Jennings Praises Clinton Who Rants About ABC Helping Ken Starr

During ABC's hour-long Primetime Special Edition promotion of the opening of the Clinton Library, titled, "Bill Clinton: A Place in History," Peter Jennings trumpeted his record as "full of accomplishment" and touted how he's "hugely popular in other parts of the world." But Clinton lectured Jennings on ABC's bias against him. Jennings had told the former President how a survey of historians had ranked him highly in some areas, but that "they gave you a 41st on moral authority." That prompted Clinton to launch into a rant against Ken Starr and the historians, but he maintained that "I don't really care what they think." Jennings countered that "you care, I can feel it across the room." To which Clinton, pointing at Jennings, fired back: "You don't want to go there, Peter. You don't want to go there. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every little sleazy thing he leaked."

Instead of defending his coverage, however, Jennings moved on: "I think somewhere you say that it was Nelson Mandela who taught you about forgiveness?" Jennings soon deplored how Clinton had to leave office after eight years: "You're 58 years old, and you had two terms. And like a world class athlete, you're suddenly yanked off the mound. Somebody compared it to pulling Sandy Koufax out of a baseball game."

To Jennings' credit, earlier in the show, as the two walked around the library's exhibits, Jennings pressed Clinton about his failure to act on opportunities to capture or kill Osama bin Laden: "There are stories around, as you know, that the Sudan offered him to you, not once, not twice, but three times." Clinton adamantly denied it.

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth took down some highlights from the November 18 9pm EST/PST, 8pm CST/MST special taped on Tuesday at the new library and presidential center in Little Rock.

-- Two minutes in. Jennings: "The building is, well, appropriately dramatic for a man whose presidency was dramatic and divisive and full of accomplishment."

-- 16 minutes in. Jennings to Clinton: "Iraq does not look good at the moment. Do you think the United States could lose there?"

-- 18 minutes in as the two looked at a display in an alcove.
Jennings, noted a poster: "Why did you put the ten most wanted poster in here of bin Laden? You've been taking some flak on bin Laden."
Clinton: "Yeah, but not from anybody who knows the facts. I mean, to be fair, most of it was highly political. If you look at the 9/11 Commission's report about what we did and how we prepared for -- we had 9/11-style threats for the Millennium -- and the extent of our preparations and the work we did, the number of terrorists we brought to justice, the 20 al-Qaeda cells we broke up, if you look at all of that and the fact that we apparently still came closer to getting bin Laden than anybody has since, even though they have a lot more options, military options than we had, I feel, I've wished that I had gotten him."
Jennings pressed: "There are stories around, as you know, that the Sudan offered him to you, not once, not twice, but three times."
Clinton: "That's not, that's just-"
Jennings: "Not true?"
Clinton: "Not true. It's not true. And I've done everything I could to run that down. It is simply not true. They were always playing a double game, the Sudanese. The guy running Sudan was in business with bin Laden. And we did try to get him out of there because, at the time, Sudan was worse than Afghanistan as a harbor for terrorists. But they never offered him to us. At least, I can't find it in any document, talking to any person, and the first time I heard that, I went to an extraordinary amount of trouble to find out if it was true. And I urged the 9/11 Commission to try to find out if it was true. I just don't believe it's true."

-- 36 minutes in, as the two stood in the alcove dealing with impeachment.
Jennings: "Now this, in the entire library, this is, I'm not sure I'm using the right word. But this is the most militant alcove."
Clinton: "You think it is?"
Jennings: "I do. I do. I think that from, this is about your struggle with the Republicans and others. Why don't you just tell us why you did this?"
Clinton: "What I'm trying to show here is this whole long litany of things where the ideological fights, in my opinion, went too far. Spending $70 million on Whitewater, which was a land deal I lost money on, that no one disputed, one of the great political con jobs in the history of the American republic, that they could get that much money spent. And then we go to impeachment. We had 800 constitutional scholars who said there was no basis for impeachment. Gingrich privately acknowledged they shouldn't impeach me. They did it because they wanted to put a black mark on me in history."
Jennings: "Do you think they did put a black mark on your presidency that is indelible?"
Clinton: "No, I mean, it's there. But I think the more time goes on, the more people will see it for exactly what it was. Doesn't mean I didn't make a terrible personal mistake, but I certainly paid for that. But what they did was legally and constitutionally wrong. And it was not for political reasons. The overwhelming majority of Republican and Democratic legal and constitutional scholars agreed. And I think in history it will all come out just fine. I've always believed that. I think things come out in a wash. The other day, but, you know, people are always being written and rewritten in history."

