THE RATIO. The scuffle between former President Clinton and Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday was, in my rather biased opinion, at least a TKO if not a woodshed ass-whuppin� by Clinton. Like all conservatives, Wallace will now play the victim, because conservatives love to talk tough about social Darwinism and how gritty they are, but whine and moan like babies whenever somebody calls them on their crap. Now, of course, media conservatives will play the misdirection game, making a lot of fuss about Clinton�s demeanor, mood, finger-pointing, and other non-verbals, because they�d rather avoid responding to the, well, verbals: the assertions Clinton made about the withdrawal from Somalia emboldening Osama bin Laden; the stark contrast in counter-terrorism efforts by his and the current administration, and so on. While they avoid discussing inconvenient facts -- like Clinton�s nicely articulated reminder to Wallace that the Bush team has dedicated only one-seventh the military manpower to finding Osama as deposing Saddam Hussein -- let�s see if any of them mention the real, issue-inspecific takeaway from Clinton�s interview: Clinton had the guts to apologize and lament his failures, noting that he told the 9/11 Commission to report widely those failures as a warning to prevent future mistakes. Aside from wishing he could take back his �dead or alive� and �bring it on� comments, President Bush can neither admit errors nor apologize for the harm caused by them. Worse, Bush rarely works to correct the patterns that create problems in the first place. If there is some type of cosmic balance sheet that awaits presidents when they arrive at the pearly gates, St. Peter�s ledger would undoubtedly show that the transgressions-to-apologies ratio are far, far better for 42 than 43.
--Tom Schaller
