BILL CLINTON FOX "FREAK OUT" ACTUALLY
A BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRAT TV SUCCESS

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Mohandas Gandhi

So the right wing is calling it a breakdown or a freak out or something along those lines, but they don't really appear to be responding to what he actually said. That is, they're ridiculing him, which I put into the "laugh at you" category from Gandhi's quote above. When I first read some of the transcript from this Fox News Sunday interview on Friday, I felt certain that the video was going to show me what I wanted to see, a rare and real debate in the middle of the proverbial lion's den. It's all over now, if the Democrats take the ball and run with it: President Clinton went on Fox news and kicked ass, showing once and for all that liberals can go toe-to-toe with the corporate pundit parade and win. Anybody can do it. If they have the balls.

Actually, the real key to this kind of rhetorical win is to steadfastly reject the right-wing narrative, again and again, replacing it with an intelligent, reasonable analysis.

Anyway, here's a bit more of the transcript, followed by a link to some video of the exchange, courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

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…

Click here for the rest of the full transcript, and video of the first half of the exchange.

What a man. That's the way you do it--that's also how the Republicans did it, too. Never back down on your key points, and go for the jugular. "Taking the high ground" is no longer a productive option, especially because the Republicans utterly destroyed the high ground long ago. I'm not advocating mud-slinging, despite how much fun it is, but what I do want to see is bravery in the line of fire, and that's something old Bill's got in spades. We can turn this country around, if only our leaders would fight for it.

Of course, I'm not holding my breath.


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