The happiest time of the year continues!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2014

Keep history alive:
There’s nothing we dislike quite like this time of the year.

On the other hand, fund-raising is necessary. For many years, we never asked. We’re kicking ourselves for that now.

That said:

As our fund-raising drive enters Day Two, we’ll link you to Gene Lyons’ new column at The National Memo. The column concerns Hillary Clinton, who you may not be supporting for president.

She isn’t our ideal candidate either. That isn’t the point of the column.

Lyons writes about the history of the Whitewater pseudo-scandal, which is being fancifully revived by Harper’s, of all publications.

Quite literally, Lyons wrote the book on the topic, Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. In the part of his column shown below, he refers to Doug Henwood, the writer who revives the Whitewater foofaw in the current edition of Harper’s.

He also cites an important newspaper, the New York Times:
LYONS (10/22/14): For that matter, why am I bothering with Henwood?

Two reasons. First, personal disappointment that such slipshod work could appear in Harper’s. Twenty years ago, the magazine stuck its journalistic neck out to publish my article and book, Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater.

Second, because Henwood’s piece signals the inevitable return of what I call the “Clinton Rules.” Particularly when it comes to the couple’s background in darkest Arkansas, no allegation of wrongdoing, regardless of how conclusively disproved, has ever disappeared from the national news media.

That such shoddy standards have become well-nigh universal in American political journalism is no excuse. Because everybody involved back in 1996 understood that calling out The New York Times—which originated and sustained the Whitewater hoax—was a serious business, Harper’s actually dispatched a fact checker to Little Rock, where we spent several days bulletproofing the manuscript.

Clearly, no such effort went into Henwood’s essay.
As Lyons notes, the New York Times “originated and sustained the Whitewater hoax.” The Times then played a leading role in what came next, the twenty-month war against Candidate Gore which sent George Bush to the White House.

Despite these facts and many more, it pains Lawrence O’Donnell to criticize the Times, a fact he restated this very week. Therein lies a remarkable tale.

It would be hard to overstate the code of silence which surrounds the workings of our political journalism over the past three or four decades. Lyons and his writing partner, Joe Conason, wrote two books on the Clinton-era part of this tale, Fools for Scandal (1996) and The Hunting of the President (2000).

At this site and at our companion site, we’ve chronicled where the virus went after that. As you may have noticed, we’ve done so to almost complete, total silence.

It isn’t just Lawrence! Everybody understands that these topics must not be discussed. In order to keep that discussion going, we’re asking for your support.

Tomorrow, we plan to bring Ben and Jerry, or possibly even Ben or Jerry, into this vital discussion. For today, we recommend the Lyons piece, however you feel about Hillary Clinton.

We’ll also ask for your support:

If you want to keep history alive, you can just click here.

21 comments:

  1. If anyone doubts that Hillary has a target on her back, note the reemergence of Monica Lewinsky on the public scene. She is actively promoting her new anti-cyber bullying campaign. That is a well-meaning and innocuous campaign, but her real function is to be highly visible in the public eye lest anyone forget what Bill Clinton did. It is a way to raise that issue without having to actually talk about it directly.

    Someone is very scared that she will run because if she does, she may win. I wonder who and why?

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    1. Is it even possible that some people on the left can have honestly held misgivings about Hillary Clinton, even if you and Somerby and Lyons disagree?

      Or does everything have to be a vast conspiracy that involve mysterous, dark forces?

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    2. Are those misgivings the substance of the criticisms of Clinton or are they dredging up old garbage like Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky?

      To take the conspiracy a step further, I think these recent attacks on Hillary are to undercut her effectiveness at campaigning for Democratic candidates in the midterms. To the extent that ever-so-thoughtful liberals are examining their concerns over Clinton, I think they are damaging the chances of these candidates in local races. Ponder that.

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    3. Bob has said several times that Hillary is not his preferred candidate.

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    4. Then he goes on to defend her against any slight, real or imagined, without telling us who his preferred candidate would be, or even the principles he looks for in a preferred candidate.

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    5. Dredging up Whitewater isn't "any slight, real or imagined," as if it were something trivial. He has pretty much only been discussing this one, because of the malfeasance of the NY Times.

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    6. Yes "some people on the left" have had misgivings about all things Clinton for many years now. First, some of them, after wisely stroking their chins while thinking Deep Thoughts, turned to the Great Ralph Nader. That worked smashingly. Then, after wisely stroking of their white-bearded chins, they turned to the True Liberal Howard Dean, now collecting a comfortable 7 figure salary lobbying for corporations. And then, in a sublime act of inspired genius, they turned to Obama The Great, the unbaggaged, the New Lincoln, the Liberal Savior, the "once in a generation" candidate, who was going to be a game changer, not just Lincoln, but FDR, too! And look at the results they achieved! Why, leftism is sweeping the field, while Democrats dominate the government, and liberal ideas are on the march. Onwards to victory, led by "some on the left," and their wise, informed, reliable, even brilliant, strategizing. They've got us this far, I'm sure that, after more Deep Thinking and chin stroking, they'll find someone about whom they have no misgivings at all. With their record of unerring judgment, I can't wait to see who that person will be.

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    7. All I have to say is it's a good thing Hillary didn't have to cast a vote for or against Obama's new war, or else he and "some people on the left", would never let her let get away with it.

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  2. The Harper's piece is surprisingly weak. Dick Morris should've been listed as co-author. Mostly a rehash.

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    1. The Harper's piece is also behind a subscriber wall, so I have to take you word and Gene Lyons for it unless I fork over some cash

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  3. Interesting that Bob has instituted a comment screen just in time for fundraising.

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    1. That's not true. The comment screen has been here for quite a long time, ever since Bob moved the site to a different provider.

      Too bad that this is the only comment about the main point of the post, though, which is fundraising. I'm a sustaining member of the Howler, and I hope a lot of folks will join me.

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  4. Well, for those of you who don't subscribe to Harper's and can't get beyond the paywall, Henwood takes on Hillary on several policy issues, noting that Chuck Schumer did a lot of the heavy lifting on issues Hillary took full credit for, that Hillary actually championed "welfare reform", that she has been plotting her run for the White House since before Bill was elected, and she had no problem representing the rich against the poor when she worked at the Rose Law Firm.

    Of course, he also mentioned Whitewater, which, of course, was all that Lyons saw, as he took the opportunity to plug his two boringly written books that never sold.

    Like Somerby and Campaign 2000, Lyons is stuck in Whitewater 1998.

    They are like that 45-year-old guy with the pot belly who still wears his high school letter jacket from his senior year, when they won the state championship.

    That was the high points of their lives, back when they were somebody and people told them they were important, and by golly, they ain't about to give it up now.

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    1. If no one cares about this but Somerby and Lyons, why did Henwood mention it?

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    2. Anonymous @ 6:50 did not say no one cares about it but Somerby and Lyons. You did.

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    3. So, Bob is stuck way back in 2000 and Harpers is rehashing something that happened back when Hillary was with the Rose Law firm and was resolved back in the 1990's. Either this stuff is important or it is not important, so stop with the abuse of Bob about the 2000 election unless you stop referencing things that happened before then as somehow relevant.

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    4. I agree 12:41. That is why it is refreshing that Mother Jones and the Washington Post are focusing
      on what Hillary is doing now to line her pockets: giving bland speeches for big fees to the mega rich.

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    5. In other words, she is earning a living. What a terrible person!

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  5. I am very concerned about the lack of comments on the main topic. In fact there seems to be a major drop in the last few days. This does not bode well.

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  6. Keeping History Alive (Balanced Version)

    http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1679_0_scott.pdf

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