The Day Opines


I've ragged on the Day a couple of times for printing cartoons and Op-ed pieces that falsely claim that Clinton did nothing to try to catch or kill bin Laden and/or that he ignored the Al Qaeda threat. The Day's position, as it pointed out in a disclaimer after a letter of mine that it published, is that it was not necessarily endorsing these opinions, just because it saw fit to feature them on its editorial pages.

Well, today the paper addressed the issue in its very own editorial , so this time, I assume, we are about to find out the Day's own opinion on this issue. So, let's see what it is.

The Day notes that Clinton himself recently addressed the subject when he was ambushed by Chris Wallace in an interview:

President Clinton made his point of view known in a tirade on Fox News over the weekend, in which he claimed that the Bush administration failed to aggressively go after Osama bin Laden in the eight months preceding the Sept. 11 attacks.

Tirade. You see, it would never occur to the Day, or to most of the main stream media, that Clinton might have a right to feel a tad aggrieved when he's accused of causing a terrorist strike, particularly when both he and his interlocutor know that he is not only being ambushed, but that his questioner is pushing a right wing meme. But here, we must agree with the Day. After all, as John Stewart demonstrates here, Condi Rice didn't react angrily when she underwent a similarly grueling interview on 60 minutes:



Now that's grace under pressure Madame Secretary.

But that Clinton. He's so nasty.

But wait, in the next paragraph the Day actually acknowledges (you can almost hear them squeal in pain as they're forced to do so) that the 9-11 Commission actually found that Clinton had been more aggressive, pre 9-11, than Bush. But is the Day really buying?

President Clinton accused the Bush administration both of ignoring its “plan” and “firing” Mr. Clarke. Secretary Rice responded that there was no comprehensive plan passed on from the Clinton White House and that Mr. Clarke was welcomed into the administration as the leading anti-terrorism official.

Don't you love those quote marks- a study in ambiguity. Are they meant to imply a quote, or to cast doubt on the appropriateness of Clinton's use of the word "plan". There are no similar quote marks around the word when Rice's remarks are referenced, though she did use the same word. The Day is using those quote marks to cast doubt on the accuracy of those remarks, while leaving itself free to deny it was doing any such thing. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, according to the Day. It would never occur to the Day, no doubt, that it would be a good idea to check whether Rice's definition of the term "plan" was perhaps, highly flexible. John Stewart, once again (Sorry, but he's the only guy on television who has a memory):



So, what is the Day's final position after all. Well, perhaps the subheading for the editorial, gives a hint: Clinton was right in pointing to a lack of focus on terrorism in the months before 9/11, but does it really matter?

Do you see where this is going? You see, the Day can't muster the degree of intellectual dishonesty it takes to actually accuse Clinton of ignoring terrorism or bin Laden, so it does the next best thing:

Secretary Rice appears to err in her recollection of her own administration's degree of focus on terrorism in the months before 9/11, just as she did when she testified before the commission. However, she was correct in pointing out that the exchange of blame is “not a very fruitful discussion.”

According to the Day, given the fact that it was really Bush and Condi that dropped the ball, the entire subject is not worth talking about. Now, at first I thought this was odd. If putting something on your editorial page is not necessarily an endorsement of the views expressed, isn't it at least an implicit statement that the subject matter is worthy of debate? The Day has run a cartoon blaming Clinton for 9-11, and a column blaming Clinton for 9-11. Today, the same day it wrote an editorial saying the subject was not worth discussing, it ran an AP article which examined the many ways his "critics" claim that Clinton dropped the ball. At first I was puzzled. Then I checked the dictionary definition of discussion: the action or process of talking about something, typically in order to reach a decision or to exchange ideas. And then it all became clear. The Day doesn't object to spreading the meme that Clinton was responsible for 9-11, it's just not up for an "exchange of ideas" on the subject. Far better to give the floor only to one side, and then pontificate, after publishing the slurs, that the entire topic is not worth our time.
Posted: Thursday - September 28, 2006 at 06:54 PM          

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