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Jewish World Review /Feb. 26, 1999 /10 Adar 5759
MUGGER
Hillary, Juanita
TRUE, BILL CLINTON RESTRAINED HIMSELF publicly after his acquittal, and
there was no Andrew Jackson-like open bar at the White House, but for
sheer nauseating spectacle, the Hillary-for-Senate boomlet was a
sufficient substitute for the First Couple gloating over the cowardly
vote in Congress’ upper chamber.
Question: When is the President going
to give up his JFK impersonations? You’d think after all the disgrace in
his administration, his teenage lust for Hollywood celebrities (and
their checkbooks) and the failure to neutralize Saddam Hussein, Clinton
would give it up. But no: Last week, in a paraphrase of JFK’s calculated
but charming remark about playing second fiddle to Jackie in Paris,
Clinton said, "I will increasingly be known as the person who comes with
Hillary to New York."
(Of course, it wouldn’t
surprise me if Carney’s changed his mind too; that’s how volatile the
notion is right now.)
Although most of the Hillary stories are dripping with partisan
sympathy, the reality is, as Pat Caddell bluntly said on Hardball Feb.
15, "She’s going to get her clock cleaned if she runs." And now that the
post-impeachment parties are over, and the media has decided that since
they’ve saved the Constitution it’s fair game to attack the President
again, Hillary isn’t likely to be helped by two more years of his
administration. Last weekend was just the beginning of the post-Monica
era for the Clintons.
Jonathan Alter, in his March 1 "Between the Lines" Newsweek column, made
a lot of sense about a possible Hillary candidacy. His advice: Don’t do
it.
"The real problem for Hillary," Alter writes, "is her record. She
doesn’t have one. With health care a failure, she has nothing solid to
show for her years as First Lady. And she lacks the political instincts
to make it seem as if she does. All talk, no action." Alter’s possible
alternative, in counseling Hillary, is to make a 2004 run against Peter
Fitzgerald in her native Illinois. "Until then, both Clintons should, as
Eleanor said of JFK, ‘show a little less profile and a little more
courage.’ They’ve got the political capital; now is the moment to spend
it." I don’t agree with Alter’s concluding sentence because...
(So much for the hapless Steve Brill’s comment in his
magazine Brill’s Content that Drudge is a bust in the "scoops"
department.)
Rabinowitz, who admitted she’s not a news-gatherer, nonetheless obtained
an interview with Broaddrick in Van Buren, AR, where the successful
nursing home operator lives on a 40-acre plot of land, "where 30 cows,
five horses and a mule roam... It is a good life all right."
Broaddrick,
who’s never solicited tabloid or book-deal lucre, told Rabinowitz, and
then reporters for The Washington Post in a front-page story that came
out Saturday, about the incident one more time. In 1978, she alleges,
she was working on Bill Clinton’s first gubernatorial campaign, and the
then-Arkansas attorney general got her alone in a hotel room and raped
her. As he was leaving, he put on his shades and said, "You better get
some ice for that," in reference to her lips, which he’d bloodied during
the encounter.
This story, now with a mainstream pedigree—and which may yet cause NBC News
president Andrew Lack to be fired for withholding it over Washington
bureau chief Tim Russert’s objections—won’t die yet.
On the subject of envy, Timothy Noah, a former Journal reporter who
worked at U.S. News & World Report to worship at the feet of editor
James Fallows, and then left in solidarity when Father Fallows was
fired, wasn’t pleased with the Rabinowitz piece. Writing in the online
Slate (free again: a move that won MUGGER 10 beans from an ex-NYPress
employee), Noah objected to Rabinowitz’s "dotty non sequiturs" and
complained, upon discovering a possible conflict of interest with one of
Broaddrick’s four corroborators, that had he written the story for the
Journal his superiors would’ve given him a "severe dressing-down...
Which is why the Journal’s editorial page should leave ‘hard-news’
reporting to people who enforce basic standards of fairness."
