Tuesday, September 26, 2006

More Adventures with the Clenis

I kind of feel like the previous post makes my feelings about America right now pretty clearly. I agree with Chuck...It's probably one of the more tight, concise and amusing things I've written recently.

But even on my best day, even on the best minute of my best day, I couldn't dream of topping Keith Olbermann. This guy has been on fire lately. He's the bravest, most outspoken man on television right now. (What have you done for me lately, Stephen Colbert?)

Here's Keith summing up this Bill Clinton nonsense from "Fox News Sunday." Although, can I just ask, why would Bill Clinton submit to an interview with a muppet like Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday"? That's like the Queen Mother showing up on a very special episode of "Sesame Street" to have a serious hour-long discussion with Elmo on the nature of the recent allegations that the figurative head of the British nation "loves hugs." To borrow a favorite wingnut phrase, Chris Wallace and "Fox News Sunday" are fundamentally unserious news organizations, and therefore are beneath the level of a real discussion with a former president.

Here's Keith...



Keith zeroes in on my favorite fallacy of this entire Path to 9/11 argument...Suddenly, the Republicans want us to think that Clinton was too distracted by the Lewinsky scandal to focus on catching Osama bin Laden. But it was their fault that nothing happened in the country for two years, not Bill Clinton's. He would have been perfectly willing to forget the whole thing about go after terrorists.

In fact, in the months before the Lewinsky scandal consumed Clinton's second term, he was actively pursuing an anti-terrorist agenda. I remember because I thought it was stupid and pointless at the time, yet another lame attempt to fight terrorists with massive bombing campaigns. Which is like dealing with your kitchen's cockroach problem using surface-to-air missiles.

And you know what? A lot of Republicans agreed with me, as Keith points out. It was a strange feeling, one that I have yet to feel for a second time. Now they want to pretend not only that they have always wanted to fight terror, not only that 9/11 is all Clinton's fault instead of the guy who was actually President for the previous 8 months, but that the Lewinsky scandal/distraction is the fault of someone other than themselves. It boggles the mind.

[Thanks, as always, to the extremely utile Crooks and Liars for the video.]

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