PresswatchlAn Embarrassment of Riches
Corry, John
An Embarrassment of Riches by John Corry T he aftermath of David Brock's story about Bill Clinton was almost as good as the story. The press became nonplussed. How should it react to the portrayal...
...Jones declared...
...Just so, and in the wake of Brock's story the secondary White House hound-dogs went to work, discrediting the opposition while wiping up the mess made by old No...
...Even so skeptical a man as Robert Bartley, the editorial-page editor of the Wall Street Journal, got taken in...
...neither will it do to insist, as great news organizations did, that they were shocked, simply shocked, at the thought of spreading scandalous rumors...
...The media began referring to the Ferguson affidavit, even though, of course, it was the attorney's affidavit and not his,and neither had sworn to anything...
...No respectable news organization has ever shown any interest in Miss Perdue...
...Nonetheless, eight days after the AP story, Goodwin spoke again...
...Putnam's Sons...
...At the same time, the hound-dogs struck gold in the old rutting ground where the mess had begun...
...She also said that, in 1992, she had been threatened with bodily harm if she spoke about it to the press...
...Newsweek, for example, reported that "Danny Ferguson swore in an affidavit that Clinton had never explicitly connected the offer of a federal job to a request for silence...
...For her sake, this is probably just as well...
...A man told her it would be a pity if anything happened to her legs, suggesting someone might break them...
...For Details Call: 1-800-345-TEDS or write BIOETHICS Program/Admissions Trinity Evangelical Divinity School 2065 Half Day Road • Deerfield, IL 60015 The American Spectator March 1994 53 PRESSWATCH (continued from page 53) spreading dirt about the troopers...
...That finished the troopers, of course...
...He began a piece on the op-ed page of the New York Times as follows: When Danny Ferguson denied in an affidavit that President Clinton had offered him and other Arkansas troopers Federal jobs for covering up trysts that occurred when he was Governor, most of us were relieved...
...The hands-on, know-it-all Clinton is at the center of nearly everything that emerges from the executive branch...
...N onetheless, the gambit worked well for the White House...
...Second, more so than in recent administrations, in this White House the man is the policy...
...Billy Goat gamboling through Dogpatch...
...I don't know what the grounds are, if any, for an investigation," he declared...
...Mrs...
...Brock—Am...
...He proceeded to take my hand, pull me over, put his hand—slide it up my leg...
...Meanwhile, Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas, has told the London Sunday Telegraph that she and Clinton once had an affair...
...He told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that stories about the insurance investigation were the result of a "misunderstanding...
...And if even a small portion of Brock's story turns out to be true...
...In Clinton's White House, the character of the top hound-dog greatly determines outcomes that affect the entire nation...
...Before either The American Spectator story or a similar story in the Los Angeles Times appeared, word of their disclosures had gotten around...
...It was really the cheapest of shots...
...Many columnists and commentators picked up on that, never noting that the troopers had spoken to The American Spectator and the Los Angeles Times for free, rather than to a supermarket tabloid that would have paid them real money...
...A "slimy magazine article," chuffed Paul Duke, the ordinarily affable host of PBS's "Washington Week in Review...
...First, true or not, the stories appear to jibe with those parts of his public persona that allowed his down-home ene52 The American Spectator March 1994 mies to dub him Slick Willie...
...They were loathsome, they were liars, they were driven only by greed...
...In a column, he referred to the "affidavit from Trooper Danny Ferguson...
...Jones's news conference was on a Thursday...
...Newsweek concluded its story about the Kelley book this way: "If even a small portion of the material amassed and borrowed here turns out to be true, Ronald Reagan and his wife had to be among the most hypocritical people ever to live in the White House...
...Apple, Jr., the Washington bureau chief of the Times, expressed the official position: "I am not interested in Bill Clinton's sex life as governor of Arkansas...
...marshal...
...To serve his appetite Clinton is said to have falsified records, planned elaborate rendezvous, orchestrated alibis—systematic subterfuge that, if real, is a matter of great public relevance...
...Put aside now the pillorying of David Brock, and remember George Orwell's wise words: "To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle...
...but no matter...
...He told the Los Angeles Times in a taped interview that when Clinton called he had asked him if he was interested in becoming either a regional head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or a U.S...
...Shortly afterwards, he got down to business in his new op-ed page column: "The slightest sighting of female sexuality whips him into a frenzy of misogynist zeal...
...No pond scum there, of course, only good stuff about lesbian affairs, fellatio with Hollywood directors, and dalliance with Frank Sinatra...
...Brown, co-founder of Christian Action Council, and Dr...
...R.W...
...When a lawyer in Arkansas wrote the Journal to correct the mistake, Bartley obligingly ran a copy of the real affidavit on the op-ed page...
...And so on, and so on—"David.Brock's dishonesty announces itself in his very first paragraph," the New Republic's Michael Kinsley said flatly—not to mention the ruminations by Frank Rich...
...Consequently, the larger point of Brock's story was missed, at least by the Times, Newsweek, and almost all the rest of big media...
...Spectator 'journalist' swallows any pond scum that fits his right-wing agenda...
...Apparently, however, only the Los Angeles Times picked up the new story...
...The next day, Charles Peters, the editor of the Washington Monthly, spoke for the press After 21 years of legal abortion, with fetal tissue transplants, RU 486, genetic engineering, cryopreservation, neo-morts, the persistent vegetative state, euthanasia on the horizon, and much more...
...Mrs...
...The former New York Times theater critic warmed up in the Times Sunday magazine by suggesting Brock had "political castration fantasies...
...Then, she said, Ferguson escorted her to Clinton's hotel suite...
