Untrue lies

GOP propagandist Matthew Continetti (previously known as one of the Republican party's more notorious chickenhawks), has delivered another story slamming Hillary Clinton over the business mentioned in our last post. This article, published in the Washington Free Beacon (which Continetti edits), commits libel in its first paragraph, though not against Hillary. See if you can spot it:

The facts are these. In 1975, before she married Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham defended a child rapist in Arkansas court. She was not a public defender. No one ordered her to take the case. An ambitious young lawyer, she was asked by a friend if she would represent the accused, and she agreed. And her defense was successful. Attacking the credibility of the 12-year-old victim on the one hand, and questioning the chain of evidence on another, Clinton got a plea-bargain for her client. He served ten months in prison, and died in 1992.

Since the man in question, Thomas Taylor, was never convicted of raping a child, this story is a libel. Of course, the Washington Free Beacon will never have to defend this article in court, since Taylor is dead. Continetti knows full well that any lawyer would have advised him not to published those words if Taylor still lived. A willingness to libel the dead in order to slam a political foe demonstrates that Continetti has a seriously defective set of scruples.

Every accused criminal deserves representation, and (arguably) every accused criminal deserves better representation than what he or she usually get from the public defender's office. There remains the distinct possibility that the case was adjudicated with perfect fairness. I see no reason not to accept the idea that the accused was guilty of unlawful fondling (to which he stipulated, and for which he did time) and that the accuser hyperbolized the act into rape.

Such things do happen. Not long ago, I saw an underaged girl on the Dr. Phil show lying her head off about rape. I wrote about the matter here.

In the affidavit, Clinton wrote:

"I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing"and that "she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way."

No More Mr. Nice Blog responds:

My guess is that Hillary wasn't lying; I suspect she had "been informed" of this -- by her client (or by another man who was involved in the incident and was never tried). This is just what a child rapist (or any rapist or abuser) who thinks he might get away with it would say.

That's an unwarranted presumption. Having read the paperwork, I think it possible that Hillary's information came from one of the investigating officers or from several listed potential witnesses in the case.

Like it or not, the point Hillary makes in her next paragraph is quite true:

I have been told by an expert in child psychology that children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents with disorganized families, such as the complainent's, are even more prone to such behavior.

Female are not holy; they are human. Thus, females are just as likely as males to be dishonest or unstable. Females (of all ages) have made false charges of rape: See here and here. I've written at length about this phenomenon, most notably here. Why should rape be the one crime in which accusation = proof?

As for Hillary's point about child psychology, it is seconded by the professional who delivered the presentation transcribed here.

Pre-Adolescence and Early Adolescence 11 – 14 y/o

Preadolescents and early adolescent children are again in a developmental emotional storm, often impairing their perception and cognitive capacity. They may be histrionic in both daily life and in their remembrance of it. They may exaggerate or they may be stoic, isolate from affect and be very defended and minimize events.

The doctor who gave that presentation, Mark Blotcky, has a lot of good suggestions regarding the conduct of "neutral" interviews of children and adolescents. The important point is for the interviewer to say nothing that might encourage the interview subject to exaggerate. Were these procedures in place in 1975?

If Hillary's case was weak, then why was she so determined to have evidence examined by someone who was then the world's foremost expert in blood evidence? That's not a tactic one would expect from someone who was utterly cynical about her client.

The library conspiracy: In the meantime, the right-wingers -- ever eager to portray themselves as the struggling, oppressed underdogs -- concocted a story in which Our Evil Clintonian Overlords barred them from accessing damning library materials. The truth is here.

By now, most people have learned how these things work: Whenever the right-wing propaganda machine whips up a yarn in which the right is assigned the "struggling, oppressed underdog" position, we need merely wait a day or two. The truth will come out.

I spend a lot of time slamming the Dems (see the preceding post), but it remains the case that the right always lies. Always.

(I'll be very amused if some right-winger accuses me of being a hired flack for Our Evil Clintonian Overlords. Again, see the preceding Cannonfire post.)