Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Don't Blame Me
From the AP:
[Clinton] told Wallace, ''And you got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever, but 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.''
Clinton's meltdown on Fox is begging to be an emblem of ideological excess and its costs. Memories of the assaults of Fox, which the Clinton's decided was a “vast conspiracy” involving the right wing media, probably built up as he approached the studio, expecting a confrontation. Chris Wallace was the least likely target on which to unleash his ire — Tony Snow or Brit Hume would have made more sense, once long ago. The spin machine was whirring — the Democrats said Clinton was just energizing the troops — Democrats have to get angry to win. Of course, Clinton was clearly not his self-possessed self, making the outburst seem worse because it needed to be justified by such blatant misdirection, a sign of nervousness and embarrassment in the ranks.
But it is understandable that Clinton feels unfairly targeted — a very serious charge of negligence at the cost of lives — at a time that Bush's own incompetent administration [via Rumsfeld] of post-war Iraq has led to maniacs in failed lands on the march, feeling the winners, as determined by their depraved standards of victory; it's easy to understand why the Republicans want to blame someone else.