ABC jumped to Jennings and Clinton sitting face-to-face in chairs in an open area of the library.

Jennings: "You love history, sir. Rate yourself as a President."
Clinton: "I'm not going to do that because anything I say is wrong. It's a lose/lose deal. I got, you know, my wife's in public service. I'm still trying to do things as a former President. And I have no business being a judge of my own presidency right now."
Jennings: "But at the end of the President's term, historians did feel free to judge. Fifty-eight historians, as I think you may know, did this for C-SPAN. And they were all across the political spectrum. And they came out, in general terms, that you were 21st. And on public persuasion and economic management, they gave you a fifth. Pretty good."
Clinton: "Pretty good."
Jennings: "They gave you a 41st on moral authority."
Clinton: "They're wrong about that."
Jennings: "After Nixon."
Clinton: "They're wrong about that. You know why they're wrong about it? They're wrong about it."
Jennings: "Why, sir?"
Clinton: "Because we had $100 million spent against us and all these inspections. One person in my administration was convicted of doing something that violated his job responsibilities while we were in the White House, 29 in the Reagan/Bush years. I bet those historians didn't even know that. They have no idea what I was subject to and what a lot of people supported. No other President ever had to endure someone like Ken Starr indicting innocent people because they wouldn't lie, in a systematic way. No one ever had to try to save people from ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the people in Haiti from a military dictator who was murdering them and all the other problems I dealt with, while every day, an entire apparatus was devoted to destroying him. And still, not any example of where I ever disgraced this country publicly. I made a terrible public, personal mistake, but I paid for it many times over. And in spite of it all, you don't have any example where I ever lied to the American people about my job, where I ever let the American people down. And I had more support from the world and the world leaders and people around the world when I quit than when I started. And I will go to my grave being at peace about it. And I don't really care what they think."
Jennings: "Oh, yes, you do, sir."
Clinton: "They have no-"
Jennings: "No, excuse me, Mr. President. You care, I can feel it across the room."
Clinton: "No, no, I care-"
Jennings: "You feel it very deeply."
Clinton, raised his arm and menacingly pointed at Jennings: "You don't want to go there, Peter. You don't want to go there. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like. That's where I failed. You want to know where I failed? I really let it, it hurt me. I thought I believed in a, I thought I lived in a country where people believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, freedom of speech. You never had to live in a time when people you knew and cared about were being indicted, carted off to jail, bankrupted, ruined because they were Democrats and because they would not lie. So I think we showed a lot of moral fiber to stand up to that, to stand up to these constant investigations, to this constant bodyguard of lies, this avalanche that was thrown at all of us. And, yes, I failed once. And I sure paid for it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the American people, and I'm sorry for the embarrassment they performed. But they ought to think about the way the rest of the world reacted to it. When I, when I got a standing ovation at the United Nations from the whole world, the American networks were showing my grand jury testimony. Those were decisions you made, not me. I personally believe that the standing ovation I got from the whole world at the United Nations, which was unprecedented for an American President, showed not only support for me, but opposition to the madness that had taken hold of American politics."

(The posted version of this CyberAlert will feature a still shot of Clinton pointing at Jennings, though the background makes it hard to see in the wide-shot.)

Jennings moved on: "I think somewhere you say that it was Nelson Mandela who taught you about forgiveness?" Clinton: "Yeah. He was unbelievable. Mandela, when I was going through all this, he was really mad, you know, he came to the White House and defended me and said the Congress should leave me alone. And he gave a blistering defense in the White House the day before Gingrich gave him the Congressional Gold Medal."
-- 50 minutes in.
Jennings: "You're 58 years old, and you had two terms. And like a world class athlete, you're suddenly yanked off the mound. Somebody compared it to pulling Sandy Koufax out of a baseball game."
Clinton: "Yeah, I'm sorry he quit when he did, too."
Jennings: "Doesn't it feel like that at times?"
Clinton: "It did. But, you know, sometimes it's a blessing. Sometimes it's a blessing to go out on top. You know, I had a, I don't know, 62, 63 percent approval rating. The country was in great shape. There have been many times since then that I wish I had been able to help the American people and the world with problems that come across the President's desk."

