BJ Clinton Amazes Pundits

Here's just a snippet of James Taranto's windy summary of a speech interrupted by a football game---good news, Dallas beat the NY Giants, 24-17.
If Clinton could run for a third term and Obama stepped aside to let him, there's little doubt he could beat Mitt Romney. But Obama can't run on Clinton's record. Clinton presided over prosperity, Obama over slow growth and high unemployment. Clinton tamed congressional Republicans, whereas Obama only blamed them.

Our favorite bit from the Clinton speech was this attack on the Romney-Ryan ticket: "As their campaign pollster said 'we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself--I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."

We liked this because it reinforced the point we made in Tuesday's column--to wit, that the "fact check" genre of journalism amounts at best to bad op-ed writing and at worst to partisan propaganda. Evidently annoyed by the implication, the Associated Press "fact checked" the former president's statement about "fact checkers":

CLINTON: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself--I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."
THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were "legally accurate" but also allowed that he "misled people, including even my wife."

The substance of that rebuttal wouldn't be out of place in an irreverent opinion column like this one. But it has nothing to do with the facts in the quoted Clinton statement--a statement that is pretty much fact-free except for the quote from the pollster (which as far as we know is accurate, not that the AP's "fact checker" could be bothered to check).

Hit the link for more scintillating stuff.