Clinton on The Daily Show
Bill Clinton: I think that one of the problems we had, after Watergate, when President Nixon resigned and there were all these clear violations of the law, is that really the press brought that on — they started it and they hammered it. And I think that it gave them a sense of their own power and maybe a sense of responsibility. But after that a lot of the people in public life felt that the media thought they had to get somebody at every election cycle, and that was bad. Then after 9.11, we went probably too far in the other direction where nobody criticized anybody for anything, and a lot of people looked the other way. That’s part of what you were complaining about, a minute ago. And I think now it’s beginning to balance out again.”
Jon Stewart: “You think the ship of state moves slowly, so it’s not something to get too exercised about?
Clinton: “I think it moves — the framers designed it not too move too fast but I think it is something to be exercised about because you have — any time we go through a period of big change, it really matters who gets elected. And we’re ’bout midway through a cycle after the end of the Cold War when the new security threats are terror, weapons of mass destruction and racial and religious conflicts. And, we’re in a new cycle where the end of the nation-state industrial economy is being replaced by a global information economy. So these decisions matter. And you’ve got two parties that see the world in different ways, and will make different decisions. These elections are big deals. I’m really encouraged that there’s a lot of fire on our side this time, as well as on their side, a lot of intensity. And that apparently we have a chance for only the second time since the 18-year-olds got the vote for the majority of the 18-21-year-olds to vote. That’s only happened once before, in 1992, when I ran the first time.”
Next to GWB, he of course looks brilliant. But anyone who can summarize, oh, the important issues of the 20-21st century in that little space… mad props.