As for how ABC News was supposedly in the tank for Starr, a look back at some 1998 CyberAlert documentation of ABC coverage:

-- January 23 CyberAlert, just as Lewinsky story was breaking: As Starr spoke at just past 11am ET on Thursday, ABC News legal affairs reporter Tim O'Brien stood behind him. As Starr explained "that we are acting properly within our jurisdiction," O'Brien didn't let him finish his sentence, never mind his statement, shouting over him: "How could that be, how is this Whitewater? How is this Whitewater?"

-- January 25 CyberAlert: ABC painted Starr as a "Republican prosecutor;" Peter Jennings worried about "too much" coverage; and another piece looked at how "many voters are questioning just how big this story really is," saying "the media have already taken it way too far."

-- January 29 CyberAlert: On Good Morning America, Lisa McRee mostly tossed softballs to Hillary Clinton, sympathized with how the scandal has distracted from "things that really do matter."

-- February 9 CyberAlert: ABC's World News Tonight on Saturday also honed in on Starr and Ginsburg, as Michel McQueen relayed the opinion of a convicted felon as valid criticism of Starr. She concluded her story: "Ginsburg told ABC News he is not coordinating with ABC's lawyers, but he is not the only one to complain that Starr's tactics border on abuse. Whitewater figure Susan McDougal has long maintained that she's in jail on contempt charges only because she won't invent facts to fit Starr's story. The question now is whether Starr's tactics will prove more offensive to the courts and the public than any alleged wrongdoing by the President that Starr is investigating." See: www.mediaresearch.org

-- February 12 CyberAlert: A Secret Service agent went on the record about knowing Clinton and Lewinsky were alone, but ABC and CBS skipped the news Wednesday night. NBC painted Clinton as a victim of devious taping. See: www.mediaresearch.org

-- February 16 CyberAlert: A front page "analysis" piece in Friday's Washington Post carried this headline: "To Some in the Law, Starr's Tactics Show a Lack of Restraint." ABC: On cue, World News Tonight picked up on the theme. After two stories on Iraq, Peter Jennings claimed that Starr's "tactics have been very widely discussed this week. Is he being too aggressive for one thing?" Reporter Linda Douglass gave time to proponents and detractors, but the agenda matched Starr's opponents as those upset by Starr got more time and the last counterpoint. Douglass began: "The anguish on the face of Monica Lewinsky's mother was the best evidence yet of how rough Kenneth Starr is willing to play. Prosecutors say that sometimes comes with the territory."

-- November 30 CyberAlert: On a Thanksgiving Eve 20/20, Diane Sawyer portrayed Ken Starr as an out of touch square, arguing with him about why he raised Clinton's comment about small breasts and use of a cigar, contending he mistreated Lewinsky, and giving credence to the VRWC by alleging a "one degree of separation" from Scaife. Though Starr and his deputies, including Robert Bittmann and Julie Myers, got a few chances to make their points without being discredited, Sawyer spent most of the 20/20 hour not only putting Starr and associates on the defense by forcing them to respond to Carville-like criticisms, but she often took the anti-Starr side by arguing with him.
Referring, for instance, to the details about the cigar and other sexual matters Sawyer insisted it "cannot be denied that they are there to outrage and they are there to shock." After Starr said he was sure of the propriety of his decisions, Sawyer responded: "There is something about certainty that scares a lot of people."
For a flavor of the November 25 show, which dealt solely with Starr for the entire hour, here's a plug run during one break:
Announcer: "Did Kenneth Starr go too far?"
Diane Sawyer to Starr: "I think there were 62 mentions of the word 'breast,' 23 of 'cigar,' 19 of 'semen.' This has been called demented pornography, pornography for puritans. Were there mistakes made in including some of this?"
Announcer: "The tables are turned. Now it's the prosecutor's turn to be grilled, when 20/20 Wednesday continues after this from our ABC stations."

