s as brave for going on Fox as Bush is for going on ABC/NBC/CBS/NPR, ie not very. He gets tough questions. Big deal. A bigger deal is how dishonest his answers were (besides the ad hominem of trying to claim that the questions were suspect because they were asked on Fox). For instance, “And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden.”
-that last is a tiny bit less ad hominem as it purports to be a factual claim, but it’s wrong. See transcript of noted rightwing news outlet PBS quoting Republican reaction to the 1998 bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan coincident with the Lewinsky scandal:
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Kyl, the right thing to do?
SEN. JOHN KYL, (R) Arizona: Yes, I support the president’s action, both because of the connection of Osama bin Laden to past terrorist activities, as well as the threats that he has made against Americans around the world in the future.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Grams, how do you feel about it?
SEN. ROD GRAMS, (R) Minnesota: Well, I agree as well, and I think we needed to send a very strong and very clear message to terrorists around the world that Americans will not stand for this type of terrorist activity or terrorist threats, either the ones on the embassies in Africa recently, or any planned threats in the future. So I very strongly support this, and I think these raids were carried out, I hope, very successfully.
Likewise cnn reported that
House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly sided with the adminstration, saying the president “did the right thing” by ordering the simultaneous attacks against facilities believed linked to terrorists suspected in the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa.
“Just a few days ago in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, we saw what happens when people who hate America and hate freedom decide to kill Americans,” Gingrich said. “They did so in a way in which we have to respond.”
“We have every reason to believe that this terrorist organization will try to hurt other Americans,” Gingrich said.
Other key members of Congress also quickly voiced their approval for the decisive military action, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), and Sens. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
…
Clinton’s 2006 claim about Somalia was “They [all the conservative Republicans] 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 United Nations.”
The truth reported by RW Apple of the New York Times was
“On Capitol Hill, such senior figures as Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, expressed support for the President’s policy [‘in the aftermath of heavy American losses in a United Nations military operation in Mogadishu’]. But there was also sharp criticism, with Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, calling for an immediate end to “these fatal cops-and-robbers operations,” and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who sits on the Armed Services Committee, stating bluntly, “Clinton’s got to bring them home.”
Is McCain the winger, or is it Byrd?
Perry, you are right that Bush was opposed to nation building in 2000. Does the fact that he changed his mind in response to events disturb your caricature of the rigid unchanging Republican?
