The Criminal President 9: Clinton as Psychopath I
Martin McPhillips
Toward a Unified Theory of William Jefferson Clinton
an answer to Edith Efron
by C.J. Barr
http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.13/unified_clinton.html
<begin excerpt>
Efron Has It Backwards
Efron paints a moving portrait of a man in profound agony at his own
cognitive imperfections. A man in emotional pain because he cannot think. A
man driven by his fear of failure or of imperfection to spin forever just
short of completion. She has it exactly backwards! Clinton cannot think
precisely because he cannot feel, has virtually no emotional life at all.
Clinton is not burdened with a hyperactive, obsessive compulsive
"conscience," a paralyzing perfectionism. Clinton's conscience problem is
that he has absolutely no conscience whatsoever. Clinton is not an obsessing
neurotic but what I will call, borrowing the term from Manufacturing Social
Distress, by Robert Reiber of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, an
adaptive psychopath.
Disorders of the sort we are discussing can be defined either as a
constellation of social behaviors or as interrelated personality traits. The
latter, of course, are deduced clinically from observation of the former.
There is considerable overlap among behaviors, even those associated with
quite dissimilar disorders. Efron observed a subset of Clinton's conduct and
labeled it obsessive compulsive. The same behaviors, however, also correlate
to narcissistic personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder.
Both of these, quite closely related to each other, are entirely
inconsistent with obsessive compulsive disorder. The underlying personality
traits are quite different. And both of these alternatives more closely
match the entirety of Clinton's observed anti-social behavior.
Psychopathy is an older, more precise, name for "anti-social personality
disorder." In the 1920's, psychologists adopted "sociopath" to replace
"psychopath." More recently, the name "anti-social personality disorder"
replaced the replacement. This terminological evolution has coincided with,
as Robert Hare of the Hare Labs at UBC writes, a "dramatic shift away from
the use of clinical inferences [and towards] the behaviors that typify a
disorder...." The reason for this is that it is easier to describe
superficial behaviors than to deduce the underlying reasons why they occur.
But the unforeseen result has been a "construct drift" that sacrifices
clinical validity for mere descriptive reliability. The new classifications
depend "on a fixed set of behavioral indicators that simply [do] not provide
adequate coverage of the construct they were designed to measure."
I will use the older term, "psychopath", for two reasons. First, it is
defined, as Hare notes, by "affective and interpersonal traits such as
egocentricity, deceit, shallow affect, manipulativeness, selfishness, and
lack of empathy, guilt or remorse..." that describe a clinically distinct
syndrome rather than a mere constellation of behaviors. And second, because,
as Reiber says, "psychopath" expresses more of the "awe, horror, and
perplexity" that these people evoke. Because it better captures a
"phenomenon so spectacularly alien that it seems almost incredible that such
people can exist." As for narcissistic personality disorder: all psychopaths
(I suspect) are also narcissists, although not all narcissists are true
psychopaths.
Since psychopathy is one of the least understood of personality disorders,
let me outline the classic description of the true psychopath, drawing
heavily on Hervey Cleckley's ground breaking work, The Mask of Sanity.
"General poverty in major affective reactions."
The psychopath, Cleckley says, "always shows general poverty of affect.
Although it is true that he sometimes becomes excited and shouts as if in
rage or seems to exult in enthusiasm and again weeps in what appear to be
bitter tears or speaks eloquently and mournful words about his misfortunes
or his follies, the conviction dawns on those who observe him carefully that
here we deal with a readiness of expression rather than a strength of
feeling."
Cleckly describes the "emotional poverty, the complete lack of strong or
tragic feeling universally found in all the psychopaths personally
observed...." He comments that some ascribe to them "powerful instinctual
drives and passions...." He attributes this error to the fact that "weak and
even infantile drives displaying themselves theatrically in the absence of
ordinary inhibitions may impress the layman as mighty forces....."
"Specific loss of insight."
Cleckly asserts that the psychopath "lacks insight to a degree seldom, if
ever, found in any but the most seriously disturbed psychotic patients."
[I]n the sense of realistic evaluation, the psychopath lacks insight more
consistently than some schizophrenic patients. He has absolutely no capacity
to see himself as others see him.... [H]e has no ability to know how others
feel when they see him or to experience subjectively anything comparable
about the situation. All the values, all of the major affect concerning his
status, are unappreciated by him."
