Some Things Rankle (Hunger Strike for an Instalanche, Day the Second)

For no apparent reason, certain news stories have a way of getting our collective dander up. It makes little sense: One news item—say, The New York Times’ printing anti-Bush leaks—won’t trouble us at all, but another one will simply enrage us.

Right now, for instance, Bill Clinton’s shenanigans in his interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace is really sticking in our craw. We haven’t the vaguest idea why: To be honest, we’ve never harbored much ill will for erstwhile President Clinton. Sure, his foreign policy was a mess, but we thought welfare reform a good idea and were pleased with other decisions he made.

Heck, we’d rather have Bill Clinton serve a 200-year term in office if it could destroy the prospect of another minute with Jimmy Carter at the helm. (That self-righteous, dunderheaded peanut farmer is one of the biggest embarrassments in American history. Imagine a president so bad that you actually think better of him after reading his poetry and you’ve got Jimmy Carter.)

And yet, dear reader, the merest thought of Clinton’s ungracious tomfoolery on “Fox News Sunday” is enough to get our blood pressure boiling. As if that weren’t bad enough, moronic left-wing talk of Bill Clinton’s supposed “ambush” at the hands of a Rupert Murdoch marionette has us seething.

We mean, come on: Did Chris Wallace’s single question really amount to a televised hatchet job? If Bill Clinton was angry at the recent hostility he perceived from one ABC drama and a question from Fox News, how do you think conservatives—the perennial whipping boys of the mainstream media—feel?

Yeah: The press has been really hard on you, Bill. Why don’t you complain to Dan Quayle; that bastard got nothing but fawning attention from reporters.

Perhaps what so enrages us about this brouhaha, dear reader, is the fact that the arguments from the Left are so obviously weak. At least when one discusses the wisdom of liberating Iraq we can all agree that there are many valid arguments. But these Clinton apologetics are enough to make one positively cringe for Paul Begala. Does he really believe this stuff?

If Tim Russert hadn’t mysteriously lost his spine in his recent interview with President Clinton, he could very well have asked Bubba the query that landed Chris Wallace in hot water. Arrgh: This is so obvious we simply want to scream!

But maybe, dear reader, we’re just showing a lot of emotion because we’re cranky. And who’d blame us? We’re officially on Day Two of our Official Hunger Strike for an Instalanche, and, thus far, Glenn Reynolds doesn’t even know we exist. As such, our latest ploy for mega-“hits” has been about as successful as New Coke.

Hold on to your Twinkies, folks: It’s going to be a long time without food, we fear.