Deborah Solomon's Sunday Magazine Q&A [1] this week features FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace (son of CBS journalist Mike Wallace), and target of an attack by former president Bill Clinton. Solomon, typically, takes the ex-Democratic president's side of things.
Solomon: "As the host of 'Fox News Sunday,' you recently became a news item yourself by seeming to cause President Clinton to have on on-air meltdown. Do you think it was fair for you to mention that his administration had failed to capture Osama bin Laden?
Wallace: "I think it was a straight news question, and I think it just touched a very raw nerve. The business I am in is asking probing questions and trying to get interesting answers. I think I succeeded admirably in my job.
Solomon: "The part that amazes me is that his outburst became national news. Is political discourse in this country so scripted and dull that if someone displays a flare of authentic emotion, it makes headlines?"
[TimesWatch note: Who says it wasn't scripted?]
Wallace: "This was Bill Clinton unplugged - the good, the bad and the ugly."
Solomon: "I didn't see it as bad or ugly. I saw it as a genuine expression of feeling."
Wallace: "You weren't in the room."
Solomon (a Gore voter [2]) also had the nerve to ask: "What political party do you belong to?"
Wallace replies: "None of your business."