In September 2006, Bill Clinton sat down to do his first interview ever on the Fox News Channel. He was interviewed by Chris Wallace for the program Fox News Sunday. The interview was set up as a simple one-on-one interview. As it turned out, the interview quickly became a confrontation when Wallace asked if Clinton failed to do enough to prevent the 9/11 attack. The complete interview was broadcast unedited.

After some warm-up questions, Wallace put this to Clinton: “Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?” Clinton immediately sits up and leans forward towards Wallace: “OK, let’s just go through that.” From that point on, Clinton acts more like a combative witness being cross-examined hostilely by an opposing counsel than a celebrity politician in a news interview.

If Jiang assumes the role of an elder talking to younger people, Clinton takes on the role of a victim unfairly singled out by a biased professional. Clinton’s justification is performed by a series of rhetorical questions that aim to make plain what he sees as the bias of Wallace. In fact, throughout his performance, Clinton keeps returning to the same point—that the question unfairly singles him out as the person responsible for the 9/11 attack. The news interview, as a journalistic form, is held to comply with the journalistic ideals of balance and fairness. Clinton’s anger narrative appeals to these ideals as justification.