Worst Interview Ever.

Speaking of Tom Bauerle, here’s something I dug up on Google that I found interesting because I didn’t live in town at the time and paid no attention to it.

From a media roundtable discussion about the Clinton-Lazio race in 2000 on CNN’s Reliable Sources:

TOM BAUERLE, “BREAKFAST WITH BAUERLE” HOST: Mrs. Clinton, you’re going to hate me. You were on television last night talking about your relationship with the president, Bill Clinton. Have you ever been sexually unfaithful to him and specifically, the stories about you and Vince Foster, any truth in those?

HILLARY CLINTON, FIRST LADY: Well, you know, Tom, I do hate you for that because, you know, those questions, I think, are really out of bounds and everybody who, you know, knows me knows the answers to those questions. You know, I just…

BAUERLE: Is the answer no?

CLINTON: Well, yes, it’s — of course it’s not. But it’s an inappropriate question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Bauerle declined to appear here on RELIABLE SOURCES but he defended his questioning in an interview with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly (ph).

Boy, that figures, doesn’t it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O’REILLY, FOX ANCHOR: Now you’re giving Mrs. Clinton a reason not to talk again to you or to me. She’s going to say ah, these guys are just going to try for the sensational stuff.

BAUERLE: Well, if she does I think that’s going to be her loss. To me, it gets to the character issue and again, if I were Hillary Clinton, if I were a Hillary Clinton supporter, I would be grateful for the opportunity to respond to this question and to go on the record with her official response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

What a douche. Hey, Hillary – did you fuck the guy who blew his brains out in that park? That’s what his question was.

Back to the real world of thought and reason:

KURTZ: Mary McGrory, those radio questions about infidelity, merely obnoxious or down in the gutter?

MCGRORY: Both. I do think one thing, I think they’re going to help Hillary Clinton.

KURTZ: Why is that?

MCGRORY: Well, because I know she is resented as an outsider and a carpetbagger and so forth and I know that New Yorkers, by and large, don’t put a high premium on politeness. But…

KURTZ: This is years of reporting that led you to this conclusion?

MCGRORY: Yes. And this, to me, even Hillary Clinton, even in New York, I think that New Yorkers will think well, we may be a little brusque and to the point, but we’re not oafs. And the me this was oafish and I agree with Hillary Clinton, it was out of bounds. I think there might be a slight whiff of sympathy for the former first lady in this instance and I think that could help her.

KURTZ: Bruce Morton, out of bounds? After all, other candidates, male candidates have gotten questions about fidelity to their marriage.

MORTON: I vote the straight McGrory ticket on this one. I think yes, I think that’s out of bounds. I, you know, I don’t know if she confessed infidelity, half the country might have cheered and said good for you. But I just don’t think that you need to know about your possible senator those kinds of things. If it gets in the way of the job, if the guy is, or the candidate is falling down drunk by nine o’clock every night, you probably do need to know that. There are some personal things that are public business.

This, it seems to me, loudly, emphatically isn’t.

KALB: Clearly the interviewer of Hillary Clinton was prophetic, she was going to hate him, and I think we all have, share that feeling. Clearly his question will do wonders for the distaste of the media on the part of so many Americans. But even for Hillary Clinton, even for anyone, there is such a thing as a ridiculous, monstrous invasion of privacy. Who cares about that in terms of being efficient and competent to do the job? She wants to run for senator, let her throw her dice as she’s going to and run for it without these sorts of questions.

GERMOND: I mean I agree with that. We’ve all dumped on that guy, this guy in Buffalo, who will probably end up now in Erie. The…

KURTZ: He could end up at “People” magazine.

GERMOND: And I agree with all this. On the other hand, I’ll make one point here, one small point. Hillary Clinton and her husband are the ones who brought this into the business when they went on the “60 Minutes” show eight years ago and talked about their marriage and she is running first and foremost as his wife. It is her major credential.

So if she’s not going to talk about it, she shouldn’t talk about it at all and she did right before. I don’t think the guy had a right to ask that question, but she is asking for this. I don’t know why she even bothered to answer it, but she did.

KALB: Let me ask an irritating little question. Given the media culture and the media’s pursuit of celebrity, what happens to this fellow Tom’s career? Does it become meteorically successful now as a consequence of putting those questions to Hillary Clinton?

Nope. He goes from morning drive to post-morning drive and becomes a Rush Limbaugh clone wanna-be.

Now, he just comes right out and calls her a fat bitch. Because that’s what passes for thought on WBEN between 9-12 and 3-6.