In an interview scheduled to air on Sunday morning, former President Bill Clinton gave Chris Wallace a tongue-lashing after the Fox News Sunday host insinuated that catching Osama bin Laden was not a priority for the Clinton Administration.  We have a partial transcript, and a link to the full one.

I have been waiting five long years for a progressive to go on Fox News and completely expose that network for what it really is -- a biased media slave of the Republican Party.  Late yesterday, it happened!

In an interview with Chris Wallace that will be aired bright and early on Sunday morning, former President Bill Clinton unleashed the best on-air take-down of the Fox News network that I have ever seen.  Mid-way through the interview, Wallace accused Clinton of not trying to catch Osama bin Laden.  Knowing the network as well as most of us do, Clinton knew what Wallace was trying to do, and he was not going to take it.  So the former President gave Wallace a tongue-lashing.

Again, this interview has not been aired yet.  However, the web site Think Progress was given an advanced copy of the transcript.  I just finished reading it, and there were parts where I almost started applauding right at my computer.

Here is a small portion of the transcript, thanks to Think Progress.  And yes, I'd be just as ticked off if I were Clinton and I had to sit through this.  Let's pick up about mid-way through the interview:

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

WALLACE: Right…

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t…I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know…

WALLACE: We asked…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth.

WALLACE: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…

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I really encourage you all to read the full interview, and then let me know what you think.  Tell your friends and family about it.  E-mail every progressive you know and tell them to read this interview. 

If this doesn't fire up the progressive base, then I don't know what will.  We're not going to just sit there while we get kicked in the face by conservatives.  We have about six weeks left until the vote.  If you want two more years of the right-wing always getting the benefit of the doubt by the traditional media, then fine, just sit there and take it like all the Bush-lite Democrats that go on Fox News and smile while Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly take their lunch money.  But don't start crying on the morning of November 8th when you learn that we failed to take back any chamber of Congress.  This is a team effort, or no effort at all.

You know, it's only fitting that the first guy to really take it to Fox News was the man whose scandal helped the network first become famous with its conservative demographic.  O'Reilly, Hume, Hannity, Cavuto, and Gibson have been targeting Clinton from the mid-90s, and they never relented even after he left office.

Even though some things bother me about Hillary, part of me would like nothing more than for her to win the presidency, and then for her husband to end up being the new Secretary General of the United Nations -- to pay back all those dittoheads on the far-right.  Honestly, even though you can't, try putting yourself in the Clinton family's shoes.  Imagine being targeted by the far-right each day thanks to their obsession with Hillary Clinton.  How would you like to be Chelsea Clinton, and flip the channel to Fox News only for there to be a one in five chance within a ten minute span of them saying something horrible about your mom or dad that's not true?

Yeah, I know, the truth hurts for conservatives.  For three in a row, Clinton balanced the budget.  It's been four long years since the so-called end of the recession.  Tell me how many times Bush has balanced the budget?  Actually, heck with Bush.  How about any Republican Administration for that matter?  Do you know that you have to go back to 1969 to find the last Republican president that balanced the budget?  Not only did we have yearly surpluses under Clinton, we had peacetime.  I could go on and on, but won't.

All in all, let's hope this interview will light a fire under the progressive base and motivate them to do their part as we get closer to 11/7.

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Other progressive sites blogging about this story: Crooks and Liars, Left Word, Mia Culpa, The Good Human, Huffington Post, Firedoglake, The Flypaper Theory, News America Now, Good People Better Rise Up!, Hoffmania!, Blue Grass Roots, Smithers Minneapolis, Chickenhawk Express, Instaputz, TBogg, The State of Play.