Cleckly expresses astonishment at this in view of the "psychopath's perfect
orientation, his ability and willingness to reason or go through the forms
of reasoning, and his perfect freedom from delusions or other signs of an
ordinary psychosis." Later he notes that "[s]uch a deficiency of insight is
harder to comprehend than the schizophrenic's deficiency, for it exists in
the full presence of what are often assumed to be the qualities by which
insight is gained. Yet the psychopath shows not only a deficiency but
apparently a total absence of self-appraisal as a real and moving
experience."
Instead of facing the facts that lead to insight, the psychopath "projects,
blaming his troubles on others with the flimsiest of pretext but with
elaborate and subtle rationalization." He may, from time to time,
"perfunctorily admit himself to blame for everything and analyze his case
from what seems to be almost a psychiatric viewpoint, but we can see that
his conclusions have little actual significance for him.... The patient
seems to have little or no ability to feel the significance of his
situation, to experience the real emotions of regret or shame or
determination to improve, or to realize that this is lacking. His clever
statements have been hardly more than verbal reflexes; even his facial
expressions are without the underlying content they imply."
"Unreliability"
Actually, an unreliable unreliability. "The psychopath's unreliability and
his disregard for obligations and for consequences are manifested in both
trivial and serious matters, are masked by demonstrations of conforming
behavior, and cannot be accounted for by ordinary motives or incentives.
Although it can be confidently be predicted that his failures and
disloyalties will continue, it is impossible to time them and to take
satisfactory precautions against their effect. Here, it might be said, is
not even a consistency in inconsistency but an inconsistency in
inconsistency."
"Untruthfulness and insincerity"
"The psychopath," says Cleckley, "shows a remarkable disregard for truth and
is to be trusted no more in his accounts of the past than in his promises
for the future or his statement of present intentions." He is "at ease" and
"unpretentious in making promises or denying culpability. His words in such
matters carry "special powers of conviction.... Candor and trustworthiness
seem implicit in him at such times. During the most solemn perjuries he has
no difficulty at all of looking anybody tranquilly in the eyes."
When detection of wrongdoing is at hand, a psychopath may "appear to be
facing the consequences with singular honesty, fortitude and manliness." But
this, too, is a facade. "It is indeed difficulty to express how thoroughly
straightforward some typical psychopaths can appear. They are disarming not
only to those unfamiliar with such patients but often to people who know
well from experience their convincing outer aspect of honesty."
Upon being discovered in "shameful and gross falsehoods, after repeatedly
violating his most earnest pledges, he finds it easy, when another occasion
arises, to speak of his word of honor, his honor as a gentleman, and he
shows surprise and vexation when commitments on such a basis do not
immediately settle the issue."
"Lack of remorse or shame"
A psychopath shows "almost no sense of shame. His career is full of
exploits, any one of which would wither even the more callous
representatives of the ordinary man. Yet he does not, despite his able
protestations, show the slightest evidence of major humiliation or regret."
However, the psychopath may, when cornered, seem to accept blame and express
profound regret. But "subsequent events indicate that it is empty of
sincerity -- a hollow and casual form...." His manner of delivering these
perfunctory expressions will reveal nothing of this hollowness but will be
"exceedingly deceptive and is very likely to promote confidence and deep
trust." Which will soon prove to have been misplaced.
"Superficial charm and good 'intelligence''
A typical psychopath makes a very good first impression. He is perceived as
bright, well adjusted and as manifesting "desirable and superior human
qualities [and a] robust mental health." Despite this, "the psychopath's
inner emotional deviations and deficiencies may be comparable with the inner
status of the masked schizophrenic." His surface charm coupled with his cold
remorselessness makes him a superb manipulator of the unwary.
"Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience"
On theoretical matters, the psychopath may show superb judgment. On very
complex ethical, moral or emotional issues he may also show excellent
reasoning ability -- as long as they are abstract and do not involve himself
as a participant. But about his own life, a psychopath demonstrates over and
over an inability to learn from experience or to be deterred by punishment.
"Pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love."
The egocentricity of the psychopath "is usually of a degree not seen in
ordinary people and often is little short of astonishing." However, a
skillful psychopath may learn to camouflage it to suit his schemes. It is a
"self-centeredness that is apparently unmodifiable and all but complete....
[I]t is an incapacity for object love and... this incapacity... appears to
be absolute."
A psychopath may be capable of "casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and
of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him." These are,
however, "always strictly limited in degree" and "durability." And "[w]hat
positive feelings appear during the psychopath's interpersonal relations
give a strong impression of being self-love." He has "absolute indifference
to the financial, social, emotional, physical, and other hardships which he
brings upon those for whom he professes love...."
"Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated"
"The psychopath's sex life," says Cleckley, "invariably shows
peculiarities." There is not a strong congruence with any specific sexual
deviancy, but deviance is not unusual and should not be surprising "in view
of the psychopath's notable tendencies to hit upon unsatisfactory conduct in
all fields and his apparent inability to take seriously what would to others
be repugnant and regrettable."
Also not surprisingly, "in view of their incapacity for object love, the
sexual aims of psychopaths do not seem to include any important personality
relations or other recognizable desire or ability to explore or possess or
significantly ravish the partner in a shared experience." They are generally
limited to "literal physical contact and relatively free of the enormous
emotional concomitants and the complex potentialities that make adult love
relations an experience so thrilling and indescribable."
Far from being super-sexed, "their amativeness is little more than a simple
itch and that even the itch is seldom, if ever, particularly intense."
As for the psychopathic male, "despite his usual ability to complete the
physical act successfully with a woman, [he] never seems to find anything
meaningful or personal in his relations or to enjoy significant pleasure
beyond the localized and temporary sensations."
Psychopaths of both genders have a record of sexual promiscuity, but this
"seems much more closely related to their almost total lack of self-imposed
restraint than to any particularly strong passions or drives. Psychopaths
sometimes seem by preference to seek sexual relations in sordid
surroundings" or with inappropriate people. They go out of their way to find
sexual entanglement that "mock ordinary human sensibility or what might be
called basic decency...."
The male psychopath, beneath "his outwardly gracious manner toward women and
his general suavity and social charm... nearly always shows an underlying
predilection for obscenity, an astonishingly ambivalent attitude in which
the amorous and excretory functions seem to be confused. He sometimes gives
the impression that an impulse to smear his partner symbolically, and even
wallow in sordidness himself, is more fundamental than a directly erotic
aim, itself hardly more to him than a sort of concomitant and slightly
glorified backscratching."
"Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior"
"He will commit theft, forgery, adultery, fraud, and other deeds for
astonishingly small stakes and under much greater risks of being discovered
than will the ordinary scoundrel. He will, in fact, commit such deeds in the
absence of any apparent goal at all."
"Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations"
A psychopath does not feel genuine gratitude for kindness or trust. Nor does
he conduct his life by any recognized code of reciprocity. But "we often
find him attentive in small courtesies and favors, often habitually generous
or quasi-generous when the cost is not decisive." Sometimes these acts are
self-serving in subtle ways, but not always. "Outward social graces come
easy to most psychopaths, and many continue, throughout careers disastrous
to themselves and for others, to conduct themselves in superficial
relations, in handling the trivia of existence, so as to gain admiration and
gratitude. In these surface aspects of functioning, the typical psychopath
(unlike the classic hypocrite) often seems to act with undesigning
spontaneity and to be prompted by motives of excellent quality though of
marvelously attenuated substance."
I referred to Clinton using Rieber's classification, "adaptive psychopath."
In part, an adaptive psychopath is merely a successful one, one who has
avoided jail or asylum. He is a psychopath more able to function in the real
world whether, as Rieber says, because of "superior endowment or because
their survival was facilitated by adopting an outwardly [normal] facade."
But Rieber -- who has written extensively about "Psychopathy in Everyday
Life" (in fact, this is the subtitle of his book, Manufacturing Social
Distress) -- means something a bit more subtle by "adaptive psychopath" and
presents psychopathy, itself, using a somewhat streamlined description.
While accepting the work of Cleckley and Hare -- both of whom have largely
studied psychopathy in therapeutic or penal settings -- Rieber writes that
in his view:
"the following four salient characteristics -- thrill seeking, pathological
glibness, antisocial pursuit of power, and absence of guilt -- distinguish
the true psychopath."
'Thrill-Seeking"
This is more than merely impulsive behavior. Often considerable planning is
involved, as well as the cooperation of accomplices. This behavior may be
due, in part, to a higher threshold of "perceptual stimulation" among
psychopaths, leading to thrill-seeking, drug use and violence (sexual or
otherwise).
Also psychopathic thrill-seeking is qualitatively different from normal
boredom defeating pursuits.
"Psychopathic thrill-seeking consists in breaking the rules, whatever they
might be, or even in surreptitiously making up new rules. At a poker table,
psychopaths do not want to win; they want to cheat and get away with it.
That is, they want to turn the game into a new game, where they make the
rules."
Adaptive psychopaths, he says:
"have taken this to a paradoxical extreme: They can go about their routine
duties precisely because they have turned them into a dangerous game of
charades, of passing for normal, while in their off-hours they live an
entirely different life."
