Juan Cole deconstructs Chris Wallace's SWARMY LIES from the Clinton interview...

Thank you, Juan Cole, for DECONSTRUCTING the SWARMY LIES Chris Wallace made during his now infamous interview with President Clinton. And thanks, too, for posting the Google video of the interview, an all-in-one video that permits time stamping a critique of the interview.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9026120716999978732&q=Clinton+Wallace+Fox&hl=en

DECONSTRUCTING Chris Wallace's lies is as simple as paying attention to what he says, and when he says it.

Wallace: "IF YOU LOOK AT THE QUESTIONS HERE, you'll see that HALF of the questions are about the Clinton Global initiative... I DIDN'T THINK THAT THIS [questioning Clinton's efforts vs. Al Qaida] WOULD SET YOU OFF ON SUCH A TANGENT." (11:05 on the Google video)

BUT let's look at when Wallace FIRST BROKE IN to Clinton's discussion of his global fundraising initiative... there at FOUR MINUTES into a 15 minute interview! Wallace thinks he is being slick phrasing his question "Why didn't you, President Clinton, DO ENOUGH to capture bin Laden...OUR READERS sent in this question in surprising numbers" but, again, it starts at the FOUR MINUTE mark, LONG before half-way of a 15 minute interview, and long before Clinton had even gotten into anything but a brief outline of his initiative!

This is an unmistakable mark: Wallace is INTERRUPTING Clinton's discussion of his Global Initiative, to ambush him with "innocent questions" long, long before Clinton has had a chance to give a thorough discussion of his initiative.

Then, as Clinton is trying to answer part one of Wallace's multi-part, complex question ("why didn't you do enough to catch bin Laden..? what about Somalia..? what about..?) Wallace INTERRUPTS HIM YET AGAIN, this time around the early 7-minute mark, "Without you [Mr. President] GOING INTO [the events of 19]'93..."

That is, AFTER WALLACE BROUGHT UP "Osama bin Laden saw the USA RUN FROM Somalia, and took that to mean the US troops are afraid" and Clinton answers "Osama bin Laden HAD NOTHING TO DO with Blackhawk Down and the Somalia mission" WALLACE TRIES TO INTERRUPT Clinton's rational, explanatory answer!

Wallace next invokes "THE 9-11 COMMISSION, and that this is what THEY did talk about, NOT what the ABC revisionist TV drama tried to portray..." That is, Wallace is EQUATING Clinton's efforts against al Qaida to the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001, with what the Bush administration DID NOT DO between January 2001 and 9-11-2001.

To repeat, Chris Wallace had his 9-11 report and highlights handy, so when he DIVERTED the interview at the four-minute mark, he was PREPARED to GO IN DEPTH on the topic of his diversion (i.e. Clinton's incomplete hunt for Al Qaida).

EVEN MORE IMPORTANT than the swarmy bushwhacking techniques and timeline of Chris Wallace's "GOTCHA! questions, "YOU, President Clinton, ARE TO BLAME for 9-11!" interview ambush, is Chris Wallace's other swarmy lie: THAT HE ASKS JUST AS TOUGH QUESTIONS of the Bush-Cheney administration, as he asks of President Clinton in the interview.

And that's where JUAN COLE's research illustrates what a SMARMY LIAR Chris Wallace truly is:

Juan Cole:
- - - Wallace maintained that he also asked tough questions about failure to tackle Bin Laden of Republican politicians.
HERE is Wallace interviewing Republican Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney on Bin Laden in February, 2005. Compare these softballs to the hatchet job he did on Clinton - - -
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WALLACE: President Bush did not mention Osama bin Laden in his State of the Union address.
Do you have any idea where he is, even what country he's in?

CHENEY: That would be just speculation. And if I did know, I obviously couldn't talk about it.
WALLACE: I mean, the current speculation is that he's somewhere in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
CHENEY: I don't want to elaborate on where he might or might not be.
WALLACE: How much operational control do you believe he still has over al Qaeda? And 3 1/2 years after 9/11, why haven't we still caught him?
CHENEY: Well, we have done enormous damage to al Qaeda. The attacks that we've been able to mount, the work we've done with other nations, the Pakistanis, the Saudis and others, we've had an enormous and, I think, devastating impact on the organization -- captured or killed literally thousands of them around the world.
The organization, at this point, is, I think, very diffused. I don't think there's a hierarchical chain of command there; there never was much of one.
But I think nonetheless the threat's still out there. You see the kind of attacks that we had in Madrid, in Casablanca and elsewhere, Istanbul.
These oftentimes are attacks that are launched by what you might call affiliated, al Qaeda-affiliated groups, but they work on their own timetable, plan their own attacks. Some of them have been trained in Afghanistan and then go back, as is true of the group in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah. Then they go out, and sometimes with financial resources, but launch their own attacks.
In other words, attacks can occur without Osama bin Laden giving the order that an attack occur.
I think he is in hiding. I think he finds it very difficult to communicate with his organization.
WALLACE: Why can't we catch him?
CHENEY: Well, we're doing our level best, and I think eventually we will. But he's very good on his operational security, obviously. He's found good places to hide. And so far it's been a difficult task. But I think eventually we will get him.
WALLACE: Let me switch to another troubled part of that world.
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Juan Cole wraps up his critque of Chris Wallace's miserable reporting with these illustrative comments:

<< Wallace LET CHENEY GET AWAY WITH MURDER in this interview. HE LET [Cheney] WALK ALL OVER HIM, and then ASKED HIM TO DO IT AGAIN WEARING spike heels.

In Lexis Nexis, I could only find one place where Wallace's name even came up in connection with Bush's own failure to capture Bin Laden, at Tora Bora in December of 2001. And that was where he gave Brit Hume an opportunity to dismiss the importance of that lapse. >>

We won't include the rest of Juan's comment to keep this entry shorter, but jump over to it, and to the Google video, to see for yourself JUST HOW CRAVEN a PRESSTITUTE Chris Wallace is for the Emperor (and his Black Lord Darth Vader) who wears no clothes.

http://www.juancole.com/2006/09/wallace-bin-laden-republicans-and.html

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9026120716999978732&q=Clinton+Wallace+Fox&hl=en