Transcript with Joe, Ann Coulter and Hillary's former press secretary:
SCARBOROUGH: Now, tonight, topics on Hillary Clinton include Bill’s many affairs, Hillary’s take on the vast right-wing conspiracy, and the innocent victims of the political machine of the Clintons. With me now is former Clinton press secretary Hillary-to Hillary Clinton, Karen Finney. She’s back for a second round tonight.
KAREN FINNEY, FORMER HILLARY CLINTON PRESS SECRETARY: Hi, Joe.
SCARBOROUGH: We also have Ann Coulter. She’s author of “Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.” And it’s a must read when it comes out in a few weeks. Let me begin with you, Karen. And I’ll ask you a softball question, just like Barbara Walters. How did Hillary do so great last night?
KAREN FINNEY, FORMER CLINTON PRESS SECRETARY: She was asked a number of questions by Barbara Walters over the course of a couple of interviews. And I think she answered all the questions beautifully. They were truthful and she was candid and honest. And I think she got a fantastic reception. I think it was over 13 million viewers tuned in to watch. And today, there was a tremendous reception at the Barnes and Noble here in New York City. So I think things are great.
SCARBOROUGH: Yes, I’m sure they are, if you’re Hillary Clinton right now. Ann Coulter, I want to play a clip from the interview about Hillary’s different reactions to Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. Let’s take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: Those are private issues that you have to deal with. I was outraged and angry, hurt, terribly disappointed, and very, frankly, not sure that the marriage would or should go on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Ann Coulter, why was the Gennifer Flowers affair a very private matter and her response very private, and yet she went into graphic detail about her reaction, her very private reaction, to Monica Lewinsky?
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR, “TREASON”: Yes, and she also denied the Gennifer Flowers affair on television before the election. That’s after Gennifer Flowers had produced tapes of herself on the phone with Bill Clinton, which Bill Clinton apologized for, for parts of those tapes. If you credit Hillary Clinton and you want to portray her as the sad little woman and the victim, she really should not be sitting in the United States Senate. She should not be anyplace near any levers of power, because she is admitting she’s the stupidest person in the world.
SCARBOROUGH: So I take it you don’t believe that Hillary Clinton was being completely straightforward with the American people last night?
COULTER: No, I don’t think anyone does. I sort of noticed, even listening to liberals talk about her, that it’s always whether or not she told a good story and managed to come up with an answer for everything. No one believes it. They’re just debating how good a story it was.
SCARBOROUGH: Karen Finney, I would have respected Hillary Clinton a lot more if she would have said: All of that is private and I am not going to respond to it. But don’t you believe that, when she came out and went into this great detail on her private response to the affair of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, that she forever forfeited her right to play the privacy card?
FINNEY: Well, I think it’s very-let’s run at a couple different things. With the case of Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, come on. How much longer are we going to have to talk about this? It was years and years and years ago.
COULTER: As long as they keep talking about it.
FINNEY: But then, with regard to the Monica Lewinsky, I think, when Hillary made the decision to write this book, she knew that she was going to have to talk about these things in a candid manner. These were events that took place during her time was in the White House, that, through no fault of her own, were made public. And I think she realized that there were unanswered questions that she needed to address in order to get a full picture of her life in the White House. And I think she did a great-I think she did that.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, Karen, didn’t you just make my point that she knew that she had to write about her private responses to Monica Lewinsky to get $8 million?
FINNEY: I think she understand that, if you’re going to tell a story, her life story, and you’re going to talk about your eight years in the White House, this was part of that experience. She talked about it in a very candid manner. And I give her a lot of credit for doing so.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, she did on that, but...
FINNEY: You can’t have it both ways, Joe, right? Before-when it was announced that she was going to write a book, everybody was speculating as to whether or not she would talk about these things. And now that she has, you don’t like what the answer is. So come on.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Listen, Karen, don’t play us for dumb.
FINNEY: I’m not.
SCARBOROUGH: She decides. She’s the one having it both ways.
FINNEY: No.
SCARBOROUGH: She’s the one that decided: I’ll talk about this, but I won’t talk about that. And I’ll plead privacy rights when anybody asks me.
