You can watch the Clinton interview I mentioned earlier on Think Progress. They have a video capture of nearly the entire thing.

I think it’s telling that Wallace can’t even look President Clinton in the eye when asking his smear question. Clinton is upset, but under control. It is about time someone did this to Fox, on Fox.

You know when Fox News starts hammering on something, it’s part of the national Republican strategy (must be nice to have a party propaganda network). Unsurprisingly, the new strategy is “Blame Clinton” (they’re not too original, these national Republicans). Chris Wallace gets into the act by securing an interview with Clinton under the guise of talking about The Clinton Global Initiative, then asking nearly immediately “Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of business…”

Clinton apparently smacked him down, as he ought to. Reading any of the sources, such as Richard Clarke’s excellent book or the more administration friendly Plan of Attack and you’ll learn the same thing: the Clinton administration made mistakes, but they took the threat of terrorism very seriously. Not one person denies Clarke’s assertion that the message from Sandy Berger and Clarke to the incoming Bush administration was that terrorism would consume more administration resources than anything else.

If that isn’t enough, the foreign policy goals as outlined by President Bush in 2001 speak volumes. The single most important piece of the Bush foreign policy plan in 2001 was the missile defense program. We bucked the ABM treaty, the first of several international agreements we’ve decided to renege on during the Bush administration.

The point here isn’t that Clinton was some sort of terrorist fighting super-President, but simply that this new attempt to shift all blame to Clinton is simply a political move designed to help the Republican’s flagging chances this fall. As Clinton himself says in this interview (airing tomorrow):

But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clark [sic], who got demoted.

Update: As expected, the blogosphere is doing their research. Think Progress has more of the transcript than the USA Today piece I linked to earlier, including a section where Clinton reads like he’s pissed off. I’m not really sure I blame him.

This is so pathetic:

Hutchinson: Indictments Should Be “On a Crime and Not Some Perjury Technicality”

On Meet the Press, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson picks up where George Will left off:

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Perjury is just a little technicality punishable by up to five years in prison.

Where were these GOP opinions (note the George Will link, too) when Bill Clinton was getting impeached for the same exact bull? And, to put this in further perspective, President Clinton lied about a blowjob while this potential perjury charge will be about outing a CIA agent, something that impacts national security.

There’s a difference, and it ain’t favorable to the GOP talking point zombies.

Update: Didn’t see that Atrios has a better example: The GOP wants to Free Lil’ Kim!

A detailed explanation of Hutchinson’s own hypocrisy in this matter is on CardCarryingMember.

Update 2: And it just dawned on me the President Clinton’s perjury charge was part of a cover up to a part of the investigation UNRELATED to the original reason the special prosecutor was brought in (Whitewater). In the Plame case, any perjury charges would be related directly to a cover up of the charges under investigation. F’ing party of law and order my ass.

Will the other Republicans please stand up to these thugs running your party? For God’s sake, have you no integrity?

From this week’s Sports Guy Mailbag column:

Q: Which do you think we’ll see first, a female president or a female head coach of an NBA, MLB, NFL or NHL team?
–Matt Skelly, Hadley, Mass.

SG: What would I rather see? That’s easy — a female NHL coach. How would she dress? What would her mullet look like? Would she end up looking like a mustache-less Jeff Foxworthy wearing Paula Poundstone’s clothes? At the very least, let’s dress Barry Melrose up in drag for a few games and give this idea a test run.

What will we see? That’s easy — a female president. If you don’t think Hillary Clinton will be running the country in four years, you’re crazy. Ever been stuck in a room full of women when they decide on something ridiculous like “Andie McDowell has been the most beautiful woman in Hollywood for the past 15 years” and they will absolutely stick together until the death when you’re posing counterarguments? Well, I think that’s how the 2008 election is going to unfold — Hillary is going to be Andie McDowell-ed right into the presidency. If she becomes president, that means any woman can become president. It’s too important not to vote for her. So they’ll vote for her.

(And just for the record, I probably will, too — I miss having Bill Clinton around. Imagine having him on tour as the First Man? How much trouble could he get into? It would be just as if he was the president again, only without any responsibility. Think about it — even when he did have responsibility, the whole Lewinsky debacle happened. As the First Man? Anything’s possible.)

One thing I’ve definitely noticed is that the blogs that mention link most often to ESPN.com stories tend to trend to the conservative side of the world and are often openly politically Republican or right-wing. It’s not nearly all but it’s definitely “most” of the posts I see via the Sports Buzz stuff I’ve set up. So… Bill Simmons is going to hear about this, I’m sure. And, it will be good natured ribbing for the most part. I’ll be interested in seeing what posts come up in this week’s Sports Buzz.

Which reminds me… I haven’t done last weeks.

The Palmeiro steroid scandal was the story of the week by far and set a new record for the number of blog posts tracked for one story. I’m not going to break out the best posts this week as I don’t have time. Click the “continued…” link below to see the full Buzz for the week.
(Click here to read the rest of this post)