It's Back!
Mrs. Clinton revives the "vast right-wing conspiracy"!
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BY JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
"Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told Democrats Tuesday the 'vast, right-wing conspiracy' is back, using a phrase she once coined to describe partisan criticism," the Associated Press reports from Washington:
<<< On Tuesday, she asserted the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted.
"To the New Hampshire Democratic party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee," Clinton said.
"So if anybody tells you there is no vast right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court," she said. >>>
A conspiracy of three is not exactly vast. It would be a stretch to call it half-vast. But it's worth remembering the context in which Mrs. Clinton first introduced the notion of the "vast right-wing conspiracy." The AP says only that "she famously charged allegations of an affair between her then-president husband Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky were the result of a conservative conspiracy." But here's an excerpt of her comment, on the Jan. 27, 1998, "Today" show:
<<< We [the Clintons] know everything there is to know about each other, and we understand and accept and love each other. And I just think that a lot of this is deliberately designed to sensationalize charges against my husband, because everything else they've tried has failed. And I also believe that it's part of an effort, very frankly, to undo the results of two elections. . . .
But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings.
This is--the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it--is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. A few journalists have kind of caught on to it and explained it. But it has not yet been fully revealed to the American public. And actually, you know, in a bizarre sort of way, this may do it.
Now, I have to say, I don't know what it is about my husband that generates such hostility, but I have seen it for 25 years.
Well, I think that--if all that were proven true, I think that would be a very serious offense. That is not going to be proven true. >>>
Of course, "all that" was proved true. It's bad enough that Mrs. Clinton never apologized for her paranoid accusations back in '98, but for her to reprise the theme--while at the same time declaring the subject of her "marriage" to be off-limits--shows an unmitigated gall.
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