Pimpin' for Fox Gets Hazardous

Bill Clinton cleaned Chris Wallace's clock yesterday on "Fox News Sunday." Cleaned his clock good. You can see clips all over the place this a.m. Here's just one handy link.

Meanwhile, how is Fox News handling it? On the show's site, they're describing the smack down this way: "President Clinton Gets Defensive." They're so smart! "We report, and you decide." We've decided, all right! You guys can't handle the truth.

Bill was also on the first half of "Meet the Press" and said something about torture:

If we get a reputation for torturing people, the following bad things are going to happen: We're as likely going to get bad information as good, just for people to just quit getting beat on; two, we're likely to create two or three or five enemies for every one we break; and three, we make our own soldiers much more vulnerable to conduct which violates the Geneva Convention. That is, we can't expect our friends, much less our enemies, to accept the fact that because we're the good guys, we get to have a different standard of conduct. And most people think the definition of a good guy is someone who voluntarily observes a different standard of conduct, not someone who claims the right to do things others can't do.

--Transcript, "Meet the Press," Sept. 24, 2006

It was a pure-dee pleasure seeing ole Bill yesterday. We had almost forgotten what it's like to have a leader who is so clearly THINKING before he speaks, thinking AS he speaks, and putting thoughts together in coherent sentences, and sentences together into coherent paragraphs.

FOOTNOTE: Posted on Talking Points Memo, this independent assessment:

I have my issues with Clinton, but I sometimes forget not just what a tremendously effective communicator he is but how much he just plain gets it. He understands politics at a level no one else does. He intuitively knows the subtext to questions and so not only answers the expressed question but in a very analytical way picks apart the subtext and answers the implied question, too. If you're a little younger and missed most of the Clinton years, it's something to watch.

UPDATE: According to the HuffPost here, the clips of the show that Fox is making available on its site are carefully edited to make Chris Wallace seem less a giant tool.