DICK MORRIS: The real Clinton emerges...

The Hill ^ | 9/26/06 | Dick Morris

[standingfirm]

From behind the benign façade and the tranquilizing smile, the real Bill Clinton emerged Sunday during Chris Wallace’s interview on Fox News Channel. There he was on live television, the man those who have worked for him have come to know – the angry, sarcastic, snarling, self-righteous, bombastic bully, roused to a fever pitch. The truer the accusation, the greater the feigned indignation. Clinton jabbed his finger in Wallace’s face, poking his knee, and invading the commentator’s space.

But beyond noting the ex-president’s non-presidential style, it is important to answer his distortions and misrepresentations. His self-justifications constitute a mangling of the truth which only someone who once quibbled about what the “definition of ‘is’ is” could perform.

Clinton told Wallace, “There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down.” Nobody said there was. The point of citing Somalia in the run up to 9-11 is that bin Laden told Fortune Magazine in a 1999 interview that the precipitous American pullout after Black Hawk Down convinced him that Americans would not stand up to armed resistance.

Clinton said conservatives “were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day” after the attack which killed American soldiers. But the real question was whether Clinton would honor the military’s request to be allowed to stay and avenge the attack, a request he denied. The debate was not between immediate withdrawal and a six-month delay. (Then-first lady, now-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) favored the first option, by the way). The fight was

[Screamname]

lol!! Oscar Wilde was fantastic with the one liners. I think even on his death bed he said something about the wallpaper in his room, either he goes or the wallpaper.

[cgk]

It is not because people are right-wingers that they criticize him over the failure to prevent 9/11. It was his failure to catch bin Laden that drove them to the right wing.

Some.

[Hildy]

O'Reilly DESPERATELY wants Clinton on his show...he's kissing up to Bill's ego and vanity....if Clinton and O'Reilly were ever in the same studio, the hot air would be so deep, they'd need industrial fans to cool it.

[utahagen]

Actually, the fact that Chris Wallace was (relatively) passive was a plus in this case. Clinton looked flat-out nuts jabbing at, and semi-yelling at, Wallace, who seemed stunned at the emotion Clinton displayed. Clinton's response was so disproportionate to the question posed, and the manner in which it was posed, that he did himself in.

[Zhangliqun]

no, that would have backfired. Wallace behaved correctly, had he done what you suggest, the story would have been about Wallace - instead, its about Clinton's behavior.

Exactly.

[Cinnamon]

yup. I watched the interview and remember thinking "oh billy boy you did yourself in"..

[Screamname]

Yeah but Wallace could have exposed the myth that is Clinton even more by simply asking or saying a well placed comment, such as "Now Mr. President you know that isn`t true. You and Jamie Gorelick purposely seperated info exchange between the CIA and FBI yet here you said you couldn`t get them both to agree on Al-Qaeda"..

I don`t blame Wallace though, I can imagine how intimiidating it was. The problem now though is the liberal media is focusing on Clinton being combative rather than focusing on the truth, they are defelcting the question Wallace asked. Who cares if he was combative? Anything short of physical assault is not newsworthy. The punk once again deflected the truth.

[AliVeritas]

Not only them... they know about the plot in 95 to blow up 12 transatlantic planes by bin Laden.


Atlanta Rules
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a070696atlanta

Nah, he had no idea.

[Toespi]

Can you imagine the face Jaunita Broderick must have seen?

[AliVeritas]

But will it pull Wally Jr. away from the left?

[i_dont_chat]

Morris Details Clinton Violence
06-13-2003, 11:23 PM
http://forums.somd.com/showthread.php?t=11741

Former White House aide Dick Morris has come forward with new details of ex-President Bill Clinton's violent side, explaining how, as governor, he once tried to "beat me up."

Morris has told the story before, but never in such vivid detail - and his account undermines claims that Clinton was incapable of inflicting violence on some of his female victims.

Writing in National Review Online, the renowned political consultant says he was prompted to speak out after New York Sen. Hillary Clinton mischaracterized his reluctance to rejoin the Clinton camp in 1994 in her book "Living History."

