Fireworks Fly as Clinton Speaks to Pacifica Radio

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted November 8, 2000.

When Bill Clinton called Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York City on election day morning, he was expecting to help shore up voter support for Al Gore and his wife Hillary. There's no way he expected to engage in one of the most candid discussions about American politics in recent memory.

When Clinton phoned WBAI, he found himself facing a battery of questions from interviewers Amy Goodman and Gonzalo Aburto. Goodman started right in on Clinton with her trademark "buzzsaw" style, asking "What do you say to people who feel that the two parties are bought by corporations, and that their vote doesn't make a difference?"

Much to everyone's surprise, instead of giving a perfunctory answer, Clinton said, "There's just not a shred of evidence to support that." He then launched into a spirited defense of his record and articulating the complexities of present day American politics for thirty heated and fascinating minutes.

In response, Aburto and Goodman relentlessly threw a host of progressive grievences at Clinton, from the death penalty to NAFTA to sactions against Iraq. In many ways Clinton's performance was brilliant, demonstrating clearly why he is considered, hands down, the best politician in America, and why Al Gore can't possibly fill his shoes. Conversely, Aburto and Goodman -- who has bravely ferreted out stories where no other reporters have dared to go -- did a good job holding Clinton's feet to the fire, in a way the President probably never experienced in his eight years in office.

And what great theater it was! Depsite the fact that Clinton clearly was pissed off by the interview, he appeared almost addicted to the process, relishing the opportunity to get his story out. Clinton admitted, among many confessions, that there are far too many people in prison, that he supported the Illinois moratorium on executions, that racial profiling was hugely troubling to him (even admitting that two White House workers were recently stopped and handcuffed in racist incidents) and that he would be open to pardoning Indian rights activist Leonard Peltier.

Clinton's responses were bolstered by an avalanche of facts that were hard to refute. And when he couldn't rely on those, he adriotly sidestepped some fundamental questions and made it difficult for Aburto and Goodman to follow up.

The bottom line of Clinton's message: A lot of positive change has happened in the past eight years, things that many Americans don't quite understand or give us Democrats credit for. The gravitas of this message may become increasingly clear as America moves forward into the next Republican era. Divisions and partisanship in this country are likely to become more sharp if Bush wins the electoral college but not the popular vote. It may not be long before we will be yearing for the days of Bill Clinton.

The text of Clinton's interview with Aburto and Goodman is featured below. To hear the audio recording of the interview, visit: http://216.10.241.30/imc/nyc/realclintonbai.ram

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. President, are you there?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I am, can you hear me?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we can. You are calling radio stations to tell people to get out and vote. What do you say to people who feel that the two parties are bought by corporations, and that they are ... at this point feel that their vote doesn't make a difference?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: There's just not a shred of evidence to support that. That's what I would say. It's true that both parties have wealthy supporters. But let me offer you ... let me just give you the differences. Let's look at economic policy. First of all, if you look at the last eight years, look where America was eight years ago, and look where it is today. We have the strongest economy in history. And for the first time in 30 years, the incomes of average people and lower income working people have gone up 15 percent after inflation. The lowest minority unemployment ever recorded. The highest minority home ownership. The highest minority business ownership in history. That's our record.

If you look at our proposals, what do we propose to do? We propose a tax cut that helps average people, for child care, for long term care. For paying for college tuition. For retirement savings. We propose to invest large amounts of money in education, health care, the environment, in our future. And we propose to keep paying down the debt, because that keeps interest rates lower.

What do the Republicans propose? A tax cut that's three times as big. Most of it goes to very wealthy people. The top one percent of the people get as much money as they would spend on health care, education and the environment combined. They propose to privatize Social Security, and if you add the two things together, we'll be back in deficits which means the economy will go down, you know, and interest rates will be higher for ordinary people.

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