The American Spectator

Chris Wallace as, “a monkey posing as a newscaster”; his employers as “a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit”; and the interview “the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted.” p>How refreshing that this reasoned critique was able to sneak by the Bush censors and into the national debate. Olbermann then went on to say that Bush’s behavior: “hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the Executive.” But we weren’t left to guess which president embodies those qualities for him, as he gushed over the impeached one, even invoking the memory of our 16th president (though not his revocation of habeas corpus rights for all Americans during the Civil War): br> /p>

Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862: “We must disenthrall ourselves — and then, we shall save our country.” And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.

br> Olbermann and others have opined that Clinton’s outburst came just at the right time; that his party needed an act of inspiration from its erstwhile superstar. As if seething lefties who’ve been foaming at the mouth since the 2000 election needed a kick in the pants in order to spew out more conspiracy theories concerning Bush and the VRWC.

Bill Clinton may have been on the receiving end of some irrational hatred from the right in his day, but it has always been his reaction to it that is unsettling in a world leader. Yet unlike Olbermann, Dionne and Clinton himself, President Bush is uninterested, or disenthralled if you like, from the constant navel-gazing as to who is to blame for 9/11 or what his legacy will be.

He knows who is to blame for 9/11: bloodthirsty savages who kill in the name of religion and power without regard to political affiliation. As for his legacy, it will depend on the outcome of our War on Terror, a conflict that requires steely determination, moral certitude and quiet confidence; qualities in a leader that, with or without any goading from the VRWC, seem sorely lacking in his predecessor.