Terry Cowgill

A Right-Wing Hit Man?

September 28, 2006 on 11:38 am | In Main, National |

[Photo courtesy of Fox News]

For those who have been following the controversy surrounding Chris Wallace’s interview Sunday with former President Bill Clinton, yesterday’s Imus In The Morning program was interesting on at least two levels: Imus’ interview with Wallace and his chat with Col. Jack Jacobs. For a synopsis of both interviews, click here. A full transcript of Wallace’s interview with Clinton can be found here.

Of course, no one but Clinton or his closest advisors know if his outburst was spontaneous. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that he had planned it from the beginning. The scene reminded me of Dan Rather’s now infamous 1988 interview with Bush 41.

In that piece of television history, Rather asked the vice president, who was running for president, about his role in the Iran Contra scandal. But 41 was prepared and asked Dan if he would like his whole career to be judged by “those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?” — a reference to the number of minutes of silence during Rather’s program when he had walked away from his desk in protest some years earlier.

Even though the two men were sitting in different locations and conversing by satellite, Rather was stymied into near-silence before losing his composure. Wallace was not silent but he looked stunned at Clinton’s reaction, as the former president wagged his finger (remember the last time he did that?) and reached toward Wallace’s privates to place his finger on the newsman’s notes (yes, his “notes”). It was a clear attempt at intimidation. And as was the case with Bush 41’s clash with Rather, Clinton’s outburst was red meat for his (and his wife’s) political base. Clever, energizing and great television.

I have a feeling we will see more of this kind of thing since it not only generates attention but motivates the faithful. Remember when Zell Miller challenged Chris Matthews to a duel during the Republican National Convention in 2004? Stay tuned …

P.S. To answer my headline’s question, Fox News is clearly a conservative network (sometimes agressively so) but that doesn’t mean everyone who works there has an agenda any more than everyone who works at the liberal NPR has one. To say that Wallace, who has worked at many other mainstream media outlets, mounted a “nice little conservative hit job,” as Clinton did, is ludicrous. O’Reilly, yes. Wallace, no.

P.P.S. I, too, have been the victim of intimidation tactics from public officials who did not like my line of questioning or stories I had written about them. On several occasions I have had men bigger than me wag their fingers and get in my face. It is not pleasant but it goes with the territory. Hang in there, Chris.