Bill Clinton and Chris Wallace and Fox News and interview

Ever since the spark-creating interview with former President Clinton aired on Fox News two days ago the networks and Internet have been working overtime to try to analyze not only the Clinton/Wallace exchange but the buzz created by it. While many have focused on the "tone" of the interview or whether Clinton "won" or "lost," to me the most important point was that this interview (along with the New Yorker piece) shows that Bill Clinton is now back where he should be--front and center in the political debates that have polarized and debilitated the country in the last 5 1/2 years. What his feisty performance on Fox News demonstrates, however, is that he is discovering a new and powerful persona, an approach to self-presentation in the shadow of 2008 and his post-Presidency. These two essays summarize three impressions I received of the President as a result of this interview.

Impression One: Clinton Has to Fight

Bill Clinton has not generally been perceived as a fighter or a person who seemingly goes for the jugular, even when confronted. He has too much of a genial bearing, a laid-back demeanor, an accepting personality. But what the interview with Wallace demonstrates is that Clinton not only can fight verbally but that he will need to do so in the future as he re-enters the political area. The primary reason he needs to fight is that he has to challenge divergent interpretations flung around by the religious and political right regarding his Presidency. In the last five or so years the political and religious right really has had an almost unobstructed opportunity to try to explain the world on their terms. National Democrats have been weak or ineffectual; Congress has firmly been in Republican hands; the Supreme Court now consists of 7 people appointed by Republicans; Americans have wanted to rally around New Yorkers and others hurt by the 9/11 attacks and therefore have been more open to support Administration explanations of things.

The first thing Clinton therefore needs to provide is an alternative explanation for the past that doesn't make him look like he was either a craven coward or an unconcerned President. And, he made his point pretty clearly on Sunday that he did as much against the War on Terror in the waning days of his Presidency than the Bush Administration did from 1/20 to 9/11/01. I think that the record is probably murkier than either side claims, but the major "truth" to me about the early Bush Administration is that they wanted nothing to do with the Clinton research or strategy. George W. Bush came into office with the sense that he needed nothing from his predecessor in order to make the world right and just and good. Thus, Clinton needs to fight about the interpretation of the past.

We have witnessed in America what happens when you don't fight effectively regarding your past. When John Kerry ran for President in 2004 and portrayed himself as a faithful (and even heroic) Viet Nam veteran, he was attacked unmercifully by the political right with such skill that it not only nullified the point that Kerry made but made his campaign sound hollow on other points. Thus, an effective counterattack to an interpretation of the past is essential for political survival. Clinton effectively warded off Wallace in the first of such attacks on him as he re-enters the fray. Every subsequent attack will be easier to handle. In fact, I think that within two or three interviews no one will want to dredge up what Clinton did or didn't do in 1993 or 1999 or what Bush did or didn't do in February or August 2001. That is, Clinton will have nullified this strategy of the political right. Sunday's interview was a very good start in this.

He needs to be in an attack mode, too, because his wife has already been vilified and will continue to be so as she is a candidate and if/when she becomes the Democratic Candidate for President. He needs not only to stand with her, which he will do, but he will have to defend her handling of his health care initiative in 1993-94 as well as the strength of their marriage. Bill Clinton, therefore, needs to take the fight right to the Republicans primarily because they have gotten a free pass in the media in the past five years and have exposed the flimsiness of their own credibility.

Impression Two: Clinton will Outhink the Republicans

It is no secret that Bill Clinton is the smartest politician who has come along in at least a generation and perhaps even since the days of Woodrow Wilson. For every question that can be raised about his past conduct, Clinton has an understandable explanation. He also isn't afraid to admit that he made mistakes. America knows that people, Presidents included, make mistakes, and George Bush's contention in October 2004 that his administration had made no mistakes that he could recall rang and rings completely hollow. A person who is unafraid to admit mistakes is a person with whom you have to reckon.

I think it is the combination of Clinton's intelligence, ability to explain his decisions clearly and willingness to admit mistakes at times (that he wasn't able, for example, to capture Osama bin Laden), will not only disarm but also overcome the Republican attacks. And, once Bill Clinton has cleared the ground and defused some of the heavy Republican attacks, his wife will more easily be able to enter into the political arena and appear "above the fray" as she articulates her approach to foreign and domestic policy issues. At this point I don't have complete confidence that she will be able to galvanize people to her cause or her words, but with Bill in tow, she ought to be able to show that she offers a much more palatable option to the electorate than another right-wing Republican who just wants to speak the language of terror, try to terrorize the American people and continue to isolate America from wide swaths of friend and foe alike in the world.

But there is a third impression that I got from the former President's interview with Chris Wallace--and that is the subject of the next essay.

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