As a statement of fact, and with all respect to his genealogy, Chris Wallace is a little shit.
Wallace focuses the bulk of the interview on a much hyped, and now irrelevant, "botched joke". Shortly before the midterm elections, Republicans attempted to distract voters by deliberately mis-using Kerry's so-called 'botched joke'.
Wallace's 'Clinton sandbag attack' interview script is getting old.
Fox's Robert Novak predicts that Democrats gain 19 House seats, 2 Senate seats and 5 governorships. N0vak says, GOP Senate winners include Chaffee, Allen, Steele. He expects that Burns, Dewine, and Santorum loose their Senate seats.
He could be right.
Bill Clinton provides the star power at tonight's campaign rally for Webb. He delivers the famous Clinton stump speech and seems to enjoy to ripping Republican campaign tactics.
Chris Wallace gives Senator Elizabeth Dole the final 30 seconds to summarize why Republicans will retain the Senate. Liddy goes off topic for several minutes to attack Harold Ford. Chris Wallace fails to wrestle control back from Dole's insistent attacks. Ford had been interviewed by Wallace in the previous segment.
The video contains Ford's interview followed by Dole's attack.
F0X reports about 10% of this story which is more than expected. Even the G0P's propaganda network may have given up on the Virginia Senate race.
Video - WMP Video - QT Video - YouTube
Democrats are demanding that George Allen stop stonewalling and immediately release records addressing why multiple warrants were issued for his arrest in 1974 while he was a student at the University of Virginia. The court records of his arrests are missing but one of the few official documents detailing the circumstances surrounding his arrests is Allen’s application to the Virginia Bar Association. Allen has so far refused to release that information.
“Allen’s adamant refusal to release documents about his arrest record suggests that there’s more to this story and that he’s hiding something. Allen’s got a character problem and this stonewalling isn’t helping him any,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Phil Singer said.
When news of the arrest warrants resurfaced this month, one of Allen’s aides said that one was issued for unpaid parking tickets and another for fishing without a license. The warrants are posted on an index (click here for a photo of the ledger), but Allen has failed to produce any written documentation verifying his explanation for why the warrants were issued and has not personally addressed the matter.
Kristol wants to return to the old "Bush policy" of going it alone to disable nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
On Korea, Brit says "If the U.N. itself isn't willing to do this then the United State with willing allies could do it... or the United States could do it by itself -- which, I think, is probably the best hope..."
DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel was scheduled to debate RCCC Chairman Thomas Reynolds on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Entangled in the Foley page scandal himself, Reynolds ducked the debate, sending Rep. Adam Putnam in his stead.
Emanuel gives a nearly perfect performance. He easily dispels Putnam's attempts to blames the Democrats for the scandal. In the end, Putnam's attacks appear desperate and hollow.
Video - WMV Video - QT (soon)
Full transcript via ABC below the fold
An MSNBC segment examines if Rep. Foley made a large contribution to the Republican Party in exchange for silence about sexual messages that Foley sent to House pages. Foley gave $100,000 to the GOP Campaign Committee in July. The large contribution came at same time when Republican House leadership ignored Foley's emails.
MSNBC Political Analyst Craig Crawford is suspicious of Foley's donation. Crawford says, "It's part of a pattern on Capitol Hill where member raise money not just for their own campaigns, but to give money to others, to their colleagues. So that's kind of a common practice in both parties. What was unusual here was how large this contribution was and when it was made. Mark Foley gave $100,000 to the campaign arm of the House Republicans, the National Republican Congressional Committee, at about the time when they were deciding to ignore these emails, this first round of emails they say. A couple of months after they knew about this, suddenly he gives this big donation. It raises the question, 'Did he buy their silence?'"
Bartlett was in damage control today and literally is in denial himself as he spews the White House propaganda. Watch the segment and read the transcript to see what I mean.
Mike L says: White House in Full Damage Control: White House Counselor and close Bush-confidant, Dan Bartlett, was on This Week w/ George Stephanopolous in full damage control. George touches on every significant story in the news and Bartlett had a response for each and every one: On State of Denial: Woodward was biased, came to pre-conceived conclusions and "didn't connect his own dots". Apparently his books are worth buying/reading when he sucks up to the administration but when it comes to being critical, he's biased.
