Wed, Sept. 27

On Monday's Grapevine, Brit Hume came to the defense of colleague Chris Wallace (and Fox News) who found himself severly reprimanded by a Bill Clinton who was visibly angered by insinuations that his administration had not done enough to prevent the terrorist atacks of 9/11:

Not Fair and Balanced?

Chris Wallace's "FOX News Sunday" interview with Bill Clinton was one of six TV appearances the former president made last week. But despite Mr. Clinton's highly publicized objections to the recent ABC docudrama about 9/11, no one other than Wallace asked him about the aggressiveness of his pursuit of Usama bin Laden.

As for Mr. Clinton's assertion that Wallace did not challenge the Bush administration's pre-9/11 record on terrorism? In 2004, Wallace asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to answer the charge that "the Bush Administration largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda," before 9/11, adding, "Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."

A glance at the transcript for the Wallace/Rumsfeld interview shows, however, that the situation is a bit more nuanced than Hume presents it. The interview was granted in the midst of accusations, levelled by former National Security advisor Richard Clarke, that the Bush administration failed to take terrorism seriously pre-9/11. Here is the question that Wallace posed:

WALLACE: I think a lot of people in Washington are trying to figure out, to understand Richard Clarke, to make sense of what he has said and of apparent contradictions in his story — is he telling the truth, or is he pushing an agenda.

What do you make of his basic charge that, pre-9/11, that this government, the Bush administration, largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda?

So yes, Wallace does ask about the Bush administration's focus pre-9/11, but when the question itself contains the seeds of its own refutation --as when Wallace mentions the "apparent contradictions in [Clarke's] story"-- then you know the questioner is being thrown the softest of softballs.

Now, Hume is correct that Wallace does press Rusmfeld somewhat on the issue, but as with most Fox News interviews with conservative figures (those who remain in the movement's good graces, at least) the questions are mostly non-specific and open ended, a chance for the politician to try out the latest talking point that the RNC has devised to counter the predictable charge in question. The video clips, statistics and 10 year old quotes that provide ammunition for the "gotcha" interviews of left of center politicians and activists on Fox are largely absent (there are video clips of Clarke levelling accusations, but no "gotcha" clips of Rumslfeld himself saying something that is now, in retrospect, embarrasing). Indeed, there are several "leading" questions that in and of themselves insinuate conservative talking points. Consider for instance this question, which echoes conservative criticisms of the need for a commission to study the intelligence failures that led to 9/11 (that is, the 9/11 comission.):

WALLACE: You've anticipated exactly where I wanted to go in this interview, which is to ask you — we are still in the middle of the war on terrorism. U.S. troops are still on the front line, in harm's way. Does this kind of an investigation, postmortem, if you will, make sense when we're still fighting the war?

And there's the following question, which apparently seeks to pre-emptively discredit the 9/11 commission's findings:

WALLACE: You have urged the 9/11 Commission to come up with a unanimous report, because you say it would make a stronger statement.

Do you worry — and you talk about the questions that we're asking, that everybody's asking in Washington this week.

Do you worry at all that, whether it's the debate over Dick Clarke's credibility, his charges, whether it's the fact that we're in the political season, that the important work you say the commission could do is going to get caught up in partisanship?

It may not be "literally true" that Fox News anchors never ask any of these sorts of questions of their conservative guests, but the substance of Clinton's charge is largely accurate. In most instances, when conservatives are interviewed for Fox, they are thrown softballs, and allowed to knock them out of the ballpark.