(CROSSTALK)
FINNEY: I think it’s pretty clear that she has been asked questions about those other incidents and she’s answered them.
SCARBOROUGH: Let’s move on to the vast right-wing conspiracy.
FINNEY: It’s really not a conspiracy. It’s pretty out in the open, isn’t it?
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: This is what Hillary Clinton said about the vast right-wing conspiracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I believe there is a very well financed right-wing network of people-it’s not really a conspiracy, because it’s pretty much out in the light of day-that was after his presidency from the very beginning, really stopped at nothing, even to the point of perverting the Constitution, in order to undermine what he was trying to do for the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Ann Coulter, please respond to that.
COULTER: Yes, apparently, that includes the 57 percent of Americans who voted against Bill Clinton. I do want to point out that the position of the Clinton Kool-Aid drinkers is that they can keep writing endless tomes, spinning lies about the great Clinton presidency and how he saved the Constitution and building museums to him. A 900-page book by Sidney Blumenthal? That is longer than all of the works of Proust-a 600-page book by three ghostwriters for Hillary Clinton. And, meanwhile, whenever a conservative tries to respond to these lies: Oh, you people won’t move on from Clinton. You just can’t stop talking about Paula Jones.
FINNEY: Oh, my goodness.
COULTER: Well, no, no. If you’re going to refuse to move on, then we’re going to refuse to move on, too. And if you’re going to bring it up, conservatives can respond.
(CROSSTALK)
FINNEY: But you all are really very stuck on attacking these people.
SCARBOROUGH: Hey, Karen, Hillary also talked about the poor innocent victims that were left in the wake of the Ken Starr investigation. Let me play you a clip from that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: So many other people who were totally innocent and just standing by were caught up in this, in this relentless series of investigations. And that, to me, is still a very painful part of that whole experience.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Karen, it’s legendary, is it not, the number of innocent victims that were left in the wake of Bill Clinton’s presidency and his governorship? And, really, any place where Bill Clinton went, the people around him ended up in jail or in much worse shape?
FINNEY: Well, let’s be really clear about what happened during the White House years. This was a $70 million much-ado-about-nothing series of attacks that, yes, there were many of us, unfortunately, who got caught up in that. But this was-this was not the doing of Bill Clinton. This was the doing of Ken Starr and many others. So let’s be clear about who really brought this situation out.
SCARBOROUGH: Ann Coulter, wrap it up. Again-we’re hearing again, this is all much ado about nothing.
COULTER: I don’t think Juanita Broaddrick would say that Bill Clinton did not bring this on himself. She claimed she was raped by Bill Clinton, a charge believed by two-thirds of the American people and never
(CROSSTALK)
FINNEY: Well, it was Ken Starr that decided to have a reckless disregard for the Constitution of the United States.
SCARBOROUGH: Hold on. One at a time. Wrap it up.
COULTER: A charge by two-thirds of the American people and never denied by Bill Clinton, thoroughly investigated by...
FINNEY: He left office with a 60 percent approval rating, Ann.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Hey, please, Ann Coulter, finish it up, 15 seconds. Go ahead.
COULTER: I think I’ve pretty much finished. They want to keep spinning lies about Bill Clinton. And when a conservative tries to respond: Oh, no, that’s out of order. You can’t respond.
SCARBOROUGH: All right, thank you both so much for being with us tonight.
Ann was pretty good on this segment last night. I just wish Scarborough had pulled the plug on Finney.
I do as well. The times I've seen Ann on Scarborough, she's always interruped and Joe mostly lets it happen, then switches to another question. Notably missing from the transcript was Ann saying "I thought *I* was supposed to be replying" or something along those lines.
I sure didn't understand Hillary's talk about the "4 (??) innocent victims" of the investigations. Was Mary Mahoney one of them??
Knowing Hillary, the four victims were Bill, Chelsea, Betty Currie, and, of course, herself.
And ... if you check out Bush's "personal approval" numbers, you will find they are anywhere between 70-80% - while his job approval may only be 67% at the present time.
