More spin from the liberal media. Check out the last four paragraphs.
nytimes.com
The New York Times
January 2, 1999
Beyond the Clinton-Bashing, Agony Among Conservatives
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
PHOENIX -- Really, truly, they are not the Anti-Clinton Party, say the conservatives who are meeting here in this sun-baked desert for their now-annual examination of their identity crisis.
But disgust with the president is so pervasive, and the perception that he is "winning" the political and cultural wars despite his recent impeachment is so galling, that he seems to have replaced the Soviet Union as the organizing principle around which conservatives can rally.
Listen in on a radio interview conducted in a hallway here by Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R.-Ariz., a former broadcaster who matches Rush Limbaugh's gusto when seated before a microphone: "We have gotten such rhetorical bilge from this administration, such patented falsehoods, and that leads to the crisis of confidence on any issue involving this president," Hayworth intoned.
In the few seconds that Hayworth allows his guests to comment, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a columnist for the American Spectator, assented.
He said that Clinton was "hollowing out" the military but that the country had not been able to focus on that because the president is "making everyone focus on the fact that he treats women like dirt."
Welcome to the Dark Ages, a conservative conclave designed as a send-up of Clinton's Renaissance Weekend in Hilton Head, S.C.
The conservative gig, staged here at the toney Arizona Biltmore (rooms start at $350 a night) with its lush rolling fairways, maze of heated outdoor pools and warm cerulean skies, is in its third year.
This time around, conscious of the signals that the name Dark Ages sent, the organizers dropped the parody and called their gathering "The Weekend" in an attempt to give themselves an identity that is not Clinton-dependent.
"We don't have to react to the Establishment left," Norquist said when released from Hayworth's sound stage. "This is a counterpoint to Renaissance, but you don't want to go around in life reacting to them. They aren't that important. We're not the 'Not Clinton Party.' We don't need to define ourselves in opposition."
But it's so much fun.
When Laura Ingraham, a talking head on MSNBC and a co-founder of The Weekend, opened the event here Thursday, she could not resist spoofing the notoriously earnest, self-absorbed, politically correct panel discussions at Hilton Head.
This year's topics, Ms. Ingraham deadpanned, ranged from "A Path Toward Personal Empowerment: How Perjury Can Work For You," to "Understanding the Politics of Personal Destruction. Panelists include Sidney Blumenthal, James Carville, Maxine Waters and Ann Lewis."
Despite the name change, the rules for the 300 Weekend guests are consistent with those of the Dark Ages: "No sharing the pain of another, and no building of bridges to the next century," the program cautioned.
As at Renaissance, there are panel discussions here. But they are more outward than inward, more political than personal, and littered not with captains of industry but with the new information gurus -- cable-television personalities from Washington.
Major topics: "The Republican Party: What's Ahead?" and "Conservatism With a Heart." Keynote speakers include party luminaries like Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York and Newt Gingrich.
Added at the last minute as a substitute for Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, who is busy preparing for an impeachment trial before the Senate, was Matt Drudge, the bad-boy cyber-scoop artist, who teased the crowd here with the promise of a story that he said would rock the world. He provided no details but relished feeding the ever-hungry Clinton-scandal maw.
"It is a huge story, if it comes together," Drudge confided to Hayworth's KYFI radio audience, his earphones slung around his neck so that he could sport his trademark Walter Winchell hat. "It's a story of world-wide impact. People have been moved into safe houses today, awaiting medical results. This is all I will say on this. Stay tuned to the Drudge Report."
Of course, he had to compete with other rumors circulating here, most speculating about what Larry Flynt, the Hustler publisher, plans to reveal next week in his continuing expose of the private lives of public Republicans.
But beyond the theatrics, and after a bracing climb up the craggy crevices of nearby Camelback mountain, conservatives here expressed deep anguish about the conservative movement and its wayward parent, the Republican Party.
It bubbled up from the rank-and-file activists, many of them Californians who believed the Republican Party abandoned them in the last election and who sought clues from the panelists as to some of Washington's mysteries.
"Why are all the liberals willing to fall on their swords for a narcissistic sociopath like Bill Clinton?" asked one audience member.
"Why are Republicans intimidated by Bill Clinton?"
"Why are we in the condition we're in?"
Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, offered a status-quo message of unity and was practically booed off stage. One of his chief chiders was a fellow panelist, Arianna Huffington, the conservative columnist.
Nicholson tried to reassure The Weekenders that the party would "coalesce," with a message developed by a "message outreach team," once it had a presidential nominee. "And that is only 15 months away," he said.
Ms. Huffington was flabbergasted. "Fifteen months?" she asked incredulously. "Fifteen months is an eternity." In a scathing review of the party establishment she said that Nicholson's statement demonstrated that the party was leaderless and bereft of ideas.
The angry conservatives applauded her loudly. But they gave their most vigorous support to a Democrat sitting on the same panel. He was Patrick Caddell, a Hollywood writer and former adviser to the presidential campaigns of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart.
Caddell lashed the Republicans for political ineptitude. He said they foolishly carried out a partisan impeachment over the president's sex life while failing to go after the Clinton administration for what he said was the far more serious offense of accepting foreign campaign money and transferring sensitive missile technology to China.
"Even the White House is wondering, can anybody here play this game against us?" Caddell said. "You guys do not know how to pick the right fights," he declared, unleashing a smashing round of self-flagellating applause and winning himself a standing ovation.
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