No Wars, Only Scandals
A look into the parallel universe of Clinton spinmeister Sidney Blumenthal.
BY ROBERT L. BARTLEY
Wednesday, May 28, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
Clinton spinmeister Sidney Blumenthal inhabits a parallel universe, connected by various halls of mirrors to what most of us consider the real world. So if you're tempted to read "The Clinton Wars," his account of the scandals and triumphs of the last presidency, it's wise to bring along a guide to what actually happened. I could suggest the chronology of The Wall Street Journal's Journal's Whitewater books, available here.
And hang onto it, for Mr. Blumenthal merely opens the latest Clinton campaign. Next month Sen. Hillary Clinton will publish "Living History," the product of her $8 million plum from Viacom via Simon & Schuster. And next year, Bertelsmann's Knopf-Random House promises, there will be Bill Clinton's "thorough and candid" autobiography, for which it paid more than $10 million, a nonfiction record. While Mr. Blumenthal's advance has been reported at a mere $650,000, his background as a journalist suggests he might write the best book. In fact, his 822-page account is sprawling and undisciplined; perhaps the First Couple's ghosts will do better.
There is of course value, though I'm not sure $18 million worth, in having the Clinton side of the case set down in black and white. So in the interests of cogent criticism, here's what Mr. Blumenthal has to say about the highlights of the Clinton saga:
• President Clinton's final plea bargain with Independent Counsel Robert Ray, admitting that his testimony under oath was not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: Mr. Blumenthal eschews this document's title, "Agreed Order of Discipline." But he says it "tied up loose ends from myriad legal matters." He continues, "There would be no prosecution of him on any matter whatsoever. Clinton had committed no crimes. However, he had to acknowledge . . . that in his deposition in the Jones case, though he had tried to speak lawfully, 'certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false.' He also accepted a five-year suspension of his law license in Arkansas and a $25,000 fine in exchange for dismissal of a pending disbarment suit, initiated by the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a [Richard Mellon] Scaife-funded right-wing group. (Starr helped the group raise funds by giving a speech for it in 2000.)"
There, come to think of it, you have the entire 822 pages, and in all likelihood the next two books as well: The president of the United States cops a plea on perjury in a federal court, but no conviction, no foul. And certainly no contrition for the ignominy his reckless acts and words brought on himself, his office and his nation. Indeed, the outcome is vindication; the only problem was the critics, a billionaire exercising free speech and an independent counsel who did the job thrust upon him.
• The $850,000 President Clinton paid to settle the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit: Mr. Blumenthal's last index entry under Jones v. Clinton reads "summary judgment dismissing, 439." The text notes that on getting the news of Judge Susan Webber Wright's decision while on an African trip, the president beat on a drum. Mr. Blumenthal adds that during the White House celebration: " 'It's over!' one of my colleagues shouted. But I knew it wasn't."
It wasn't. With impeachment proceedings under way, the 8th Circuit Court heard an appeal of this dismissal, and the president's lawyer had to inform the courts that the decision was tainted by errors in the president's testimony. So Mr. Clinton agreed to close the case by forking over $850,000, though without any apology.
I don't remember the $850,000 anywhere in Mr. Blumenthal's account. I double-checked all the index entries, and asked an editor to thumb the pages as well, since Mr. Blumenthal managed to trap one reviewer by sneaking in a reference to Joseph Lieberman's Senate speech on Clinton ethics more than 200 pages out of its logical context. Nor do the index entries on Judge Wright turn up her finding the president in contempt of court for "intentionally false" testimony that "undermined the judicial system," or her additional award of more than $90,000 in resulting expenses to Mrs. Jones and her lawyers. These events need no explanation or defense; in Mr. Blumenthal's parallel universe they seem never to have happened.
• The Marc Rich pardon: This was an act of statesmanship. The pardon had been urged not only by the fugitive's former wife and Clinton contributor, Denise, but also by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Rich's "philanthropic contributions" included "millions of dollars in support of projects in Palestinian areas undertaken at the behest of the Israeli government. In short, Rich was a financier of the peace process."
• Hillary Clinton's $100,000 commodities trading coup: Unlike the Jones $850,000, Mrs. Clinton's commodities killing makes the book--as an example of errors by the press. A Newsweek account suggested she had none of her own money at risk, but subsequent disclosures showed she put $1,000 into a margin account, and parlayed it into a profit of $98,000 with advice from Jim Blair of Tyson Foods and through often-disciplined broker Robert "Red" Bone. This was OK, Mr. Blumenthal suggests, because one reporter leaped to a conclusion. More sensibly, the error was the result of the Clintons' stonewalling on their 1978 and 1979 tax returns, though they'd released those starting in 1980.
Writing in the New York Review of Books, former New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld got tripped on the Lieberman detail, but makes a far more telling point: Withholding these returns was crucial to the Clinton electoral strategy. If everything had been released when the Times's Jeff Gerth broke the first Whitewater story, the commodities scandal would have dropped--perhaps fatally--into a campaign already staggering from the draft-card imbroglio and Gennifer Flowers's sexual accusations.