In an open letter addressed to the former first lady, Morris says:

"You correctly note that when you asked me to help you and Bill avert defeat in the congressional election of 1994 I was reluctant to do so. But then you assert, incorrectly, that my reluctance stemmed from difficulties in working with your staff. You even misquote me as telling you: 'I don't like the way I was treated, Hillary. People were so mean to me.'"

Instead, says the former White House adviser, his reasons for leaving were far more dramatic.

"The real reason I was reluctant was that Bill Clinton had tried to beat me up in May of 1990 as he, you, Gloria Cabe, and I were together in the Arkansas governor's mansion."

Angry that polls showed his primary opponent was gaining on him, Bill Clinton "verbally assaulted me for not giving his campaign the time he felt it deserved."

Morris says that the verbal attack prompted him to stalk out of the room. That's when the future president became physically violent.

"Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me."

Morris says that Hillary "grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me."

Addressing Mrs. Clinton, he recalls, "Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion in the minutes after, with your arm around me, saying, 'He only does that to people he loves.'"

Morris adds that "when the story threatened to surface during the 1992 campaign, you told me to say it never happened.'"

The top consultant concludes: "I continued to work for Bill since I felt a responsibility to do so until Election Day in 1990. But our relationship was never close and never the same. After the 1990 campaign we parted ways as a direct result of the altercation.

[Luke21]

Even then, the liberal press entitled the story, "Clinton fights back."

[AliVeritas]

You know what kills me? On the darkside (that's DU for folks in Rio Linda), they were cheering him on; Not one person went to look it up or even stop to say "This doesn't make him look good, he could have answered a better way".

[utahagen]

I hope Wally Jr. STAYS on the left! Clinton's assertion that Wallace is working for the "right wing" is laughable, and the more leftish Wallace seems, the more laughable it it.

[hulagirl]

So unbelievably low class, this ex-president. Did you hear him say he "never criticized Bush before"? What a liar, he has been doing nothing but since the day he left office. He is, I believe, the first ex-president to break that long standing unwritten rule about criticizing sitting presidents (from the past one). God he makes me sick to my stomach.

[Carry_Okie]

The ex-president is fully justified in laying eight months of the blame for the failure to kill or catch bin Laden at the doorstep of George W. Bush. But he should candidly acknowledge that eight years of blame fall on him.

After the Clintonoids dragged out the election for a month, trashed the West Wing of the White House, and then did everything possible to stall appointments after the election?

Yeah, right. Bush effectively had, at most, two to three months in office before 9-11 during which he had his hands on the levers of government, if that.

[Screamname]

..and just another comment... Think of what Clinton did here. He deflected the question from himself and ended up blaming Bush for 911. He basically said 8 years of chances is less at fault than 8 months. Wallace should have ripped him to shreds.

[Paul Ross]

There he was on live television, the man those who have worked for him have come to know – the angry, sarcastic, snarling, self-righteous, bombastic bully, roused to a fever pitch. The truer the accusation, the greater the feigned indignation. Clinton jabbed his finger in Wallace’s face, poking his knee, and invading the commentator’s space.

The way the MSM is spinning this, it was somehow the other way around, LOL!

[Cinnamon]

No. Wallace behaved correctly. Just watch Billy Boy shred himself instead.. unpresidential, bully, and that fn long finger of his invading Wallace's personal space... it doesn't sit well with the common folks no matter what stripes.. except for those of DU of course

[utahagen]

I agree that Clinton deserved -- deserves! -- to ripped to shreds for blaming Bush for 9/11. However, Wallace's passivity kept Clinton from turning himself into a victim during the interview. (Both Clintons are masters at getting peoples' sympathy by responding as if they are being "attacked" by critics.) Sadly, many people do not know all the facts behind Clinton's lies; people do, however, know narcissism and disproportionate emotion when they see these. By sitting there stunned, Wallace gave Clinton enough rope to hang himself. (Clinton realized this on some level, which is why he accused Wallace of smirking, when Wallace clearly wasn't. Slick Willie knew he was a runaway train, but he lacked the self-control to get back on track.)