Fox News Pits Ruddy Against Lyons in Clinton Cocaine Debate
newsmax.com
The "Cocaine Question" entered a new realm Tuesday night, as NewsMax.com's executive editor Christopher Ruddy sparred with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons in a nationally televised debate over new charges that President Clinton had used the drug.
Prior to the Ruddy-Lyons donneybrook, broadcast on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," reporters have focused almost exclusively on questions about whether GOP front-runner George W. Bush used cocaine.
But on August 6, during an appearance on Sean Hannity's WABC New York radio show, Gennifer Flowers told Inside Cover that Clinton had offered her cocaine (see Gennifer Flowers: 'Clinton Offered Me Cocaine').
Last week Hannity put Flowers on TV, where she repeated the charge. While the rest of the media have pretended not to notice, Fox News re-ran the Flowers cocaine segment nearly a dozen times.
On Tuesday the White House was finally forced to respond to the cocaine question, with administration spokesman Jim Kennedy issuing a secondhand denial on Clinton's behalf. "The President has never done cocaine. That applies to his entire life," Kennedy told the Washington Times.
Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart sought to bolster Kennedy's statement later in the day, telling the Associated Press that the earlier denial was both "authorized and accurate."
Tuesday's developments marked what could be an ominous shift for the White House. Suddenly the most hotly contested question had to do with direct allegations that Bill Clinton had used cocaine rather than unsourced rumors about Bush's drug use.
And nowhere was the debate hotter than on "Hannity & Colmes," where the Democrat-Gazette's Lyons sought to make Flowers' credibility the issue:
LYONS: I think we're having another example of what I call Ozarks recovered memories. It seems that Gennifer Flowers' memory improves as the news moves....
(In fact, Flowers referred to Clinton's cocaine use in her book, Passion and Betrayal, written well before the "cocaine question" became an issue.)
LYONS: When she first made her claims, local people got hold of her dossier. And they went out and inspected it and come to find out that there wasn't a line on it that was accurate.
But Flowers isn't the only one who links Clinton to cocaine.
RUDDY: There have been several individuals who have made allegations about Bill Clinton's cocaine use. We know Jane Parks, the wife of the former head of Clinton-Gore security, said that she saw Bill Clinton in a room with cocaine on the coffee table. We know that Sally Perdue told the London Telegraph that Clinton did cocaine.
As the debate raged, Lyons complained that Flowers' Paula Jones deposition was vague about places, dates and times she had sex with Clinton, suggesting that she had fabricated her claim of a lengthy affair with the then-governor. (Clinton admitted to having two sexual encounters with Flowers in his own Paula Jones testimony.)
But Ruddy countered, "You believe everyone else is lying and that Bill Clinton is telling the truth, when what we have found time and again is that Bill Clinton is the one lying."
Near the end of the verbal fisticuffs, the NewsMax.com editor attempted to reach common ground:
"If we can get something good out of this show, we'd have (co-host) Alan Colmes and Gene Lyons agreeing that Bill Clinton should be asked personally about these allegations."
Posted for educational and discussion purposes only. Not for commercial use.
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