I would say that Shepard Smith leans a little too far right at times to do pure news. When he is reading the teleprompter and sticking to his script, he is down the middle of the political road, when he does stand ups and remotes, he comes off as someone who votes GOP. That said, look at the rest of the shows, Hannity and Colmes gives both sides, Greta is no Republican, O'Reilly leans right on some issues, but is liberal on others, Brit Hume is the best broadcaster in the business period. Hume is conservative, but here is the difference, when he is doing an interview, he is fair. Stop chuckling, it's true. He is the most professional TV newscaster on the tube.
Which takes me back to Chris Wallace and his interview with President Clinton Sunday. I was shocked as I sat on my couch watching the former President of the United States act like a school yard bully to someone who gave him a tough question. No wonder President Clinton does not give many interviews to anyone but those who adore him. I watched Clinton on Larry King a week or so and I was not surprised when Larry asked him one cupcake question after an other as Bill Clinton sat back and opined on how he almost gave us world peace. Almost Bill, almost.
After one tough question on Sunday, President Clinton went into full Legacy makeover mode, complete with red faced finger wagging.
So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me.Conservative hit job? How about liberal spin job?
I have watched Chris Wallace drive through the spin of every Bush administration official they have, from Rumsfeld to Rice. He asks tough, pointed questions and will not take a politospeak answer. Sometimes he gets the answer to his questions, sometimes they refuse, but he always asks.
Looking back, I think that Clinton has been itching for this interview and wanted to show his party how 'tough' he was. It seems to have impressed his wife.
My husband's nation security team... they would have done a better job...
Oh, do you mean this crew?
Sandy(how many incriminating documents can I sneak out in my sox)Berger.
Madeline(if we give North Korea nuclear technology what's the worst that can happen)Albright.
Is she serious?
Look, what is past is past. If President Clinton said that he should have realized that Islamic terrorism was a huge threat, one that might be snuffed out in it's infancy if we all would have understood what we were dealing with, that would raise his standing with me a great deal. The first attempt to take down the World Trade Center was in 1993. The Islamic terrorists miscalculated on how much explosives they needed to bring the towers down. We dodged a bullet that day and what did the President do? Let the FBI and the police handle it.
President Bush had less than 8 months to figure out what he would do about the threat, Bush and his staff read the papers and knew about terrorism and al-Qaida, he and his team failed to act fast enough. In his defense, remember the delayed transition of power as Gore tried to recount his way to the oval office for two months and the US military plane that was forced to land in communist China had the State Department's attention for the first few months of Bush's presidency.
Could the President have prevented 9/11 from happening? If everything fell into place just right, yes he could have. Is that a realistic expectation? Not really. For every one who points to this brief or that document that says, Bin Laden - planes inside US, I would like you to imagine how many briefs, reports, assessments and documents the President, any President is asked to review or is briefed on daily. How many a day do you think? Five, ten, thirty?
For all of you out there screaming that the President should have known and should have acted sooner to eliminate the threat, think about your reaction to a cruise missile strike on Hugo Chavez or the US special forces kidnapping of the Hezbollah leader or an invasion of Iran or North Korea. How would you react to that? Are any of those threat any less real or less dangerous than Bin Laden? Just how do you determine who is a real threat and how do you eliminate the threat? Or do you keep negotiating with them and hope they don't do something stupid like detonate a nuke in San Francisco?
If President Clinton wants to polish his image, fine. Those who like him, will still like him, those who hate him will still hate him, those in the middle, well if you don't have an opinion one way or the other, have another Jamba Juice and go look for that new pair of comfortable shoes, stay away from politics.
As for President Clinton's national security legacy, as my high school history teacher used to say, you can't polish a turd.
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