Clinton manifests this in all aspects of his life; from his golf Mulligans
to his interpretation of the ten commandments. His entire adult life, lived
under the microscope of public scrutiny, has been one long game of charades.
Friends, even enemies, marvel at the paradox that such an ambitious man
would risk everything, repeatedly, to gratify his desires (which often
actually seem as fleeting and trivial as mere whims). Clinton's psychopathic
thrill-seeking is satisfied by precisely this inconsistency: by the
incompatibility between his public ambitions and that rapacious private
life.
"Pathological Glibness: The Manipulation of Meaning in the Communication of
Deceit"
All psychopaths, at every level of intelligence, are remarkably glib and
persuasive. Cleckley also talks about "semantic dementia," by which he means
that the psychopath is unmoved by the ordinary emotional demands of a
situation and act as if they do not exist. Rieber takes this further:
"[T]he same dissociation is also manifest in their speech; words have become
detached from meaning and serve instead as a means of placating a dangerous
foe or of fleecing an unwary victim. By the same token, they do not allow
themselves to be moved by words and concepts that their fellow citizens
value."
Hare has reported that the organization of the psychopath's brain seems to
differ from the "normal" brain in the way it deals with language as well as
emotion. It seems that language may be more diffusely and shallowly
processed by the psychopath. This corresponds to the psychopath's ability to
hold several, mutually contradictory concepts in his mind at once without
evident discord.
If there is one trait of Clinton's that stands out, even against the
backdrop of hairsplitting lawyers, politicians and consultants, it is his
use of language. His grand jury testimony is a case study in semantic
dementia and verbal dissociation. A careful look at moments such as the
lesson on the meaning of "is" reveals a tiny flash of triumph on Clinton's
face. He has cheated in plain sight and won. This analysis extends, also, to
public affairs. At its heart, triangulation is "semantic dementia" as a
political weapon.
"Antisocial Pursuit of Power"
Psychopaths are preoccupied with power relationships. Not only are they
interested
"in obtaining maximum power for themselves, but they seem hell-bent on using
power for destructive ends. Only in paranoid states and in the attitudes of
career criminals can a comparable fusion of antisocial trends with the power
drive be seen. It is as though, for psychopaths, power can be experienced
only in the context of victimization: if they are to be strong, someone else
must pay. There is no such thing, in the psychopathic universe, as the
merely weak; whoever is weak is also a sucker, that is, someone who demands
to be exploited."
This also typifies Clinton's approach to the use of power -- over women,
over opponents and even over allies. It is manifested in Clinton's
justification for exploiting his lawyer's gullibility in believing his own
client (Clinton, himself). It underlies his abusive relationship to women
(many of whom either came to him because of his power or who were unable to
resist or complain because of it). The psychopathic attitude towards power
also underlies Clinton's dealings with Congress -- both majority and
minority -- and his ongoing shell games with policy.
Psychopaths, it has been noted, tend to invade the space of others to
intimidate or dominate. Often this takes the form of a piercing, unwavering
gaze. Women sometimes interpret this as seduction, as Monica Lewinsky
reports about herself. Men also feel it, although in different ways. Bob
Woodward mentioned on Larry King recently that this is what he first noticed
about Clinton during a face to face meeting. Even a glass of diet Coke never
occluded that unblinking laserlike stare. (For a jarring parallel, watch the
opening scene of Kubrick's Clockwork Orange!)
"Absence of Guilt"
Psychopaths are not ignorant of law and its sanctions. They simply ignore
the former and seek to evade the latter. They are, therefore,
"skilled in evasion and rationalization. Some, gifted histrionically, can
even feign remorse. But they do not feel guilt.... [W]hen psychopaths are
caught they are in a profound sense uncomprehending."
If one thing marked Clinton's great apology tour, following discovery of the
soiled dress, it was total and absolute insincerity. (Where are the
religious counselors now that he has escaped removal?) If you read all the
statements of regret and the comments about mutual forgiveness, only one
conclusion is possible: Clinton is, on the one hand, presenting a facade of
guilty shame to evade repercussions while, simultaneously, taking pleasure
in manipulating the words so as to never say what his "sucker" audience
thinks he is saying.
The Mephisto Syndrome
The sum of these four parts is what Rieber refers to as the "Mephisto
Syndrome."
"[I]t is hard to resist the impression that the true psychopath is a
personification of the demonic.... They are not social, only superficially
gregarious; not considerate, just polite; not self-respecting, only vain;
not loyal, only servile and down deep they are really quite shallow....
