CORRECTION, Feb. 8, 2024: Hillary Clinton went on national television in 1998 to claim her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, was the victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” An earlier version of this article had a different year.
MSNBC’s Alex Wagner wanted someone to slam Tucker Carlson for landing an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, so she turned to someone she could trust to do that — former first lady Hillary Clinton.
“He’s what’s called a ‘useful idiot,’” Clinton said of Carlson because of his desire to interview a prominent world leader.
“After having been fired by so many outlets in the United States,” Clinton said, “I would not be surprised if he emerges with a contract with a Russian outlet.”
Clinton then said, without any evidence, that Carlson had been fired repeatedly for essentially lying, before making an even more outrageous claim.
“[The interview is] a sign that there are people in this country right now who are like a fifth column for Vladimir Putin,” she said.
“There is a yearning for leaders who can kill and imprison their opponents, destroy the press, lead a life that is one of impunity, unbound by any laws,” Clinton said. “There’s a yearning among certain people in our country for that kind of leadership. And I find that absolutely gobsmacking terrifying.”
OK, I’ll grant that there is a “yearning” among certain people for that kind of leadership. But (a) most of those people can be found on the left; and (b) if you can imagine anything — and I mean anything — you can find someone in this country with a “yearning” for it.
But with that said, why would anyone listen to Hillary Clinton when it comes to conspiracy theories? This is an individual with a verified history of seeing conspiracies where they don’t exist and not seeing them where they do.
Clinton, you will recall, went on national television in 1998 to defend her husband, President Bill Clinton, from the accusations from Republicans of having had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky and then convincing the young White House intern to lie about it. At the time, she whined that the president was a victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
Are you a fan of Tucker Carlson?
Of course, that “conspiracy theory” turned out to false — the only conspiracy going on there was the one between the president and his former intern to hide the fact of their sexual relationship — apparently from his wife as well as the general public.
By the way, you can watch the entire segment on MSNBC’s website — but I strongly recommend you take a couple of prophylactic painkillers first.
One wonders what Hillary Clinton might have said when The New York Times interviewed Russian strongman Joseph Stalin in 1949. I certainly have no memory of her claiming that Dan Rather was a member of an Iraqi fifth column because he interviewed Iraq’a Saddam Hussein in 2003 prior to the launch of the Gulf War.
“Fifth column,” after all, is a strong term, coined in 1936 by Spanish rebel Emilio Mola who was essentially claiming during the Spanish Civil War that so many people sympathized with his cause that about 20 percent of his forces were actually civilians waiting in Madrid to join the approaching rebels.
The Russian armed forces number over 2 million personnel, according to Statista — does Hillary Clinton really believe that there are 400,000 Russian sympathizers in the U.S. just waiting for a Russian invasion so that they can join up?
Obviously, Hillary Clinton may have been using “fifth column” as hyperbole, but in the polarized political environment of 2024, I’m forced to ask whether that’s a wise move — for anyone.
Of course, it’s also possible that she doesn’t know the actual definition of the term (although I find that possibility less likely).
Either way, whether Hillary Clinton used the term foolishly or ignorantly, I know how I would respond, if I were Carlson, to being called a “useful idiot” by the two-time failed presidential candidate.
It would take only four words: “At least I’m useful.”
