In decrying what he called a pre-Christmas attack by Democrats and the media on the Bush administration, Tony Blankley ignored his own pre-Christmas attack on the Clinton administration in 1999.
Blankley, citing “Washington tradition,” decried “Christmas bombing” by media, Bush critics; ignored his own 1999 Yuletide broadside on Clinton
Published
In his December 21 syndicated column, Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley decried how “just days before we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace,” “the New York Times, Democratic (and a few Republican) senators and the rest of the ever-willing-to-be-brutal media launched their Christmas bombing of the Bush White House.” Citing The New York Times' revelation that President Bush authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens without court approval and the fact that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) “raised the prospect ... of the impeachment of our president,” Blankley asserted that “both the timing and the ferocity of their Christmas attack on the president is an appalling breach of decency.”
Blankley stated:
By long Washington tradition, these are the weeks when the politicians and media lay down our (figurative) swords, brass knuckles, slings and arrows, sniper rifles and bazookas and toast each other across the partisan and professional divide over convivial spirits at Christmas parties from one end of K Street to the other. In the middle ages such a moment was known as the Truce of God.
But in his own December 22, 1999, Washington Times column, titled, “You better not lie; and Republicans better not believe Clinton,” Blankley refused to grant such a Christmas truce to then-President Clinton, and derided “newspapers and television” that report “those special stories that warm the heart” at Christmastime. Blankley wrote:
Like all readers, I look forward to the story of the mother cat that rushes into a burning house to save the neighbor's puppy dog, with nothing worse than singed whiskers to show for her heroism.
[...]
It does seem a little coincidental that those stories reliably appear every Christmas. I have often wondered whether a couple of fat, bald guys sit at the back of the newsroom sharing a bottle of whiskey, and cynically make up those stories that remind us of the real point of Christmas. But, from whatever source, I hadn't yet seen my idyllic Christmas story this year -- until last Sunday.
Blankley then described a December 19, 1999, Washington Post article that reported on "[a] recent round of cooperation between President Clinton and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert." The Post reported that Clinton and Hastert had “quietly forged a businesslike rapport” and quoted Hastert as saying: “He knows he can take me at my word. We're able to talk straight to each other.”
But Blankley questioned whether Clinton would honor this “bond of trust,” asserting: “Of course the president can trust Denny. ... The question is whether Denny can reliably trust Mr. Clinton. Many people have tried; all have failed.”
In conclusion, Blankley stated:
It's Christmas time, and you may believe that all those mother cats really did run into the burning houses. But I've watched the president for too long. I think the story that Mr. Clinton can be trusted was written by one of those fat guys at the back of the newsroom. Bah, humbug.