Hence the observed homologies with the figures of the demonic: ...For the
psychopath, the demonic is a way of life....
"[S]ince like the devil psychopaths are inherently asocial, they are
difficult to comprehend within the confines of ordinary human morality.
[T]he true psychopath, like Lucifer, goes beyond the categories of evil and
sin; theologically, the true psychopath is incapable of forming any
relationship to God or to humans.... Not feeling remorse, psychopaths enter
the confessional, as they enter psychotherapy, only when it serves some
other purpose, typically that of evading punishment....
"[T]he power of the group is real; if properly organized the group can
accomplish things well beyond the power of any individual. The individuals,
for their part, participate in the exercise of group power through
identification....
"Psychopaths, by contrast, appear to situate themselves altogether
differently vis-a-vis the group. Rather than adopt a posture of
identification, they appear to... proceed on the delusionary belief that in
their own person they can emulate and create the degree of power that,
properly speaking, only the group has. More than a law unto themselves,
psychopaths act as if they were a whole nation unto themselves....
[reminding us of de Gaulle's famous saying that nations have no friends,
only interests.]
"Dissociation is a critical cognitive process in psychotherapy. It is
manifest in the pathological glibness, in the inability to feel guilt, in
the inability to profit from experience, and in the semantic dementia,
generally, of the psychopath.... [D]issociation refers to the tendency of
individuals to... dissociate... their 'real' selves from their 'public'
selves. Such people histrionically alter their public presentations to
create a succession of socially acceptable images or facades....
"With psychopaths, dissociation reaches to a deeper level; paradoxically it
is also more readily put to the service of the pathologically inflated ego.
Where the histrionic splits off the 'bad me' from the 'good me,' ...the
psychopath's internal split seems seems to take place at an even more basic
level, that of the 'me' and the 'not me....' [T]here is nothing that is 'not
me' for psychopaths. There is no limit to the grandiosity of their
fantasies, likewise there is no limit to what they might do....
"[The psychopath's] deeper dissociation is utterly uncontrolled, and this
makes it practically impossible for psychopaths to do anything else but con
at the level of social valuations.... [T]he same is true of the kind of
rationalizations and trumped-up emotions psychopaths rely on.... [T]here is
a level of conscious ego-involvement in these techniques, but it is a
pathologically inflated ego..., an ego that has lost the ability to produce
either genuine reasons or genuine feelings...."
The trait at the root of psychopathy is flattened affect. The profound
shallowness of the psychopath's emotional life is not only their trademark
behavioral trait -- though often masked by an outward glib charm -- it has
also been identified by brain scans. From this emotional deficit, all else
appears to follow. A vital emotional life seems to be essential to
conscience, judgment, the ability to learn from experience, insight and all
the other social and moral values lacking in the psychopath.
Not surprisingly, this issue of emotional deficit also underlies the
difference between my theory of Clinton and Efron's. Efron's diagnosis --
which requires deep emotional suffering and conscience paralyzed cognitive
skills -- is incompatible with the psychopathic traits manifested by
Clinton. Her's simply cannot explain the pathological lying, the evasions,
the exploitation of women and the like.
On the other hand, if my diagnosis is to succeed, it must explain how a
presumed emotional deficit is consistent with Clinton's "relentless huggy,
weepy emotionalism," his legendary screaming fits and purple rages and his
repetitious, self-pitying self-diagnosis.
The answer is obvious from the very description of the syndrome. Violent
emotional demonstrations by a psychopath are, as Cleckley said, always the
result of a lack of inhibition rather than any genuine strength of feeling.
When these outbursts are directed as rage against another, they can also be
explained by the psychopath's lack of empathy for that other person and
instinct to dominate him or her. Displays of rage -- like inappropriate eye
contact -- are typical of animal dominance behaviors. Moreover, psychopaths
are often motivated by a need for approval, which is one reason they so
carefully ape genuine emotional responses. An intelligent psychopath is not
oblivious to objective signs of his own failure; he is, however, more or
less oblivious to his own contributing faults. To recognize them would
require insight, which he does not possess. So a psychopath will often lash
out at others in violent rage, blaming them for the falling polls, failed
legislation, editorial criticism, etc. Paradoxically, the psychopath is also
capable of putting on an outward display of insight when it suits him. It is
a hollow, false insight. A psychopath can analyze his own conduct with great
psychological skill, but the words are, as Cleckley pointed out, as empty as
he is.
