Bill Clinton, meet Captain Queeg

Watching Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday reminded me of the scene from The Caine Mutiny when Humphrey Bogart, playing Captain Queeg, was on the witness stand. The captain, after being relieved of command by his First Mate because he panicked during a storm at sea, began his testimony in a calm and controlled manner.

Soon, however, when the questions began to get tougher, Queeg showed signs of stress and began blaming everyone else for his actions. He reached into his pocket and removed a few steel balls, which he rotated in one hand as he struggled to come up with responses to the probe.

In the Fox interview, Chris Wallace began with a few questions about Clinton's efforts as a former president. But, when Wallace turned quickly to the subject of Clinton's failure to capture Usama bin laden, the former Chief Executive went ballistic. Moving forward on his chair and sticking his finger in the host's face, Clinton accused 'right— winger's' of attacking him for not doing enough to capture bin laden.

'They ridiculed me for trying.  They had eight months to try, they did not try,' he said, his finger jabbing at the space between the 2 men.

Captain Queeg:  

'I did everything I could. But my crew was constantly disloyal to me.' 

When Wallace, taken aback by the sudden ferocity coming from the former president, tried to calm him by saying the question was legitimate, Clinton sneered. He then accused Wallace of doing a conservative hit—job on him.

'I want to know how many people in the Bush Administration you asked these questions of,' he added, forcing a smile to hide the enmity in his eyes. 'You got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever, but I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try and I did everything I thought I responsibly could.'

Captain Queeg:

'Ah, but the strawberries! That's, that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with, with geometric logic, that, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist.'

The officers sitting in judgment of Captain Queeg had the same look on their faces as Chris Wallace had when Clinton went paranoid on him.

Clinton:

'You came here under false pretenses and said that you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7—billion—plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care.'

Wallace:

'But, President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you'll see half the questions are about that. I didn't think this was going to set you off on such a tear.'

Clinton:

'You launched it! It set me off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side,' he said as the rant continued with Wallace looking on incredulously at the conspiratorial tirade from the former leader of the free world.

It's not difficult to understand the level of irritation being displayed by Clinton. He went on the program thinking he would have softballs lobbed at him because he condescended to appear on the conservative network owned by Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire who has donated to Clinton's Global Initiative project. During the interview he used Murdoch's name as if to intimidate the host into fearing for his job.

Wallace was as respectful as anyone could be with a menacing figure a few inches away, murdering him with his eyes. Clinton's problem is that he lives in fear that someone is going to ask him if his affair with Monica Lewinsky and other interns diverted his attention from the affairs of State. While terrorism was on the rise around the world, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, this guy was too busy chasing Monica around the Oval Office to know what was happening to the country he was elected to serve.

He disgraced himself and his office by sticking that same finger in the face of the American people and lying when he said:

'I want you to listen to me. I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.'

Now, he wants to blame everyone else for his failure to protect the security of this nation because of his failure to keep his pants on.

Bob Weir    9 25 06