The King of Pointland

Dodgy

On February 8, 2004, President George W. Bush granted an at best lacklustre Oval Office interview to NBC's Tim Russert.

I believe it was my friend frecklefaerie who asked whether other presidents are similarly clumsy in the hot seat. I did some research at the time and dug up an interview with President Clinton [just look at that pusser!] on the January 21, 1998 edition of the News Hour, with Jim Lehrer. Clinton, unlike Bush, was able to think on his feet and give reasoned, thoughtfully considered, articulate answers to Lehrer's questions.

As it turns out, though, the previously scheduled tête-à-tête occurred the day the Monica Lewinsky scandal first appeared in the major news outlets. Lehrer dutifully questioned Clinton about it, several times, and Clinton repeatedly responded in the present tense: "there is no improper relationship" [emphasis mine]. Reading the transcript, one is frustrated Lehrer won't just say: "You didn't answer my question, Mr. President. Was there, at any time in the past, an improper relationship. Yes or no." I wondered what, in hindsight, Lehrer thought about the exchange.

Fast forward to this past week when, in connection with the former president's new memoir, Lehrer interviewed Clinton again:

JIM LEHRER: I have to ask you one question about it for the record, and I'm sure this is not going to be any surprise to you because six years ago, the day the Lewinsky story broke--you mentioned this in your book--

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I wrote it about.

JIM LEHRER: You wrote about it in the book, that because we had a pre--already prearranged interview, you went ahead with the interview, and I did the first interview with you, and I asked you if you had had a sexual--improper relationship. I kept using the past tense, and you kept saying is, "There is no relationship." My question to you is, was that--that was an intentional dodge, was it not?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It was an intentional dodge because I didn't want--I respect you. I didn't want to lie to you, and I thought that I had to, as I said in the book, buy two weeks time for things to calm down in order to avoid having Ken Starr and his boys win this long fight that they were fighting against me, and--but I also said in the book that I hated it and I tried to--after I did that interview with you--I tried to confine my comments thereafter just simply saying that I didn't violate any laws and I didn't ask anybody else to, and that's pretty much what I said from there on out.

Pretty much.

By the way, My Life is 1008 pages long. Good God! Get an editor, you freak. There had better be a four page stream-of-consciousness sentence, reflecting upon a Quarter Pounder eaten one August morning in 1990, somewhere in that doorstop.