# Sawyer on Starr as out of touch: "So what happens when this man becomes independent counsel and begins investigating a President charged with covering up, lying under oath about a sexual relationship? [To Starr] Do you think in that sense, you were out of touch with the political judgment of the American people who say everyone was covering up sex. There was gambling in the casino in Casablanca and you are the only one who is shocked. We are not shocked."

# Sawyer, making David Kendall's case: "Which brings us to the question of the team's highly criticized tactics. Did they cross the line? First with Monica Lewinsky, when nine federal officers took her to a room at the Ritz—Carlton and put pressure on her to turn on the President? People see a young girl who was in tears, who was threatened with 27 years in prison possibly, who was told that her mother might be prosecuted based on things she had said about her mother, who was to wire herself or tape the President or Vernon Jordan. And they say this isn't John Gotti. This isn't Timothy McVeigh."

# Sawyer, making Hillary Clinton's case: "Which brings us to Linda Tripp, the woman people love to hate, and the accusation that Ken Starr was not what he had seemed. Are you part of a right—wing conspiracy?"
Starr: "No. I don't know that there is one."
Sawyer: "His key witness, Linda Tripp, is now a recognized soldier in the army of Clinton haters -- among them Tripp's friend and svengali, Lucianne Goldberg. Among them, the lawyers for Paula Jones. Before he became independent counsel, Starr gave them advice. And among them, millionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, who hired people to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton and funded a chair at Pepperdine University for Ken Starr. Starr says he's never met or talked to Scaife. [To Starr] This one degree of separation, lawyers in your firm to the Paula Jones attorneys, Richard Mellon Scaife and Pepperdine University, and these are the President's enemies. And they're just outside your door, some people think inside. Do you at least see what that looks like?"

# Sawyer on Clinton and America as the victims: "Driving to the White House that day, for what was -- for all intents and purposes -- a lot of people think your trial, the only trial you were going to get. Did you think to yourself, here is a man who has to deal with Saddam Hussein and bin Laden and what's going on in Russia, and we're putting him through this?"

# Sawyer wrapped up arguing that justice would have been better served if Starr bent the law. Playing clips from the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, Sawyer explained that for the hero lawyer in the film "his commitment to duty is one lesson of the story. But we reminded Starr that there's another. He says, to his daughter Scout, 'sometimes it's better to bend the law a little in special cases.' At the end of the story, Finch [the lawyer] compromises on the law to preserve the delicate balance of justice."

Before anyone tells we conservatives to quit talking about Clinton's problems, they need to tell Clinton to quit talking about them.

p.s. Jennings should go back to Canada - eh!

I heard the audio of Clinton's comments, what a joke.
Clinton STILL thinks that he did no wrong.

I think the guy might be nuts. He just does not get it.
If you wanna play, you're gonna pay.

All of Clinton's problems were self-induced.

Peter Jennings trumpeted his record as "full of accomplishment"

Clinton's greatest policy accomplishment was "Midnight Basketball."

BJ: "No, I mean, it's there. But I think the more time goes on, the more people will see it for exactly what it was. Doesn't mean I didn't make a terrible personal mistake, but I certainly paid for that. But what they did was legally and constitutionally wrong. And it was not for political reasons. The overwhelming majority of Republican and Democratic legal and constitutional scholars agreed. And I think in history it will all come out just fine. I've always believed that. I think things come out in a wash. The other day, but, you know, people are always being written and rewritten in history."

Two questions for you, Mr Clinton: How many presidents HAVE been impeached in the history of the USA? And, do you think historians will remember the tabulation?

The only reason President Clinton is not in federal prison is because he appointed the most corrupt and evil Attorney General in history.

Janet Reno covered up so much lawlessness and crime that she should have a nice place in hell waiting for her.

Well, it is nice to see that the former POTUS is making some progress with his mental problem.

He is now at least able to admit that what he did was SLEAZY!

For the full refutation of everything (or near everything) that Klintoon said in this interview...

www.alamo-girl.com - the most comprehensive Klintoon-corruption exposing web site known to mankind.

Speaking of indictments and other false accusations against innocent people, the White House travel office and Billy Dale come to mind. There are many other examples my simple mind has forgotten, but that one is the strongest.

Besides narcissistic personality disorderly--add paranoid. We've all seen how unhinged Al Gore is-- Add Billy Boy to the mix.

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