Not surprisingly, the online White House organ Salon ran a lengthy and
critical piece about Rabinowitz’s story on Feb. 20. Author Joan Walsh,
like Noah, implied that because Rabinowitz is a Journal editorial board
member, and not on the news side of the daily, the piece was wedded to
the editorial page’s vigilant watch on the bounty of Clinton scandals.
Even though the Salon piece came out on Monday, there was no mention of
the previous Saturday’s front-page Washington Post article. Presumably
the Salon staff takes the weekend off—to a retreat maybe, where no
newspapers can interfere with their meditation. Granted, the 60s will
never die for the Salonistas, but such work habits make for sloppy
journalism.
Included in the article was more propaganda from the marginal website.
Walsh affixes the pejorative "Moonie-owned" to a mention of The
Washington Times, a paper that has transcended its original roots and is
respected in the nation’s capital.
All of which adds even more sympathy chestnuts to Hillary’s campaign war
chest, but it’s probably too much. Sooner or later, one of the
Democratic weaklings—my bet is the warbling, moralistic Joseph
Lieberman—will tell some reporter that maybe, just maybe, he should’ve
voted for conviction in the Senate trial.
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, who’s not nearly as adept as his
predecessor Mike McCurry, belittled Rabinowitz’s story.
"I spend very
little time reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page," Lockhart
told reporters on Friday. "They lost me after they accused the President
of being a drug smuggler and a murderer."
Hmm. Can you spell cuckoo? The
Journal has never accused Clinton of murder. I wonder what Lockhart
thought when The Washington Post was plopped on his doorstep Saturday
morning.
And I think you’re out of your effing mind, Leon. Granted, some Michael
Moore clones might think that Hillary is Superwoman, but if she runs for
Senate in New York, just when is she going to have time to help out Gore
across the country? Especially in Florida, where, if George W. Bush is
the GOP nominee, the state’s a gimme for him. Hillary will have her
hands full with non-white babies, empanadas, advice from gadflies like
Ed Koch and daily bromides from Sean Hannity.
In any case, you’ve got to think that Hillary, seeing that the scandals
will never stop with her lug of a partner, will just give it up and make
millions on the lecture circuit, preaching to the converted about health
care, child rearing and the evils of tax cuts. Why get into the
Unless...she divorces Bill. Now that would be a twist that might
electrify New Yorkers enough to give her the Senate seat. Almost every
woman in the state would vote for her, especially those with husbands
who have a roving eye, and probably some Republican men, too. Maybe
she’d enlist Chelsea as a junior campaign manager, bring Betsey Wright
up from Arkansas, have Dee Dee Myers take time off from her sinecure at
Vanity Fair... Why, it would be a real rock ’n’ roll Tracy Chapman kind
of circus. Cool. Hillary, that’s the move: You file the papers and old
MUGGER will admit that even though you’re a dishonest, sanctimonious
bitch, this would be a righteous step toward salvation, and I’ll even
think about voting for you.
First Baker, then Rich and Soon Lewis
I’M AS SICK OF POST-IMPEACHMENT CHATTER as the next guy, but all this
baloney about no memorable figures emerging from the congressional
proceedings is a lot of nonsense. Pundits forget that Sam Ervin, that
lovable scamp of a senator nobody had ever heard of before Watergate,
was on tv intermittently for 18 months running. He had the honor of
grilling John Dean,
Years from now, when Lindsey Graham and Asa Hutchinson are in the
Senate, their heroic roles as House managers will be remembered in a
different light. As for the media, while no figures were as dramatic as
Woodward and Bernstein, several stand out: Geraldo, for his shameless
nightly sucking-up to Bill Clinton; Chris Matthews, Lisa Myers, Jackie
Judd, David Broder, Susan Schmidt, David Tell and Michael Kelly all
contributed trenchant reporting and commentary that will be judged
honorably a generation from now.
One man whose essays on Oralgate will not fare well even a year from now
is Anthony Lewis, the septuagenarian op-ed columnist for The New York
Times. The cliche of the last two weeks among the elite mainstream
press—Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter comes to mind—is that the hard-right
wing is acting like the Japanese soldiers who were camped somewhere in
the Philippines years after World War II had ceased, thinking the battle
was still in progress. Add Lewis to that list, but from the other side.
