Wipe That Smirk Off Your Face: Bill Clinton All Over Chris Wallace

During this hour of the day, Boston-area listeners are assaulted by the anemic-duo of talk-radio known as Eagan and Braude. Moments ago they were simply slap-happy with glee at the "unbelievable" performance of Bill Clinton against that evil arch-nemesis, Fox News incarnate in Chris Wallace. To Mr. Braude, Mr. Wallace was squirming; to Ms. Eagan, Wallace was a wussy.

But if squirming is measured in sheer movement, then the fact is clear that the person who moved the most during yesterday's immortal interview was Mr. Clinton. Moreover, it would be wrong to say, as Eagan and Braude suggest, that Mr. Wallace somehow cowered in fear or was at all weak. Only a bad journalist would not see that Mr. Wallace was sitting there thinking only one thing: "My God, this is going to be an awesome, awesome TV moment, and I have got it: I have hit the freaking jackpot." THAT was Chris Wallace's reaction; we all know, as journalists should, that he KNEW he had landed on a huge story. He did not look weak; he looked almost gleeful, ebullient. He seemed actually honored that the president was HANDING him such a clearly wonderful moment in TV history: his permitting the president to continue was just fine with Mr. Wallace, for he knew what he had: he had the most important moment in all of the weekend's political news. And he had perhaps the single most vulnerable moment of all of Bill Clinton's public performances.

Let us look at one very evident fact. Not that we have not looked at the facts already (here and here); we at least need to look at just one more. We need to look at the fact that when Bill Clinton said to Mr. Wallace,

And you've got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever...

the only person smirking was Mr. Clinton. If Mr. Wallace's typical impish face -- can he help how he looks? -- offends Mr. Clinton, one can understand that; but one cannot understand making the offense known with such indiscretion. The smirker was not Mr. Wallace at all; if anything, he looked simultaneously embarrassed for the president, glad for the honor of being involved in a journalistic coup offered on a plate by the president, and eager to convey that he has given the president ample room to move to the next topic.

IMPRESSIONS

What is the overall impression viewers should take from this interview? I think there are several things. First, viewers should understand that Mr. Clinton argued against a stereotype; he did not battle criticism. What he fought was a fabrication brought to the interview by him; that fabrication is that Fox News is a right-wing bastion. That stereotype is pervasive in the left-wing faction in North America; Mr. Clinton attempted to score points on it, exploiting it to his advantage.

Second, I think viewers should be wary, full of doubt. I don't buy for one second that Mr. Clinton was "blind-sided" by his first ever interview on Fox's Sunday program. I believe he was looking for this sort of questioning; I suspect he went on the program to show his base how to handle the Fox News program: you bully it. What Bill Clinton did is something utterly stereotypical, and derivative: he played Bill O'Reilly to Chris Wallace. He did the No Spin Zone to Fox News, he out-Factored the Factor and out-Foxed Fox. His was a show to enliven Democrats; he demonstrated to his camp that THIS is how you handle your opponents. He was sending signals.

But it is clear to me that Mr. Clinton's signals are so much Hollywood: it is all about appearances. I have already shown you that on the facts, the pith and substance, of what Mr. Clinton said, he has proven himself confused and misleading. For that he loses the debate, if one deems this interview a debate. But if one wants to look at sheer production value; if stage props and backdrops and lighting and razzle-dazzle impress any person, then such a person will be wowed by Mr. Clinton's performance. I look at what Mr. Clinton actually said and I am unimpressed, while others look at how he looked and sounded and are awed. Not that I have not suggested that one mustn't watch this interview; you must! But what I am saying is that, like Hollywood, this is all about perception and image, about surfaces and fashion and veneered teeth. It is not about substance at all.

Of course, this is utterly consistent with the whole Clinton mystique perpetuated and protected by his many supporters: what he is like in private is of no relation to his public life. Persona is everything, not character. It is as old as 1992, and it is the saddest fact of all, namely, that had Mr. Clinton NOT been a womanizer, had he not been an adulterer, he could have more fully and freely and confidently pursued Osama bin Laden without being hounded by "Wag the Dog" critics. His private peccadilloes DID INDEED adversely affect his foreign policy: too few trusted his actions abroad because of his actions with a woman (obvious pun ignored). He gave his critics fodder to suggest his policies were all farce; they did not generate the fodder out of nothing.

This is what this all boils down to: guilt management. It is the very heart of politics, especially Bill Clinton's politics.

ONE MORE THING

Please note how Chris Wallace first introduced his interview with Mr. Clinton. He first mentions that Mr. Clinton has just completed a successful event, his Clinton Global Initiatives conference. He then says,

As part of the conference, Mr. Clinton agreed to his first one-on-one interview ever on "FOX News Sunday." The ground rules were simple: 15 minutes for our sit-down, split evenly between the Global Initiative and anything else we wanted to ask. But as you'll see now in the full, unedited interview, that's not how it turned out.

The significance of this is clear. What Mr. Wallace shows is that the interview's extra length was really Mr. Clinton's doing. It was not Mr. Wallace's. The criteria do not say that the actual interview must be split literally in half; it simply meant that questions about the initiative and other things needed equal time, in this case, 7 1/2 minutes each. That Mr. Wallace says "unedited" also implies something, namely that the president and viewers understand TV interviews, that interviews are often edited. All this to prove that had Fox really set out to blindside the president, Mr. Wallace would not have let the public know the ground rules. For then it would be too easy for critics to launch an attack against Fox's putative "fair and balanced" motto. But it was Mr. Clinton who gave Chris Wallace far more than he asked for. I am certain Mr. Wallace will be grateful to Mr. Clinton when it comes time for Fox News to renew Mr. Wallace's contract.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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