A Smackdown From Our Last Great President (Monday's First Hour)

Hi everyone. I hope you had a nice weekend. Before we jump in I'm going to need to complain about the teaser again. "The Big Dog Barks?" Please stop. I know I'm never going to get the quietness and graphicless presentation of PBS, but toning it down a little won't kill anyone. Anyway, on with the show. We begin tonight on the new leaked summary of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and guess what? Iraq is actually making things worse in terms of world terrorism. In other news, the sky is blue and ice is cold. Seriously, all you really need is a pulse to know that Iraq is making things worse. Anderson intros us into a Tom Foreman piece, which basically sums up what I just said (though perhaps with a bit less snark). We also get to hear the reaction to the NIE from war supporters and that reaction is essentially, "La la la la I can't hear you la la la la."

On now to a piece from Suzanne Malveaux that tackles the White House side. Not in any way surprisingly, they say that the NIE does not actually say what we think it says. Up is down. Black is white. War is peace. Basically the deal is that what was leaked was a summary and they say that real NIE has good stuff in it too. So can we see proof of that? Nope. Sorry. That's classified. Pat Roberts, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee actually wants to declassify it to prove their point, but I've got a couple of issues here. First of all, they could just declassify the stuff that makes them look good (don't think they wouldn't do that) and second of all, if they can just show us stuff willy nilly for political purposes, what the hell do we classify things for in the first place?

With us live next to discuss all this we have John King, John Roberts, and Candy Crowley. John King thinks people have already made up their mind on the war, so this may not make that big of difference politically. They seem to all agree that the defining issue is whether or not you agree we should be over there, we can't just leave. Except, we can't just stay either.

Transitioning now to a live assessment with Michael Ware and Peter Bergen. Michael says that the fact that Iraq has been worsening has been "self evident here on the ground since at least...2004." Anderson wants to know if US officials should have seen this coming. Um, yes. Peter agrees and then he pokes a hole in their stupid, "we'll fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here" argument by reminding us that the terrorists are not a finite group of people, meaning their ranks keep growing. Michael then states that Iraq fuels the terrorist's platform and Peter adds that "terrorist attacks have gone through the roof" since the war began. Mission Accomplished.

Next up we have a Randi Kaye piece that was done in partnership with the Associated Press. Apparently sexual misconduct is out of control among military recruiters. Randi interviews a woman and her teenage daughter, who was raped by a recruiter. The mother trusted this guy because you would expect to be able to trust a military recruiter. Not so. A total of 80 recruiters have been disciplined for sexual misconduct and that comes out to 1 in every 200. Scary. Also noted, is that in a little known provision of No Child Left Behind, recruiters are given major access to teenage students, including their addresses and phone numbers. Something not mentioned in the piece (which might have been helpful) is the fact that parents can opt out of having their kid's information given to the military, but they have to actively request it, otherwise the info is given out automatically. I know this piece was on recruiters, but I'd like to see some investigation into troop on troop sex crimes being committed in Iraq. I've been hearing things and I'd like to know how true they are.

On now to an Anderson piece on the Clinton/Chris Wallace interview. You know, Bush acts angry in interviews all the time. Why is that never a huge story? Anyway, Anderson basically sums up the interview and then gives us a little response from Wallace, who didn't think Clinton's anger was preplanned. For anyone living under a rock, Clinton went on Fox News to talk about his global initiative, but instead was asked about his failure to get Bin Laden. Then Clinton got mad. Very mad. He believed he was lured on the show under false pretenses and then stated that though he failed to get Bin Laden he did try and he came closer than anyone else has. Rock on, Bill.

Transitioning now to a fact check from Jamie McIntyre on what Clinton said. This is a fairly decent piece that pretty much vindicates everything Clinton said, though they did throw in right winger Louis Freeh. Mentioned is the fact that critics said Clinton was trying to Wag the Dog when it came to going after Bin Laden and he was unable to get good intelligence on who really did the USS Cole until after the 2000 election. What I would have liked to see in this piece is an investigation into the right wing conspiracy. They mention that Clinton says he was set up by ring wingers, yet where's the reporting? There is a right wing conspiracy and it needs to be exposed. Follow the money, people. Read David Brock's books. Google "Arkansas Project". It's there. I didn't believe it until I saw it myself. And the very same people who are blaming Clinton for 9-11 were the ones screaming 'wag the dog' back then and financing projects to find anything they could get on him. All evidence concludes that the Monica fiasco did not distract Clinton from fighting terrorism, but if it had, it wouldn't be his fault, it would be the fault of those that created the distraction.

In the studio now we've got "Jawbreaker" author Gary Berntsen. He explains that during Clinton's first term he cut back on some programs and that wasn't helpful, but during his second term they were kicking butt and destroying networks around the world. However, Gary says he didn't want to go into Afghanistan or Somalia with troops and he implies that was a bad thing. I'm not so sure there Gary. Basically Clinton handled terrorism like law enforcement (which is now it should be). It should be noted that neither Anderson nor Gary mention anything about Bush's first eight months in office. Hello? Maybe that would be a good question to have asked. What did Bush do in his first eight months to fight terrorism? You know what I think the answer is? A big, fat, nothing. Anyway, Anderson asks if Bush is fighting terrorism effectively now and Gary says yes and no. Okay then.

Transitioning now to David Gergen live and though this might break Anderson's heart, I'm going to have to reveal that I totally saw The Gerg cheating on Anderson with Brian Williams. He was even using some of the same lines and observations. Oh Anderson, I know it hurts now, but there are plenty of other former presidential advisors in D.C. Aaaanyway, The Gerg thinks that Clinton felt he was sandbagged. Anderson says that Bill Kristol thinks Clinton planned it. Well, I think no one should listen to Bill Kristol. Ever. The man is wrong about everything. How's that project for the new american century coming along for you, Billy? The Gerg then brings up the hack job ABC miniseries and how that's partly probably what brought out angry Clinton. He also mentions that this might be good for democrats because Clinton got a lot of congratulatory calls and emails, so it could be a symbolic moment.

Closing out the hour, Anderson previews a story coming up that involves clogging. Then he "yee haws". Loudly. No, I'm not kidding. Tonight was okay. There are a fair amount of repeats next hour, so tonight gets a B-

Screencaps by liberation 337.

I'm going to do a little experiment and start asking questions to see if we can generate a discussion. What did you guys think about the Clinton interview? Was he justified in his anger? Was he set up? Do you think there's a vast right wing conspiracy?