Sidney Blumenthal, This Is Your Life
By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 28, 2003; Page C01
Hi-ho! And welcome to the game show that makes a lot of people feel a little uneasy and squeamish! That's right! It's "The Clinton Wars"! A zany, brain-draining, shaming-and-blaming inside-Washington show based on the recently published book of the saaame name!
In the hot seat today: Sidney Blumenthal! Author of the book, former Washington Post reporter and longtime Clinton White House habitue.
Okay, Sid, let's get started right away. You know how the game works: We read passages from your 800-plus-page book in which you defend and deify some people and attack and belittle others. We call a few of those folks on the phone and, along with the studio audience, listen in on their responses.
Verizon, ring up our first guest, please. It's Chris Vlasto, a senior investigative producer at ABC News in New York.
Chris. Helllooo. We're playing the "Clinton Wars" game. Here's what Sidney says about you. "Vlasto had the intensity of a true believer but no real political ideas. . . . Scandal and Clinton hatred, not politics, animated his work."
Now, Chris, what do you say?
"It's pretty amusing that Sidney Blumenthal would question my journalism," Vlasto says. "When I normally report on people, I call them. And I have never ever spoken to Sidney Blumenthal. Never in my life."
The book is billed as a "riveting inside account" of the Clinton presidency. But our game show isn't really about politics. It's about people, polemics and the Machiavellian side of Washington, where the ends justify the meanies.
Here's what Time magazine says about Blumenthal's book: "The events he describes already feel like they happened decades ago, but he writes as if they just happened yesterday -- with a brittle, unpleasant, debater's edge, still eager to score points and settle scores. 'The Clinton Wars' is neither history nor journalism nor memoir. It's just more politics."
Tell us, Sid. Just why did you write the book?
"I wanted to make a contribution to history," he says.
Let's go to the phones again.
Christopher Hitchens and Sid used to be friends. That now appears to be a thing of the past. Okay, Hitch, you're on "Clinton Wars." Here's what Sid says about you. "My mistake had been to think that he was a harmless entertainer. The surprise was that he was capable of doing harm without conscience or regret. That remains the mystery."
In the book, Blumenthal writes that Hitchens approached then-Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) during the Clinton impeachment proceedings and offered anti-Blumenthal, and therefore anti-Clinton, information to the Republicans.
"That is a lie," Hitchens says. "It's also the product of a paranoid mind and mentality."
So, Chris Hitchens, you believe that Blumenthal is of two minds? The bad deeds, Hitchens says, "were done by his evil twin Sid."
There is a good twin Sid, Hitchens says. "Clinton wanted the other one. That's the one he got. That's now become more like the real one."
In Blumenthal's worldview, Hitchens says, "nothing immoral can be done in defense of the Democratic Party."
He adds: "This is the work of a degraded apparatchik."
All right, now maybe you're beginning to understand our little game. It's a cross between "Survivor: Washington" and "Punk'd," the stinging MTV show that cuts celebrities down to size. It's Jerry Springer meets "The West Wing."
Before we return to the phones, let's hear from Sidney in a little segment we like to call: In His Own Write.
"Being smeared produces different effects on different people," Blumenthal writes in his book. "Avoidance is one natural reaction, an impulse to retreat, not to read, see, or hear anything about what is being done to you. Denial might have helped Vince Foster, who spiraled into a fatal depression while being repeatedly smeared. One healthy response for coping was dissociation. I came to see the false persona being constructed by malicious enemies and called by my name as an alien being."
Also, he doesn't mind facing his foes.
Speaking of which, let's ring up Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff.
Okay, Mike. Here's what Blumenthal says about you in his book: Isikoff "was an avid participant who rushed to the center of the scandal, wrapped in the raincoat of intrepid detective. He was used at every turn by everyone from [Paula] Jones's lawyer to Lucianne Goldberg to Starr."
So Michael. What have you got to say for yourself? "He can't find a single thing I got wrong," Isikoff says. He then refers us to a piece he has written in a recent edition of the online magazine Slate.
"To write history," Isikoff writes, "you have to have some basic respect for the historical record. You have to make at least some effort at understanding the motivations and thinking of political antagonists -- including those you happen to strongly disagree with. Blumenthal has done none of this. His book isn't history; it's one big orgy of political spin."
Blumenthal, 54, does not kneecap everyone. He is quite kind to Bill Clinton. And to Clinton press secretary Michael McCurry. Blumenthal says: "McCurry and I respected each other, worked well together, and never had any clashes."
Now a Washington-based communications consultant, Mike McCurry is on the phone. What do you say to that? "That is absolutely true," McCurry says.
So let's ask our guest. Sid, do you have any regrets about writing this book?
"Oh no, I'm glad I wrote it. I don't have any regrets. In the end, historians will determine its value as they assess these events."
Speaking of the passage of time, that's all the time we have today. Join us next time for "The Clinton Wars," the finger-pointing political game that will continue for years to come.
And don't forget to look for the home-edition dart board. In fine stores everywhere.
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