Smear and fear

In 1992, while researching a planned expose of governor Bill Clinton's ties to the now-notorious drug operation at the Mena airport, I called up prosecutor Charles Black. He told me that, to the best of his knowledge, Clinton had no such ties. Black had amassed a massive amount of evidence on the Mena case, all of which was kept out of the carefully-managed federal (repeat: federal, as in Poppy's DOJ) prosecution of Barry Seal, and none of which implicated Clinton.

Where had I heard those untrue tales about candidate Clinton? From a strange young fellow in Arkansas who claimed association with the Christic Institute. Back then (as later became clear), a whole team of disinformers bandied about the Christic name in order to seed the left with rightist fabrications.

So, there it was -- a smear against the leading Dem candidate. Why didn't I write about it? Because I was a Bob Kerrey kind-o-guy, and thus felt unmotivated to defend a candidate I didn't really like.

After Clinton became president, the smears continued, on both the right and left. Every day, we heard new garbage about the "murder" of Vince Foster, the "flamethrowers" at Waco, the "assassination" of Ron Brown, Whitewater, travelgate, and so on. The progs embraced John Cummings' horseshitty Compromised as though Metatron himself had dictated it. Pacifica radio circulated the insane rumor that Clinton was prepping the way for a "Soviet" invasion in freaking 1994. ("Linda Thompson says that Spetsnaz troops are gathering at the Mexican border!" I heard those very words from a KPFK-addicted lefty, sweartagod.) Anyone demanding higher standards of proof risked the "Clinton-lover" accusation, which was akin to being called a "nigger-lover" in the old South.

The most annoying aspect of the smear campaign was the smearers' arrogant faux-hip attitude: "Oh, you just know that Clinton ordered the Casolaro hit." No (I would answer), I know no such thing. The faux-hipster would tsk and shake his head at such ingenuousness. Anyone who refused to accept badly-sourced conspiracy allegations at face value was considered naive.

Until the impeachment debacle, until Ken Starr revealed his full monstrous colors, many rational folk refused to denounce these smears, in print or in private. "Clinton-lover!" Yow. Ye gods. Who wanted to be called that?

Instead, I considered hopping aboard the gravy train by producing the smeariest smear-book in smeardom -- Red Phoenix Rising: Bill Clinton and the Illuminati. I actually wrote a few chapters of that lost masterpiece of pseudo-scholarship. (Sample sentence, from memory: "Adam Weishaupt was a believer in Deism, i.e., the worship of demons." This dubious allegation was "proven" with a footnote to an obscure 18th century text that no-one would ever dig up.) The grand finale of the projected volume was to be an eye-witness account of Bill giving Chelsea her annual birthday rape in the basement of the freemasonic monument in Alexandria, Virginia.

Top that, Paul Krassner.

But that project began to sicken me, as did all of politics, left and right. I got out and stayed out until 2004.

Cut to: 2008. What's past is present.

Frankly, I hate visiting political websites these days. TPM, DU, Kos -- they're all repeating the same crap about That Fiend Hillary. Progs (not wingnuts) are repeating all the old rightist lies -- Vince Foster! Waco! Travelgate! Mena! Whitewater! -- as well as a whole rafter of new fibs, the most sickening of which is the Hillary-the-racist meme.

Drudge prints a shot of Obama (on a foreign visit) wearing middle eastern costume, and then says that he got the photo from Team Hillary. Y'see, Hillary Clinton is the one spreading that vile Obama-the-Muslim smear. Team Hillary says otherwise, of course. They deny being Drudge's source.

Guess what? The fucking asshole progs actually believe that Matt Drudge, Man of a Thousand Lies, now possesses greater credibility than does Clinton. Meanwhile, the Rovian hordes get a two-fer, smearing Barack and Hillary.

Or take the NAFTA flap.

Obama disses NAFTA in public, then sends his key economic aide Austen Goolsbee -- a Chicago-school Friedmanite and a staunch free-trader -- over to the Canuck consulate in Chicago to assure our northern friends that Obama really doesn't mean it. When the story comes out, Goolsbee sputters that he has no link to the Obama campaign, which happens to be an utter lie. Then he admits that, yes, he did speak to the Canadians, a bit, sort of, but the chat doesn't really count because it was all off the record.

Like, duh. "Off the record" is how such things are always done.

Then came this story -- which the fucking asshole progs and the Obamabots scrambled after as though it were a C-note caught in a draft. In prog-vision, this story offered proof that Clinton, not Obama, had offered a "wink wink" on NAFTA to Ian Brodie, the chief of staff to Canadian PM Harper.

That bitch! That fiend...! How dare she blame Saint Obama for her own sin!

But...did she? Even though you have already read the passage quoted below, I ask you to read the words again -- this time critically.

First, a little scene setting. The article tells us that on February 26, Canadian reporters swirled around Ian Brodie while he was in a train station. They asked him about the Democratic candidates' apparent unease with NAFTA. Brodie told them not to worry:

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room. "He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt... That someone called us and told us not to worry."

And that's it, my friends. "One source in the room." That's the evidence against Clinton. An anonymous allegation printed in a right-wing Canadian newspaper.

If Brodie really did say such a thing about Clinton, what stops the source (or the implied multiple sources) from going on the record? Nothing.