Last Saturday he used his Times space to once again attack Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr and the validity of the office itself, which
President Clinton renewed early in his administration.
In any case, the main point concerning Starr, a decent man of integrity
who was shamelessly vilified by the White House and a culpable media, is
that he didn’t go far enough. His plodding investigation did drag out
the process too long and he famously erred by not presenting a broader
outline of Clinton’s crimes to Congress. Concentrating on Monica was a
mistake; as we can see now, pushing the Juanita Broaddrick horror story
would’ve horrified Americans and made it easier for the House to impeach
and the Senate to
& Rudy Kazootie
Also last week, while mocking Time correspondent James Carney, who
typifies the Beltway’s elite corps of reporters, I suggested a Hillary
campaign was likely. Now, seven days later and after a barrage of print
and television coverage on a Hillary-Rudy Giuliani faceoff, I’m inclined
to agree with Carney that Ms. Rodham won’t run.
Danny Hellman
Dorothy Rabinowitz’s op-ed piece in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, in
which she outlined the case of Juanita Broaddrick (Jane Doe No. 5)
against the President, shocked the mainstream world that doesn’t pay
attention to Matt Drudge. The Internet journalist had the story weeks
ago that NBC had censored Lisa Myers’ exclusive interview with
Broaddrick—who says General Electric can’t be intimidated by the White
House?—that was scheduled to air on Jan. 29, during the Senate
impeachment trial.
Broaddrick
At noon on Feb. 22, Drudge had this comment about the slanted Salon
article: "Up is down. West is East. Liberals like Salon’s editor David
Talbot now dismiss rape claims? I pray the attorney general of his state
does not bust his lip and rip his hose … I’d
be forced to come to his rescue while everyone laughed and cried scandal
fatigue."
Drudge
Despite the prospect of continuing revelations of her husband’s bad
behavior, Hillary will still be pressed by politicians this spring to
run for Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s seat. Leon Panetta, quoted in Frank
Bruni’s Feb. 21 New York Times story, was only the most self-deluded. He
said, in advocating her candidacy and the benefit it would have for
presidential hopeful Al Gore, "To have an asset like Hillary Clinton
showing up at fund-raisers in California, as well as Florida and other
key states—that’s a hell of a draw... In a tight race nationally, I
think it could make a difference."
Moynihan
political ring with a thug like Giuliani, who’ll just whale away on her
stupid, off-the-cuff remark last year about Palestine, the $100,000 she
made on a commodities deal (a subject that will tickle Rudy, since in
the late 80s he ruined the careers of many innocent Wall Street traders
over just the same kind of gray but legal transactions), the missing
Castle Grande documents that turned up in the White House living
quarters, Travelgate and on and on? It just isn’t worth it, especially
since she’d probably lose.
Rudy
John Ehrlichman, Jeb Magruder, H.R. Haldeman and all
the other Nixon baddies for weeks on end in televised hearings. The
Watergate soap opera played for a lot longer than the Clinton farce.
Ervin is viewed as an honorable Watergate hero today, and there’s truth
to that historical judgment. Back in ’73-’74, as I remember, he was a
cult hero reporters liked, although with more than a touch of
condescension, because of his folksy Southern expressions and bright
humor. He was a real card who also had the advantage of presiding over
the rightful investigation of a Republican president.
Ehrlichman
Lewis begins: "As Kenneth Starr conducted his relentless investigation
of President Clinton, many Americans were troubled. ‘What can we do
about it?’ they asked in frustration. But they could do nothing, because
Mr. Starr was not accountable to our political process." I’m sure that
many of Lewis’ media and academic friends in Boston were asking that
question, as they met in seminars, sipped sherry and reminisced about
Camelot. Otherwise, I don’t really believe that was the question of the
year for most Americans.
Starr
JWR contributor "Mugger" is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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