A young patient cited by Cleckley had a typical history of truancy and
delinquency. Finally, in desperation, his affluent family asked a friend to
intervene. The friend was an older man with considerable practical
experience helping troubled youths. He decided to take the boy on a long
automobile trip -- with the purpose of maintaining a relaxed atmosphere
while keeping his audience captive. The boy did most of the talking. He
analyzed his own shortcomings with, seemingly, great insight and honesty. He
volunteered that he needed to change and outlined steps that he might take
to do so. The older man was very impressed. When they arrived back at the
boy's home that evening, the man discharged his passenger at the curb and
drove off. The boy walked past the house, through the back yard and out the
back gate. He was next seen a week later, in police custody, having
committed a spate of forgeries and thefts.
The Psychopath
Efron's excellent and convincing portrayal of the Hollow Sun King, the first
Clinton paradox, is, in short, an almost perfect description of a
charismatic psychopath: a soulless "intraspecies predator" (to quote Hare's
"Without Conscience"). A robot without empathy, devoid of conscience or
remorse, living a mere shadow of an emotional life, but able to mimic the
outward manifestation of emotions on demand. Able, therefore, to manipulate
the unwary to a degree that defies imagination. Presenting a different facet
to each viewer. Objectively hollow, but, to the susceptible, very like a
"Sun King." A Sun King who deceives, exploits, betrays and rapes his
subjects.
<end excerpt>
This appeared in the Laissez Faire City Times (an internet publication)
on March 29, 1999. Just for the record, I first came to the conclusion that
Clinton was a psychopath four years earlier--McP
Gandalf Grey
Ted Olson's anti-Clinton past
Bush's solicitor general-designate can't hide his connection to the
notorious "Arkansas Project."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joe Conason
April 5, 2001 | At first glance, the UPI story that ran Sunday about
Solicitor General-designate Ted Olson and his link to the American
Spectator's "Arkansas Project" looked like an April Fool's joke. It was
April 1, after all, and the UPI article, slugged as "news analysis," was
immediately flagged by the Drudge Report -- the favorite Web page of the
credulous right wing. And the story, dispatched over the wires by the
Reverend Sun Myung Moon's very own news service, included some truly comical
assertions.
In the opening paragraph, for instance, the UPI piece said that while "the
origins of the 'Arkansas Project,' the years-long investigation of former
President Bill Clinton financed by reclusive billionaire Richard Mellon
Scaife, may still be murky to most people ... prominent Washington attorney
Theodore Olson's involvement appears to have been minimal or nonexistent."
This is an important issue, explained UPI legal affairs correspondent
Michael Kirkland, because Olson faces confirmation for the powerful post of
solicitor general in a Senate evenly split between "friendly Republicans and
Democrats with blood in their eye," a situation in which an "unexplored
connection to the 'Arkansas Project' might prove toxic." In fact Olson's
appointment is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee
Thursday.
Noting that Olson has previously denied any involvement with the shady
operation, Kirkland's article went on to claim that it is questionable
whether the Arkansas Project itself even existed -- and quoted Spectator
editor R. Emmett Tyrrell saying, among other things, that the project's name
was "a joke by one of the guys in the [Spectator] office ..." He also is
quoted calling the Arkansas Project "a jocose misnomer. It didn't exist."
Now, Tyrrell regards himself as an irrepressible wit, and here he seemed to
be yanking the pant leg of a gullible reporter. For if there had been no
Arkansas Project, then why did newspapers and magazines publish stories
about the Scaife-funded operation over the past three years without any
denial from Tyrrell or anybody else at the Spectator?
Consider an excerpt from one of those articles, published several months
after the original exposure of the supposedly nonexistent enterprise: "The
Arkansas Project was financed with the $1.8 million [from] two foundations
controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife, the putative leader of the right-wing
conspiracy, made available to the [American] Spectator for its own
journalistic purposes ... In turn, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., the Spectator's
editor-in-chief, decided that the money would be used to finance an
investigation into Whitewater and other Arkansas malfeasances." That's from
a column by John Corry in the June 1998 edition of ... Tyrrell's own
American Spectator. Corry went on to disclose that the magazine's publisher,
Terry Eastland, assisted by auditors, "has been conducting an internal
review of the Arkansas Project." Nothing "jocose" about any of that.
The UPI article traces the source for Ted Olson's "alleged connection" to
the Arkansas Project to "The Hunting of the President," a book I co-wrote
last year with Gene Lyons, and to a Salon article that I wrote with other
reporters in 1998. Both the Salon article and the book mention a meeting at
the Washington law offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a law firm where
Olson serves as managing partner. According to two confidential sources who
told me about that meeting, Olson himself was present, along with David
Henderson and Stephen S. Boynton, the pair of conservative activists who
would soon become the Spectator's main contractors for the Arkansas Project.
