RadioDiscussions.com Discussion Boards » Off The Air » Chris Wallace: The Runt of The Litter
radiodial:
Quote from: voicetrack on September 25, 2006, 09:42:51 AM
It sure was nice to see a leader debunking lies instead of defending them. It was refreshing to see a leader who engages his brain before his mouth. And it was beautiful to see a leader who can string as coherent sentence together.
And I'm loving watching the right fall all over itself trying to spin this thing.
Debunking lies? Clinton lied about not knowing of Osama in 1993 and he blamed everyone for his failure. Clinton did nothing in 8 years except hide. America knows it.
RBA:
Quote from: radiodial on September 25, 2006, 09:32:03 AM
Quote from: RBA on September 25, 2006, 09:27:49 AM
Sorry, as much as you and your Fox News trys to portray it, no MELTDOWN occurred. Rather, it was a smackdown of Chris Wallace and Fox News.
Errrrr... Chris Wallace was not our president, Clinton was. Chris Wallace simply asked a question and Clinton had a meltdown, not to mention lying about not knowing about Osama in 1993 and blaming Bush, the CIA, the FBI, and the military for his failures. THAT WAS PURE MELTDOWN. That had nothing to do with Chris Wallace.
You have a pleasant day.
I see you learn from your buddies at Fox News and Rush Limpdick.
Clinton did not say he did not know about Osama in 1993. He said nobody thought Al Qaeda was a concerned.
"OK, now let's look at all the criticisms, Black Hawk Down, Somalia, there is not a living soul in the
world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down or was paying any attention to it, or even knew al-Qaeda was a going concern in October 93."
As a person who works in the military, in Anti-Terrorism, and Law Enforcement for the past 20 years, I can tell you nobody in the intel community thought anything of Al Qaeda in 1993.
I know it's hard for you to stick to facts rather than right wing spin. Please do yourself a favor and get deprogrammed. Thanks.
Phillip Dampier:
The key that unlocks the door to the truth about this story is in the talking points for the fall election. Portray Democrats as weak on terror, link up with the Path to 9/11 fictional drama as an excuse to ask questions about the premise it raised (which was fly in the face contrary to the 9/11 Commission Report it tried to connect itself to), and then have the interviewer use different standards of questioning, depending on the guest.
In fact, there is no such thing as a hard-hitting Fox News interview with a Republican. There is a reason Cheney and many of the rest of the administration run to Fox News whenever they need to get something off their chest. Brit Hume is hardly enemy territory. Chris Wallace is definitely not his father, that's for certain.
The most interesting part of the interview was watching Wallace have to squirm and then lie outright when pressed by Clinton how often Wallace has asked the same questions to administration officials that were asked of him. Wallace said twice that he had, and asked if Clinton was a Fox News Sunday viewer (like the rest of the country, probably not). A comprehensive search of every transcript of Fox News Sunday (and other Fox News programs) brought the very predictable answer: NEVER.
Let's review:
During his interview on Fox News, Bill Clinton asked Chris Wallace how many times Wallace asked a Bush administration official, “Why did you fire Dick Clarke?” By all accounts, Clarke was one of the people most concerned about al-Qaeda in any administration. Shortly after taking office, the Bush administration demoted Clarke, eliminated his staff and removed him from the Principals meeting.
Since 2001, Wallace has interview the top national security officials from the Bush administration — Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Hadley — 42 times. According to a Lexis-Nexis database search, he never asked any of them why Clarke was demoted.
The one time he brought up Clarke’s name with a Bush administration official — during a March 28, 2004 interview with Rumsfeld — he repeatedly attempted to smear Clarke as political motivated and untrustworthy. Some excerpts:
WALLACE: I think a lot of people in Washington are trying to figure out, to understand Richard Clarke, to make sense of what he has said and of apparent contradictions in his story — is he telling the truth, or is he pushing an agenda.
WALLACE: Let’s switch, if we can, to a different aspect of this. There is a move now by congressional Republican leaders to declassify Clarke’s testimony before one of their panels in 2002 to see whether or not it contradicts what he is telling the commission and what he writes in his book now. As I understand it, the Pentagon has to approve any such declassification. Do you think it’s a good idea?
WALLACE: Do you worry at all that, whether it’s the debate over Dick Clarke’s credibility, his charges, whether it’s the fact that we’re in the political season, that the important work you say the commission could do is going to get caught up in partisanship?
After Clinton brought up the issue, Wallace claimed “we asked” and shot back “Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday, Sir?“
The USS Cole was bombed on October 12, 2000. As Clinton noted in his interview with Fox, “The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible” until early 2001 which foreclosed the possibility of a full response during his administration.
The Bush administration, on the other hand, had 8 months prior to 9/11/01 to respond to the USS bombing and did nothing.
Fox News Host Chris Wallace asked Bill Clinton why he didn’t respond to the USS Cole. Clinton said it was a “legitimate question” but challenged Wallace: “I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked why didn’t you do anything about the Cole.” First, Wallace responded, “we asked.” When pressed further by Clinton, Wallace demurred: “I — with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.”