Gee...anything about this allegation remind you of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, circa 1995? Now let's read further:

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

They said that Mr. Brodie sought to allay concerns about the impact of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's assertion that they would re-negotiate NAFTA if elected. But they did say that Mr. Brodie had no recollection of discussing any specific candidate — either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

Yes, welcome to the wonderful world of ten years ago, when major newspapers printed whispers and rumors.

In this case, we have no proof that anyone from Team Clinton spoke to anyone on Team Brodie about NAFTA. We do know that Goolsbee of Team Obama did do something of that sort, and that, when caught, he tried to fib his way out of it. (For some reason, Goolsbee's DLC credentials don't bother progs, who normally consider the DLC Hell's antechamber.) The best evidence of what really went on remains this story:

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton never gave Canada any secret assurances about the future of NAFTA such as those allegedly offered by Barack Obama's campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office said Friday.

The "evidence" against Hillary on this issue is thus even thinner than the "evidence" that Obama is a gay he-ho. At least the source for that silly yarn was willing to sign his name to it -- even if he can't pass a lie detector test.

But, say the progs, we know that Clinton lied about supporting NAFTA! Actually, we know that she has always disagreed with her husband on free trade. We know that Robert Reich -- a vociferous NAFTA proponent back in the day -- is now an Obama advisor. (Reich now condemns the agreement. Obamafolk are allowed to change their minds; Hillaryites receive no such permission.)

Will Hillary give scathing speeches condemning NAFTA? No, she will make nuanced pronouncements. For good reasons:

1. Trade with Mexico and Canada is hardly the problem; the real issue is trade with China, India and other points east.

2. With the stock market plummeting, any candidate of any party would be an idiot if he or she convinced America's CEOs that the costs of production will soon skyrocket. Yes, America must ease away from "free trade" fundamentalism -- dare I say, from Goolsbee-ism? -- but in a time of economic peril, the nation must proceed with extreme caution and guarded language.

Not that you can explain such things to progs. To them, "guarded language" is tantamount to treason.

The larger question is this: Why is Obama allowed to remake himself, while Clinton is not?

On the Iraq resolution, progs speak as though Hillary single-handedly started the war. The resolution authorizing military force in 2002 did so only if inspectors were not allowed into Iraq. But inspectors did enter.

Did the Savior From Illinois, who bleats about having opposed the war from the beginning, ever say before 2005 that the whole operation was illegal? To the contrary.

Check out Obama's over-rated speech before the Democratic National Convention in 2004. (Here and here.) Watching the speech again reminded me of why I got an iffy feeling about the guy, even as everyone else got all warm and fuzzy. On that occasion, here was Obama on Iraq:

When we send out young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers, or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to NEVER, EVER, GO TO WAR WITHOUT ENOUGH TROOPS TO WIN THE WAR, SECURE THE PEACE, AND EARN THE RESPECT OF THE WORLD!

When I first heard these words in 2004, my mind flashed on an image from "what if" history. How would you feel if, in 1944, General Stauffenberg told his pals that Hitler's big mistake was not sending enough guys into the USSR? How would you feel about an American schoolteacher who said that Hitler should have sent more troops into Russia?

The day after he made that speech, Obama told reporters that the United States had an "absolute obligation" to remain in Iraq and to prevail.

A hateful sentiment? It may seem so in retrospect, but we must point out that lots of Dems bought (and still buy) into the "We broke it; we bought it" argument. Al Franken, as I recall, has made similar statements. Still, Obama supported the war as late as 2005, well after the thing had devolved into a hopeless mire, well after we started to learn the truth about the Niger forgeries, the aluminum tubes, and all the other neocon fibs.

In 2002, when Hillary cast that vote, matters were very different. The disinfo had yet to be exposed, W had yet to demonstrate the full depths of his penchance for fraudulence, and the "experts" in the intel community had sent decidedly mixed signals. Back then, who the hell knew the truth about Doug Feith and the OSP...?

By the way, at that very same convention in 2004, eeeeevil Bill Clinton forthrightly attacked Bush for "attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors had finished their work." Yes, Bill said that. Bill pointed out that Bush had broken the terms of the Iraq resolution. Barack did not. Barack sent the message 'We need more troops.'

DUmmies and Kossacks truly believe that Hillary wants to continue the war, even though her record is clear. She has voted in favor of (vetoed) bills that would have mandated withdrawals. She has said "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will."

Of course, progs and wingnuts will continue to believe in their preferred fantasies.

And yet, in the end, the truth is -- I don't like Hillary Clinton.

Many previous blog posts will prove the point. Even though she would probably make a good president, the woman has always rubbed me the wrong way. You know who got my vote in the California primary.

But. A smear is a smear. I've been down this road before -- and this time, I am determined to do the right thing.

I now despise myself for my cowardly refusal to decry the smears against Bill Clinton in 1992. Yeah, Bob Kerrey was my guy -- but should that preference have impacted my willingness to stand up for what was right?

Similarly, I loathe myself for my cowardly refusal to do whatever small thing I could to combat the anti-Clinton lies we heard so often throughout the 1990s. My craven stance ended only when the nation had soured on Ken Starr's excesses.

Today, I'm not so much bolder as older. Age has one virtue: You stop giving a crap about what other people think. So if reductionist progs want to call me a Clinton-lover, fine. You do that. I'm still going to decry the smears directed against Hillary Clinton.

I'll also decry the lies against Obama. Have done; will continue to do so.

In fact, I'm even going to expose lies against McCain.

Them's my apples. How do ya like 'em?