The Salon article reported the date of that meeting as "early 1994," but
that date was corrected in the book because the sources who were there later
recalled that it actually occurred earlier than that, in late November 1993.
Olson has denied that the meeting ever took place, and Tyrrell offered a
similar denial to UPI, which reports that he "firmly contended that Olson
was never connected to the Arkansas Project in any way." Tyrrell added,
"Just in terms of chronology, I known I didn't know him [Olson] in 1993, and
that's when the project began. I don't think I knew him in '94. I think I
knew him in '95 but I'm not sure."
It's too bad that Tyrrell hasn't reviewed the Spectator's own internal
reports, since they would surely have improved the accuracy of his
recollections. He definitely knew Olson before February 1994, when the
Spectator published a piece titled "Criminal Laws Implicated by the Clinton
Scandals," a lengthy catalogue of alleged felonies by Bill Clinton, Hillary
Rodham Clinton and various Clinton associates. The byline on that piece was
"Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short," the magazine's fictional (and
jocosely named) law firm. The actual (and self-confessed) authors of that
brutish, nasty piece were Ted Olson and an associate at Gibson, Dunn named
Douglas Cox.
The forgetful Tyrrell could also look up an "expense analysis" spreadsheet
of the Arkansas Project, prepared by the magazine's own financial officers
on June 30, 1995, for the previous fiscal year. That document shows payments
to writers David Brock, James Ring Adams and Daniel Wattenberg, as well as
to Arkansas bait-shop owner Parker Dozhier, Boynton and Henderson. Also
listed among the legal expenses paid by the Arkansas Project between March
and August of 1994 are four payments to Olson's firm -- Gibson, Dunn -- that
total more than $14,000.
At that time, the linchpin of the Arkansas Project was David Hale, the
crooked former Little Rock judge who had accused Bill Clinton of pressuring
him to make an illegal $300,000 loan that supposedly benefited the
Whitewater land development. From the fall of 1993 on, Hale was spending
much of his time with Dozhier, Boynton and Henderson.
Perhaps not coincidentally, as Hale has testified in federal court, he hired
Ted Olson to represent him in December 1993, when he expected to be summoned
by congressional committees investigating Whitewater. [Aside from his
ideological activism, Olson is among the top lawyers in Washington; among
his clients is former President Ronald Reagan.] It's also worth noting that
the first payments for the Arkansas Project began to flow to Henderson and
Boynton on Dec. 1, 1993.
Almost four years later, the covert scheme came to a sour conclusion with
the firing of the Spectator's founding publisher, Ronald Burr. During the
spring and summer of 1997, Burr had worried about the poor accounting of the
project's funds provided by Henderson and Boynton. When Burr continued to
insist on an independent audit of the Arkansas Project by the accounting
firm of Arthur Andersen, the Spectator's board of directors held a secret
meeting at Tyrrell's suburban Virginia mansion on Oct. 5, 1997, where Burr
was dismissed and removed from his position as secretary-treasurer of the
American Spectator Educational Foundation, the nonprofit that published the
magazine. He was replaced in that post by Olson.
In an Oct. 6, 1997, memo Burr sent to Tyrrell, he recalled that the fatal
dispute had begun "on July 10, 1997 at Ted Olson's office." He then went on
to recount their arguments over how and whether to conduct a "fraud audit"
of the Arkansas Project. It was a subject Tyrrell had summarily dismissed a
week earlier in a memo to Burr stating, "I do not want a 'fraud' audit of
any project. I do not want any further audits until I have examined our
accounting of the Arkansas Project ... This issue is now closed." No
apparent kidding in that correspondence, either. (See "The American
Spectator's Funny Money".)
The secrecy that had once shrouded the project and its billionaire sponsor
began to lift after Burr's firing, which outraged many of the Spectator's
staff and supporters, such as humorist P.J. O'Rourke, who resigned from the
magazine. A few months later, when reports about the Scaife-funded project
appeared in the New York Observer, Ted Olson told me that he and other
members of the Spectator board were conducting an "internal analysis" of the
Arkansas Project. "We're moving at the proper speed, as far as I'm
concerned," he said.
The complete results of that internal probe have never been made public.