Neither Chris Wallace, nor his predecessor, Tony Snow ever asked anyone in the Bush administration why they failed to respond to the bombing of the USS Cole, according to a Lexis-Nexis database search. Wallace and Snow have had plenty of opportunities:
– Vice President Dick Cheney has been on Fox News Sunday 6 times.
– Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been on Fox News Sunday 9 times.
– Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been on Fox News Sunday 23 times.
– National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley has been on Fox News Sunday 4 times.
For the record, this was Bill Clinton’s first solo appearance on Fox News Sunday.
One of the most poignant moments of President Clinton’s interview with Fox News was when he called out Chris Wallace for giving the right a free pass on terrorism. An excerpt:
WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you 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…
WALLACE: We asked…Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?
CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…
CLINTON: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.
WALLACE: About the USS Cole?
CLINTON: Tell the truth.
WALLACE: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.
Chris Wallace interviewed then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on April 18, 2004, just days after she testified before the 9/11 Commission. Wallace didn’t ask her about the USS Cole or the decision to demote Richard Clarke. He also didn’t ask Rice about the notorious August 6 Presidential Daily Brief entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.”
Instead Wallace perpetuated a smear against 9/11 Commissioner and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, falsely claiming she was responsible for creating a “wall” between the F.B.I. and the CIA:
WALLACE: When commission member Jaime Gorelick was questioning you about that, did you know that when she was the deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, that she had issued an order that, in fact, helped build the so-called wall even higher?
RICE: I did not know that, Chris. I did know, of course, that she’d been deputy attorney general. I did know that there were responsibilities there for issues concerning counterterrorism, but no, I did not know.
This smear was rebutted by 9/11 Commission member Slade Gorton (R) who called the charge “ridiculous.” Gordon wrote the Washington Times, “She had nothing to do with any ‘wall’ between law enforcement and our intelligence agencies.”
radiodial:
Quote from: RBA on September 25, 2006, 10:05:03 AM
As a person who works in the military, in Anti-Terrorism, and Law Enforcement for the past 20 years, I can tell you nobody in the intel community thought anything of Al Qaeda in 1993.
I know it's hard for you to stick to facts rather than right wing spin. Please do yourself a favor and get deprogrammed. Thanks.
ABC News interviewd Osama bin Laden in 1993. If you didn't know about him in the intel business, then you blew it because I was at home watching Osama on my TV telling Americans that they are weak cowards.
You have a pleasant day.
August 11, 1988: Bin Laden Forms al-Qaeda
Bin Laden conducts a meeting to discuss “the establishment of a new military group,” according to notes that are found later. Over time, this group becomes known as al-Qaeda, roughly meaning “the base” or “the foundation.” [Associated Press, 2/19/2003] A Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl was among the participants, and testifies about the event in the late 1990’s (see June 1996). He claims that the meeting is attended by ten men, about half of them Egyptians. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the head of the Egyptian militant group Islamic Jihad, is there. Al-Qaeda will be tied to al-Zahawiri and Islamic Jihad from the very beginning and the two groups will formally merge in early 2001. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002] It will take US intelligence years even to realize a group named al-Qaeda exists; the first known incidence of US intelligence being told the name will come in 1993.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&timeperiod=1979%20-%202000
RBA:
Quote from: radiodial on September 25, 2006, 10:11:30 AM
Quote from: RBA on September 25, 2006, 10:05:03 AM
As a person who works in the military, in Anti-Terrorism, and Law Enforcement for the past 20 years, I can tell you nobody in the intel community thought anything of Al Qaeda in 1993.
I know it's hard for you to stick to facts rather than right wing spin. Please do yourself a favor and get deprogrammed. Thanks.
ABC News interviewd Osama bin Laden in 1993. If you didn't know about him in the intel business, then you blew it because I was at home watching Osama on my TV telling Americans that they are weak cowards.
You have a pleasant day.
August 11, 1988: Bin Laden Forms al-Qaeda
Bin Laden conducts a meeting to discuss “the establishment of a new military group,” according to notes that are found later. Over time, this group becomes known as al-Qaeda, roughly meaning “the base” or “the foundation.” [Associated Press, 2/19/2003] A Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl was among the participants, and testifies about the event in the late 1990’s (see June 1996). He claims that the meeting is attended by ten men, about half of them Egyptians. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the head of the Egyptian militant group Islamic Jihad, is there. Al-Qaeda will be tied to al-Zahawiri and Islamic Jihad from the very beginning and the two groups will formally merge in early 2001. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002] It will take US intelligence years even to realize a group named al-Qaeda exists; the first known incidence of US intelligence being told the name will come in 1993.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&timeperiod=1979%20-%202000
UM, ABC's first interview with Bin Laden was in 1998, not 1993. But continue the right wing lies and smear campaign.
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