That's the emerging reality of the Bill Clinton vs. Chris Wallace confrontation that aired on Fox on September 24.
There's no question that the interview helped both sides. Over at the liberal blog Huffington Post, Bill Press spoke for many liberals and Democrats when he described Clinton's performance as
"magnificent". It would seem that Press-types don't really care whether or not Clinton was accurate or honest--why start caring now? Instead, what they really want is to see Clinton blast enemies; they want to see him scoring on some "red meat" on behalf of partisan Democrats. One might say, in the interests of fairness, that it would be a little different if they chose to blast, say, Rush Limbaugh, as opposed to the nice-guy Chris Wallace, but that's politics--you target the target that you can target. Wallace works at Fox, ergo, Wallace has to be attacked. So be it. It's not a very uplifting spectacle, such systematized manipulation; I guess that's why they call it politics.
But at the same time, Fox News has been helped, too. Most obviously, ratings for the Wallace show, "Fox News Sunday," are up, and the buzz is up even more. Here's Variety with the details. Alas, registration is required, but here's the nut of the piece by Michael Learmonth: "The skirmish between Chris Wallace and former President Bill Clinton on 'Fox News Sunday' gave the show its best ratings in nearly three years. ... The contentious interview helped 'Fox News Sunday,' normally the fourth-place Sunday show, to victories over at least one of its three network competitors in 35 metered markets." Not bad.
So to sum up, Clinton and Wallace/Fox may be antagonists, but they helped each other. To borrow a term from political science, the two foes are "objective allies." That is, two antagonists can oppose each other on the battlefield and yet each can find itself strengthened within its respective camp. The classic example of "objective allies" is the feud hard-line Israelis and hard-line Palestinians. Each time that Jews go to war against Arabs, the respective hardliners, each in their respective camp, are made that much stronger. The losers in such a situation are the moderates. And so it is with Bill Clinton and Chris Wallace, and Fox.
Now one can and should have slightly ambivalent feelings about these sorts of hostile-but-beneficial relationships, because Fox isn't elected to anything--although come to think of it, Clinton hasn't been elected to anything in a while, either. I am sure that Wallace, for one, wishes that it hadn't happened, because no newsman likes to be the story himself. But at the same time, I am sure that Clinton is glad that it happened, and so you can bet that there will come other such media-moments in the future, in which Clinton turns on the anger, in order to turn on the Democratic base.
It's a strange situation in which two of the top actors in an ongoing political war, Bill and Chris, aren't even elected figures. But that's politics for you, including the politics of cable news.