• The travel office firings: Mr. Blumenthal reports: "In 2000, the independent counsel, after years of investigation, finally issued a report clearing Hillary and everyone else of wrongdoing." In fact, Independent Counsel Robert Ray said, "Mrs. Clinton's input into the process was a significant--if not the significant--factor influencing the pace of events in the travel office firings and the ultimate decision to fire the employees." Her sworn denials of any role were "factually inaccurate." But he decided he could not persuade a D.C. jury, because the evidence "is insufficient to show that Mrs. Clinton knowingly intended to influence the travel office decision."
• Whitewater: Mr. Blumenthal's index reads "exoneration of Clintons: 43-44, 65-66, 96, 177-78, 331, 786-87." This relies on the account of "professional forensic accountant" James Lyons, actually part of the Clinton legal team from Denver, and a report from the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro. The latter was hired by Savings and Loan regulators to judge whether they could recover their costs by litigating Whitewater and related transactions. Surprise: No.
Mr. Blumenthal also cites Mr. Ray's final report, saying it "found no illegalities on the part of the Clintons." The Ray report certainly did conclude, "This office determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct." However, it also complained about White House stonewalling, delays "involving both the production of relevant evidence and the filing of legal claims that were ultimately rejected by the courts." Whereas Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had waived privileges in the peanut farm and Iran-Contra investigations, the Clinton White House invented new ones. A "protective function privilege" for the Secret Service, for example, had to be rejected by the courts.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr did convict the Clintons' business partners Jim and Susan McDougal, the First Lady's law partner and the president's Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker and others. By the time Mr. Ray found "insufficient evidence," Jim McDougal had died in jail and Susan McDougal had served 18 months for refusing to testify. Mr. Blumenthal says he recommended her pardon as a "heroine in standing up to Starr's bullying," and the next day her name appeared in the final pardon list.
• The other women, the "stalker," the blue dress, the press etc. All the women were money-grubbing liars except for the one with the blue dress. Ditto the Arkansas troopers. And while the president ultimately admitted a "one-night stand" with Miss Flowers, she was a liar too. She'd claimed more, until the president told what is now the truth in Mr. Blumenthal's universe. For that matter, the Clintonites branded Monica Lewinsky a liar for seven months until the semen-stained dress was revealed. Mr. Blumenthal denies he spread the rumor she was a "stalker," but Christopher Hitchens swore an affidavit he did. In Mr. Blumenthal's parallel universe the reliable journalists are Joe Conason and Gene Lyons; scumbags include Mr. Gerth, Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post and especially Mr. Hitchens and the late Michael Kelly.
I was glad to get out of Washington back in 1972 after a one-year stay in that oppressive company town, and come to New York where you're not forced to run around with other journalists. Heaven forfend I'd have struck up a friendship with Mr. Blumenthal. As it stands, all I have to deny is his silly accusation that I struck a "deal" with Kenneth Starr to continue to investigate scandals in return for leaks. Yeah, I thought, we signed it in blood. In terms of coverage I supervised for the Journal, I see no need to add to what we previously published on the Clintonite attempt to blame us for Vincent Foster's suicide, or on Mr. Blumenthal's attempt to drag one of our writers into his litigation with Matt Drudge--two cheap attempts to intimidate us out of aggressive coverage. The fact is, from the first days of the administration we were deep into Whitewater broadly defined, as a result of deep suspicions about the Rose Law Firm developed through our earlier investigation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Anyway, leaks weren't really necessary; our Micah Morrison proved again and again that there was plenty in the record.
• Sidney Blumenthal: Mr. Blumenthal relates that after his first grand-jury testimony, he stood on the courthouse steps to proclaim that "I was forced to answer questions, about conversations, as part of my job, with The New York Times, CNN, CBS, Time magazine, U.S. News, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Observer, and there may have been a few others." He was later upbraided by the jury forewoman for "an inaccurate description of the events that happened here." He complains that "it was wrong for the prosecutor or a grand juror to lecture a witness or subject about what he could or couldn't say outside the grand-jury chamber."
Problem is, even Mr. Blumenthal's account does not show any such series of questions being asked. He's proud of his lie. "My brief remarks outside the courthouse had been broadcast on every network news show and reported on the front page of almost every newspaper. The New York Times/CBS News poll showed, as the Times wrote, 'a plummeting public approval rating' for Starr. His favorable rating had sunk to 11 percent, one of the lowest ever recorded for any public figure, while President Clinton's rating had reached 73 percent."
• The Clinton record: Messrs. Starr, Scaife and the "vast right-wing conspiracy" distracted the president from substantive achievements. E.g., "Had his administration had another year, he would have reached a final agreement with North Korea preventing it from developing nuclear weapons." And of course, the first-year Clinton tax increases "caused a fall in interest rates and set off a boom in private investment."
Once more for the record: Robert Rubin to the contrary, interest rates rose in the first two years of the Clinton administration. They peaked on election day in 1994, when Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" captured Congress for the GOP. And the Clinton foreign-policy record, lobbing cruise missiles at empty targets after depredations by Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, shows the same fecklessness as displayed in his sex life and reaction to scandal. The lesson of his presidency is that character counts after all.
It counts in authors too.
Mr. Bartley is editor emeritus of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003550 |