On the pre-9/11 meetings between George Tenet, Cofer Black and Condoleeza Rice: Those meetings, in Condi's mind, "didn't happen." Bartlett claims the first eight months of Bush's presidency were some of the most investigated eight months in history yet 9/11 Commissioner's are saying they didn't know about the meetings. Thoroughly investigated? Or covered up by executive Director and Bush-insider Phillip Zelizow? Jack Abramoff's extensive access to the White House?: Abramoff's "contacts" were benign and simply used as an "excuse to bill his clients." On Predatorgate: House leadership "appears to be very aggressive" in pursuing the investigation. Again, aggressively investigating or agressively covering up prior knowledge and inaction?
Full Transcript from ABC:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, in 2004, Bob Woodward wrote a book, "Plan of Attack." You went out publicly, urged people to go buy it and read it. I take it you're not going to do that with "State of Denial?"
BARTLETT: Well, George, it is a book that we participated at various levels within the administration, both in the White House and other parts of the administration, Department of Defense and State. But I must say, George, I think as we worked with Bob on this project from the very outset, it was unfortunate that we felt he had already formulated some conclusions even before the interviewing began.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's a pretty stiff charge. You're saying he is a biased reporter on this?
This is the first 20 minutes of Bill Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. In this clip, Wallace asks Clinton why he didn't do more to capture or kill Osama bin Laden while he was in office. Clinton clearly feels like he has been set up and doesn't hold back in telling Wallace just how he feels.
Update:
John Amato: It makes you wonder why Wallace has never asked any Republican in Bush's administration why they didn't catch Osama, doesn't it? When Wallace tells us that he got emails about it so... he just had to bring it up?. Has he ever mentioned emailers before on his show? Wallace brought the FOX News right-wing agenda to play on this interview. We should email Chris every time he has on anyone from the Bush administration and see if our questions get through.
Rice admits that the Bush administration didn't want to retaliate for the Cole bombing, despite Clarke's prodding:
CLARKE: I suggested, beginning in January of 2001, that ... there was an open issue which should be decided about whether or not the Bush administration should retaliate for the Cole attack [which occurred in October 2000].
Unfortunately, there was no interest, no acceptance of that proposition. And I was told on a couple of occasions, "Well, you know, that happened on the Clinton administration's watch." I didn't think it made any difference. I thought the Bush administration, now that it had the CIA saying it was al Qaeda, should have responded.
...
RICE: I do not believe to this day that it would have been a good thing to respond to the Cole, given the kinds of options that we were going to have. ... We really thought that the Cole incident was passed, that you didn't want to respond tit-for-tat. ...Just responding to another attack in an insufficient way we thought would actually probably embolden the terrorists -- they had been emboldened by everything else that had been done to them -- and that the best course was to look ahead to a more aggressive strategy against them.
...
Why wasn't Condi Rice asked about Osama's PDB? Etc...
Here's the transcript of the Wallace/Clinton interview below the fold:
While most progressives disagree with Mr. Graham on most issues, he delivers a nearly perfect performance in defense of not tinkering with the Geneva Conventions.
John Amato:
I'm suspicious over the outrage by Republicans because they usually twist and shout for a while and then rubber stamp Bush. Digby feels the same way and calls this a kabuki dance...
The main reason I know this is kabuki is more than just instinct...read on
This morning, Fox News Sunday celebrated Ohio Representative Bob Ney who plead guilty to corruption charges earlier this week.
Chris Wallace begins the segment saying, "Given the ways of Washington, it was only a matter of time before one of the people we profile at the end of this show got in trouble with the law..."
Howard Dean gave a good performance on this morning's edition of Fox News Sunday. He breezed through Chris Wallace's interview with clear, honest and realistic answers. Chairman Dean presented one of the most unified voices for the Democratic Party of the election season so far.
Senator Hagel told Chris Wallace that he is concerned about the plan for "getting out of Iraq." The Senator believes that the wisest course is to begin withdrawing troops within the next 6 months.
Hagel says that, regardless of the U.S occupation, only Iraq could determine the outcome of the current violence there.
