-Caveat Lector-
'For example, much like O. J. Simpson in his pursuit of the "real
killers," Hillary Clinton is still trying to figure out how those old
billing records showed up in the White House residence.'
National Review Online
Trash Talk
Even if Clintonites didn't trash the place, that doesn't change much in
my book.
By Jonah Goldberg
June 4, 2001 5:05 p.m.
At this point I can't keep it straight. The former residents of the
White House may or may not have trashed their offices to stick it to the
incoming Bush administration. The White House communications types may
or may not have fed a true or false story for either good or bad
motives. They may or may not have backed off that story, also for good
or bad motives. And they may now be coming up with "evidence" to clear
their good names or to cover their dershowitzes.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, good for you. If you want to
know what I'm talking about you can either wait thirty seconds until the
feeling passes or you can click here for the Washington Post story. And
if you still don't care, my Star Trek opus is still on the site.
Now, because this threatens to become the metaphysically trivial
equivalent of the Hiss-Chambers dispute, forever dividing liberals and
conservatives, I for one would like to apologize on behalf of everybody
on my side of the argument, whether they'd like me to or not.
While the rest of this column will be drenched with sarcasm, I do want
to offer my sincere apologies here and now to the totally innocent
Clinton and Gore staffers who were painted with an overly broad brush. I
am sure there are some decent, honest, and, again, completely blameless
individuals who had nothing to do with any White House trashing, even if
there was a lot of vandalism.
That said, I'd like to offer something of an explanation - sort of like
pleading guilty with extenuating circumstances.
It was totally believable.
You see, the Clinton White House was not known to be above such things.
It was not known to be a real button-down operation. A lot of very smart
kids chewing gum and eating pizza at their desks was the image served up
to America in 1992. And while quite a few grownups traipsed through the
White House over the years - John Podesta, Leon Panetta, and Lloyd
Bentsen come to mind - even when the Clinton staff was at its most
impressive, no one ever thought of it as a by-the-numbers enterprise.
Big boxes of really important files kept appearing and disappearing. For
example, much like O. J. Simpson in his pursuit of the "real killers,"
Hillary Clinton is still trying to figure out how those old billing
records showed up in the White House residence.
Now, of course, I know everyone was in the dark about the fact that
President Clinton was playing President and the Intern with Monica
Lewinksy. But beyond that it was still the kind of office where it would
seem reasonable for an intern to be shuffling in and out of the leader
of the Free World's office with a pizza box.
And as for the pettiness and vindictiveness, well, I guess we were wrong
that an administration that could press false criminal charges against a
lifetime White House employee could also be capable of pulling the "W"
keys off the keyboards. An administration where Sidney Blumenthal is a
moral North Star is incapable of something like that.
But, I should stop myself. I promised to do my level best to stop
writing about the Clinton administration - and have more or less kept my
word for these last few months - because there's no point to it. So,
let's just say that if they ever make a movie of the White House
operation they won't be looking for John Gielgud-types to play staff
members.
But I would like to add one small point. I think the level of outrage by
some liberal pundits says a lot. Joshua Marshall, the Washington editor
of the American Prospect has made the vandalism story the My Lai
Massacre to his Seymour Hersch. He's been denouncing the "slandering"
and "smearing" of White House employees by the Bush administration with
great zeal for quite a while now.
He's not alone. Marie Cocco, a writer for Newsday (my fellow guest last
weekend on CNN's Reliable Sources), wrote a column dripping with outrage
toward the Bush White House. "In this administration of dignity, the
dignified thing to do might be to apologize to those whose reputations
were smeared," Cocco sneers. "But real men have no regrets."
Now, if I cared more I could investigate. But I don't, so I will simply
guess that Ms. Cocco and Mr. Marshall - as well as the other usual
suspects on the chat shows - have dedicated far more space and emotion
to the allegedly false accusation that a few staffers got out-of-hand
with their pranks than they ever did to Billy Dale, whose life was
destroyed by the Clinton White House and who never got an apology.
I'd also bet they never saw much wrong with the institutionalized
search-and-destroy operation the Clinton White House had up and going
since the very first "bimbo eruption." And, I sincerely doubt they
clamored for an apology from the White House for siccing private
investigators on their opponents or for simply calling them racist,
corrupt, perverted, liars, and sex fiends.
But again, I don't want to go through all of that again. Suffice it to
say, I believe that if your yardstick for political malfeasance is the
degree to which an administration falsely accuses people of one thing or
another, you'd better not have kept your mouth shut on the topic for the
last eight years if you want to make any headway with me.
Still, none of this answers why this story has got such legs. What I
think does help answer that question is the fact that so many liberal
reporters and pundits personally know Clinton staffers who've been
whining about being falsely accused. These former staffers are
accustomed to criticism of Bill Clinton, but when the heat comes down on
them a bit, it turns out their skins are pretty thin.
But that's only part of it. People seem to forget the vandalism story
broke amidst the pardon scandals (and there was more than one) and the
flap over the fact that Bill Clinton threw himself three farewell
parties on George Bush's inauguration day - because, well, Bill's that
kind of guy. So even though the Bush White House backed off the trashing
story within 72 hours, there are people out there who want to make it a
bigger deal than it was in an effort to make all of those other stories
a bit less embarrassing. It's a time-tested debate technique; if your
adversaries offer five examples, pick the weakest one and tear it apart.
It will seem like you've refuted the other guy's argument entirely. In
fact, it feels remarkably similar to Clinton spin generally. Disprove
something trivial to deny something true and substantial.
Indeed, Marshall, Cocco, et al. don't seem particularly angry with the
press for blowing the story out of proportion. Their aim is at a
political target, not the culpable one.
Anyway, if the Clintonites didn't trash the place, the White House
should apologize. Whether they did or not, though, doesn't change a lot
in my book. They still worked for the guy, and proudly.
=======================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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