Who’s the phony?

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Who’s the phony?
Gene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/194147/


Years ago, I asked Betsey Wright, Bill Clinton’s former Arkansas chief
of staff, why she’d urged him not to run for president in 1988. Contrary
to a thousand press reports, Wright denied confronting Clinton with a
“bimbo list.” She had, however, warned him that the country wasn’t ready
for a candidate like him. “The guy represented generational change,”
Wright explained. “He was a Baby Boomer. He’d been on campus during the
Vietnam War. He did not go to Vietnam. He had been on campuses when
birth control pills were first invented, and, quote, free sex, unquote,
became a big deal. He had a brother who had gotten in trouble with
drugs.... He was attractive to women. There were a million rumors, and
there were lots of people who would be willing to make allegations. I
just knew there was no way we were going to make that kind of
generational change in this country without a struggle.” From 1992, the
GOP smear machine made Wright look like a prophet. They accused Clinton
of everything from bank fraud to drug-smuggling, rape, even murder. I
once asked the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, who peddled the infamous
“Clinton Chronicles,” if the commandment against bearing false witness
was less important than the other nine. He said no, then alibied that he
didn’t know if the allegations in the video were true or not. That’s
actually a better answer than you’d get from The Washington Post.

Today, many Democrats harbor similar misgivings about Hillary Clinton’s
candidacy. Is the U.S. ready to elect any woman, much less her? Issues
aside, many fear that her nomination would set off a bizarre national
psychodrama ending with Democrats losing the most crucial (and winnable)
presidential election in living memory. Others are simply sick of her
the way they’re sick of Paris Hilton and the media’s prurient
speculation.

The press roll-out of Carl Bernstein’s highly publicized new book did
little to allay such misgivings. Indeed, the episode served mainly to
illustrate of the decline of American political journalism to tabloid
standards. Fifteen years ago, prominent Washington hostesses circulated
rumors that the new first lady was gay. Now celebrity journalist
Bernstein gets asked about it on national TV. Somewhat to his credit, he
said no. He also parried a suggestion by CNN’s Paula Zahn that her
religious views are fake.

Otherwise, Bernstein’s tour promoting “A Woman in Charge” was an utter
disgrace. For details, consult Bob Somerby at dailyhowler.com and
Jamison Foser at mediamatters.org. On the “Today” show, Bernstein called
Hillary a phony for concealing that she’d failed the D.C. bar exam, a
revelation he’d gleaned from her best-selling autobiography, “Living
History.”

During an NPR interview, he called her inauthentic for concocting an
idyllic “Father Knows Best” childhood although her father beat her. From
Hillary’s book, “It Takes a Village”: “My father, not one to spare the
rod... [o] occasionally... got carried away when disciplining us,
yelling louder or using more physical punishment, especially with my
brothers, than I thought was fair or necessary.”

Who’s the real phony? But what really excites these jokers is the
mysterious Clinton marriage. Apparently, adultery was unknown in
Washington before Monica Lewinsky. Traveling in Ireland recently, my
wife was told by several women how much they admired Hillary for keeping
her dignity and saving her marriage—concepts alien to the adolescent
mind.

Writing in The New York Times, Irish American columnist Maureen Dowd
likened Hillary to the fictive mobster’s wife Carmela Soprano. On
“Hardball,” Chris Matthews compared her to a hit man from “The
Godfather.” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan says she has “to
prove she has normal human warmth.”

The apparent cause of this old-maidish swooning is Bernstein’s televised
charge that, while she forgave Bill’s infidelities, Hillary “savaged”
the women. Challenged by PBS ’ Charlie Rose to name a victim, he quickly
backed down. As well he might, because Bernstein’s book documents no
such claim. At issue is an oft-reported fraudulent 1990 lawsuit brought
by one Larry Nichols, world-class crackpot and narrator of Falwell’s
“Clinton Chronicles.”

Fired by Bill for making 652 long-distance calls for the Nicaraguan
Contras at state expense, Nichols retaliated with a pre-election lawsuit
naming five alleged Clinton mistresses. It got quickly dismissed for
lack of evidence—none whatsoever, in fact. Nichols recanted and publicly
apologized.

But not before Hillary, as she’d previously mentioned during the famous
1992 “60 Minutes” interview in which her husband confessed causing pain
in his marriage, met with two of the women “to reassure them. They were
friends of ours. I felt terrible about what was happening to them.”

Bernstein’s book, unlike his TV interviews, appropriately describes the
women as innocent bystanders. Three conclusions: First, there’s no depth
these Washington character assassins won’t sink to. Ignore the op-ed
psychoanalysts and stick to the issues. Two, remember, Bill Clinton won
twice anyway. Three, don’t kid yourself. Any Democratic nominee will get
similar treatment. Hillary’s simply the frontrunner.

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