Burr himself has been unable to comment on any of these events, including
Olson's involvement, because of a non-disparagement clause in his severance
agreement with the Spectator. But if any senators really are interested in
what George W. Bush's nominee for solicitor general did to undermine the
Clinton presidency, they could ask Burr to testify before the Judiciary
Committee. They could seek the sworn testimony of other present and former
Spectator staff as well. They could request (or subpoena) the documents that
indicate Olson's involvement. They could demand the release of the Shaheen
Report, which examined David Hale's involvement with the Arkansas Project as
part of a Justice Department investigation. And they could ask Ted Olson to
tell them, under oath, whatever he knows about the project.
Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats seem to lack their opponents' appetite
for such partisan inquisitions. They will probably give Olson a pass. But
any senator who ventured to ask the hard questions would quickly discover
that the Arkansas Project was no joke.
--
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." George W. Bush, Televised Newsconference
December 18, 2000
inLA
Whoremonger-in-Chief-wannabe
"Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote in message
news:9kn6dv$urn$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
ki...@rightwinger.com
<menels...@NOSPAM.yahoo.com> wrote like a right wing nut;
>Thank God somebody was trying to save the world from the
>Whoremonger-in-Chief-wannabe
The California turnip was nicely spanked by REAL Americans for his
lying, subversive part in the criminal Iran-Contra affair.
Thank God that diddling an intern wasn't comparable to the crimes
promoted by mcreagan.
Right?
The Truth About Ronald Reagan: A Shallow, Shameless President
Halton Adler Mann in the Houston Chronicle, July 27, 1998
Nonrevisionist analysis is demanded before too much
hagiographic history of Ronald Reagan is engraved in
granite and the 40th president is canonized beyond
truth and endurance in airports, public buildings
and Mount Rushmore.
Now that he is 87 and mentally enfeebled, the
encomiums are coming faster from editorialist
who once excoriated him, their prose revised
to reflect an insufferably sanitized version
of his presidency. Against his relentless tide
of tribute, truth must stand firm.
The truth includes Reagan's anti-communist
zealotry that compelled him to lie in writing
every six months that he certified "progress" in
human rights in El Salvador. That was the absurd,
unilateral "condition" Congress required for
continued US support of fascist terrorism by
the death squads of that tormented country.
Reagan's monomaniacal determination to overthrow
Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua led to subsidizing of
proxy mass murder of thousands of innocents there
by Contra terrorists. Later came the Iran-Contra
scandal, the usurpations of presidential powers
by Oliver North and the selling of armaments for American hostages in Lebanon, impeachable offenses in a non-teflon presidency.
A similar moral famine affected Reagan when he declared that the only alternative in the Philippines to Ferdinand Marcos' reign of terror and murder (he did not characterize it as such) was a communist dictatorship. The peaceful revolution led by the admirable Benigno Aquino's widow Corazon - whose husband was murdered in a public spectacle by Marcos's henchmen - belied Reagan's denial of a democratic movement. Reagan was perfectly willing to keep anti-communist murderers like Marcos in Power.
Although Elie Wiesel importuned him to shun a Nazi cemetery at Bitburg at the request of Michael Deaver and Helmut Kohl, President Reagan went and gave a ludicrous speech. He exculpated the entire German nation for its barbarity, persecution, genocide and war save "one man" he held responsible. Certainly there was a better way to honor Germany's decades of dedication to Democracy in the wake of World War II.
The Reagan Administration supported Saddam Hussein when Iraq invaded America's nemesis Iran, in his eight year war. It led to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Persian Gulf War and the present threat of chemical and biological warfare.
Also deleted from Reagan's revisionism is his sending of 230 Marines to their easily avoidable death in what then Senator Sam Nunn, D-Ga. called "Mission Impossible" in Lebanon. The same security measures employed by embassies and banks throughout the world would have prevented the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.
Reagan's me culpa after the bombing was bought by an American electorate that could never impute anything but the noblest motives to the "Gipper" and could forgive him almost everything.
As George Clemenceau might conclude, history is too serious a matter to be left to editorial writers and columnists. Give Ronald Reagan his due, his leadership of the "revolution" that bears his name. It culminated in Republican control of Congress for the first time in 40 years in 1994. And give him credit for the energy that contributed to - but was far from solely responsible fro - the dissolution of the Soviet Union's hegemony.
Extol his B-movie actor's ability to memorize his lines and deliver them with presidential credibility.
Like him for his affability and personal charm.
But remember and recognize that he was a shallow and shameless president who exploited a nation's need for shallow answers to profound and protracted problems.
History must not permit him to "go gently into that good night" unscathed by scandal, impervious to imperfections, oblivious to the tragedies he wrought, "blind to criticism and deaf to dissent.