Fox Anchor Refutes Clinton Charge

During the "Fox News Sunday" interview between Chris Wallace and Bill Clinton, the former president suggested ulterior motives for bringing up his administration's role in failing to prevent 9-11: "You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change."

Clinton also charged that Chris Wallace had not asked the same questions of the Bush administration:

"You launched it — it set me off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side."

But in yesterday's "Political Grapevine" segment of "Special Report with Brit Hume," Hume said that Chris Wallace had indeed asked the same questions of Donald Rumsfeld.

Chris Wallace's "FOX News Sunday" interview with Bill Clinton was one of six TV appearances the former president made last week. But despite Mr. Clinton's highly publicized objections to the recent ABC docudrama about 9/11, no one other than Wallace asked him about the aggressiveness of his pursuit of Osama bin Laden.

As for Mr. Clinton's assertion that Wallace did not challenge the Bush administration's pre-9/11 record on terrorism? In 2004, Wallace asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to answer the charge that "the Bush Administration largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda," before 9/11,adding, "Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."