I dunno, maybe it's just my time of the month, but I thought this was a remarkable audio document, and it's now available on in real audio on the web at
http://www.webactive.com/webactive/pacifica/demnow.html
(if you log on after its been taken down, go down to the bottom of the page to get it from the archives under November 8th). Clinton really does cold call the station to give a 2 minute get out the vote pitch, and gets spontaneously sucked into a half hour interview where they toss one question after another at him like What about Vieques? What about the 5000 children dying a month in Iraq? And why have you taken the Democratic party to the right? He can't help himself from answering even though he has to go. He has to stay and prove he's right. In some ways, it's the press conference you only thought in your dreams he'd ever give. And although the hosts are rightly proud of their part in bringing this about, I was frankly amazed at how well Clinton defended himself, just in presentational terms. He didn't avoid the questions, he took them head on, and off the cuff gave what seemed a remarkably condensed and consistent-sounding defense of his entire worldview, from sanctions of mass destruction to deficit reduction to free trade, not as exceptions or compromises, but as central principles. For a moment, I felt I understood how his mind worked from the inside. I know if I work my way through the transcript I'll find it's all lies and half truths. But man this guy is fast and smooth. Man I'm going to miss him when we have a president who couldn't plausibly lie his way out of a lunch date. I think it was Louis Menand who once discussed the Clinton combo of ringing rhetoric and meaningless microproposals and said all he did was pour pixie dust over our problems -- but it was pixie dust of a very high order.
Anyway, if you want some interesting radio in the background for a half hour, I recommend it.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com