Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve a Free Pass From the Media
David Brock is wrongthe nation and her prospective campaign will be better off if journalists investigate her worst tendencies.
Joe Marquette/Associated Press
The media loves conversion stories. So when David Brock, who once rummaged through Little Rock in pursuit of Bill Clintons dirty laundry, returned to the city yesterday to speak at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, both The New York Timesand Politico took notice. Brock, Politico reported, came to Little Rock to explain his transformation from Clinton-hater to Clinton-defender. But his speech inadvertently did something else. It showed that in his approach to politics, David Brock hasnt changed much at all.
Brocks core argument was that as we approach 2016, mainstream journalists must stay far away from the anti-Clinton attack journalism peddled by the partisan right. In explaining why, Brock cited his own work in the early 1990s for the Richard Mellon Scaife-funded Arkansas Project, in which he dug up a kitchen-sink-full of preposterous allegations, many of which entered mainstream publications, but almost none of which turned out to be true.
Really? Many of the Arkansas Project allegationsthat the Clintons oversaw a cocaine-smuggling ring, that they ordered the murder of Vince Fosterwere of course preposterous. But Brock also uncovered a woman named Paula, who later alleged that while working as an Arkansas state employee, she was escorted by Governor Clintons bodyguard to his hotel room. There, she claims, Clinton exposed himself and demanded sex. When Paula Jones leveled her allegations, mainstream reporters like The Washington Posts Michael Isikoff and The American Lawyers Stuart Taylor did exactly what Brock now says the media should not: They looked into it. And they concluded thatalthough Jones was clearly being used by Clintons political enemiesher story had merit. (If you doubt that, read Taylors summary in Slate of his much-longer American Lawyer investigation into what likely transpired between Clinton and Jones on May 8, 1991. Its horrifying).
Clinton ultimately settled Jones sexual-harassment case for the entire amount she requested. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright found him in civil contempt of court for intentionally false testimony, which led to the suspension of his Arkansas law license. Despite this, Media Matters, the journalism watchdog organization that Brock founded in 2004, after his ideological conversion, still occasionally savages Isikoff and Taylor for the reporting they did.
The lesson for journalists covering 2016, Brock told the Little Rock crowd, is that Clinton-hating had nothing to do with what the Clintons did or did not do. If only it were that simple. The truth is that while conservative outlets like the Scaife-funded American Spectator and the Wall Street Journal editorial page were wildly dishonest in their effort to gin up scandals that would sink Bill Clintons presidency, and although Republicans should, to this day, be ashamed for having tried to impeach him, Clintons behavior wasnt irrelevant. He used the powers of his officeboth as governor and presidentto solicit sex and cover itup. He lied under oath and he urged others to lie. Thats far worse than sexting, which destroyed Anthony Weiners career.
Of course, Bill Clinton wont be on the ballot in 2016. But not everything Clinton-haters said about Hillary was wrong either. Yes, the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons' Arkansas real-estate investmentsto which Senate Republicans devoted 300 hours of committee hearings over 13 monthsturned out to be a colossal waste of time. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, despite being appointed to investigate Whitewater, barely even mentioned it in his final report. Yes, Travelgatein which the first lady influenced the decision to fire seven employees of the White House Travel Officereceived far more attention than it ever deserved. Yes, some of the attacks on her reeked of sexism. Some still do.
But even when it comes to Hillary, its untrue that Clinton-hating had nothing to do with what the Clintons did or did not do. As Carl Bernstein details in his generally positive biography, A Woman in Charge, Clintons us-versus-them approach to politics not only outraged her opponents but alienated some on her ideological side. Had she not overruled advisers David Gergen and George Stephanopoulos, who wanted to release Whitewater-related documents when the press initially requested them, Bernstein suggests, Attorney General Janet Reno might never have appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the matter, which ultimately led to Starr poking into Bill Clintons sex life.
Hillary Clintons suspicions of outsiders also undermined her effort on healthcare. Her health task force, Bernstein notes, operated with military-like secrecy unprecedented for a peacetime domestic program. Xeroxing documents under discussion was not allowed. At many task-force meetings, outsiders were forbidden from even bringing in pens. Controlling the process so tightly not only drove Clintons adversaries wild, it kept her from making the adjustments necessary to win over congressional moderates who might have supported reform.
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