...Abuse of office is clearly fair game for inquiry, and offering jobs for bribes is a serious business, A President's capacity for deceit—especially where private edges into public—is not a subject to be brushed off...
...Clinton himself then called Ferguson...
...the Washington Post reported what she said the following Monday, burying it inside the Style section, while suggesting Mrs...
...The only other important thing to know about the aftermath of David Brock's story is that the New York Times has just quietly hired the co-author of the story in the Los Angeles Times...
...Harold O.J...
...Consider what happened to Paula Jones, who was the "Paula" in Brock's story...
...The threat, though, whether real or imagined, almost certainly was not necessary...
...Not to put too fine a point on it, but Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom Watch" made a judgment, too: "D...
...The New York Times put it on page one, and Newsweek gave it its cover...
...The troopers had not cheated...
...Slime and conspiracy aside, though, was it possible Brock had uncovered something substantial...
...I'm certain there are a lot of readers who are interested in that, and there are lots of publications [other than the Times] they can turn to to slake that thirst...
...News organizations that happily disseminated charges of sexual misbehavior against John Tower, Clarence Thomas, Robert Packwood, George Bush, and Nancy Reagan averted their eyes from a story that said Bill Clinton suffered from satyriasis and once used state employees to help him through his affliction...
...It may not have mattered...
...Nigel M. de S. Cameron, author of The New Medicine...
...They have been spreading scandalous rumors for years—usually with glee, and often with ideological malice...
...Indeed, no sooner was the affidavit made public than Ferguson disclaimed what it seemed to say...
...But as for the possibility that the two attempted to defraud an insurance company after an auto accident, "1 don't think we have any choice" but to investigate, Goodwin said...
...Brock's description of the trooper: "tall and trim, with the upright demeanor and closely cropped hair of a military officer...
...This was quite clever...
...When the stories were published, Betsey Wright, the Washington lobbyist who had been Clinton's gubernatorial chief of staff, swooped into Little Rock to lean on Ferguson, too...
...Earn the M.A...
...At first, there was near-silence, but then came terrible screams...
...Therefore, neither was under oath on the matter of Clinton's offer...
...Jones was a mindless bimbo...
...I don't think any criminal law has been violated," state police commander Tommy Goodwin said of the allegations by troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry...
...Even the most respectable news organizations investigated the unfounded rumors that Bush had once had an affair with his secretary...
...Ferguson had not denied anything...
...they were insurance cheats as well as liars...
...Bill Clinton is not George Bush...
...The Nation made a ritual denunciation of Brock ("a discredited reporter") and this magazine ("the liberal-hating American Spectator") but allowed that the sourcing for the story Was better than that found on "respectable front pages, where unnamed officials spin information to serve their own agendas...
...Rich later denied it, but Brock, who is gay, was quite sure he was being "outed...
...Jones also said that before she fled the room, Clinton asked her for "a type of sex" that made her feel "humiliated...
...Apple also explained that "the Times is not a supermarket tabloid," although that may mean only that he has not kept up with the paper's Styles section...
...He is the one deciding where to hold firm and where to cave, which promises to keep and which to discard...
...A nd so it goes, the media in denial, the public in confusion, and, for all anyone knows, Bill Clinton still in heat...
...or M.Div...
...Bush, however, was a Republican...
...At a news conference in Washington in mid-February, she said Trooper Ferguson had approached her while she was working as a hostess at a state-sponsored convention, and said the governor wanted to see her...
...Not to put too fine a point on it, but the story is trash," the columnist Joe Klein wrote in Newsweek...
...All women are the same to Mr...
...Then it pointed out what Johnny Apple and the rest of the Washington press corps were determined to ignore: People can wonder whether a President's infidelity—or that of any political leader—is of concern to anyone outside his or her own family...
...But what is the solid ground here...
...Jones said she immediately told two women colleagues what had happened...
...Occasionally, it did turn up, though, in some unexpected places...
...How should it react to the portrayal of Clinton as Gov...
...degree with an emphasis in bioethics or enroll as a visiting student...
...Rich also wrote that Brock "idolizes" one of the Arkansas state troopers he interviewed for his story, and as proof quoted John Corry is The American Spectator's regular Presswatch columnist and author of the new book, My Times: Adventures in the News Trade (Grosset/G.P...
...What was in front of one's nose in the aftermath of Brock's story was an extraordinary display of hypocrisy...
...Clinton is particularly vulnerable to these kinds of charges for two reasons...
...What was this all about...
...He"—Clinton—"presented himself to me in an unprofessional manner," Mrs...
...Who could possibly believe now what they had said about Clinton...
...Thus Clinton was absolved, but even so the secondary hound-dogs stayed at it, (continued on page 76) Trinity Evangelical Divinity School presents an evangelical program in Bioethics Degree Programs Pursue biblical responses to today's ethical dilemmas...
...An Associated Press story out of Little Rock, picked up by major newspapers and cited on television news broadcasts, said: State police will investigate two troopers for alleged insurance fraud—but won't probe their claims that President Clinton misused his security detail while he was Arkansas Governor...
...What happened then...
...It was a backhanded compliment to Brock, confirming the accuracy of his story, too...
...On the other hand, what did you expect...
...Trinity faculty include Dr...
...he had only authorized his attorney to put out the affidavit...
...corps at large...
...This is a very personal Administration...
...This had been the most troubling element in the stories of sexual scandal in The American Spectator and Los Angeles Times...
...Consider the handling of Kitty Kelley's trashy 1991 book about Nancy Reagan...
...You may choose to believe if you want to that Clinton was not trying to buy him off, but somehow that seems unlikely...
...In fact, she had their affidavits to prove it...
...Brock: terrifying, gutter-tongued sexual omnivores...
...She worked out a deal: Ferguson's attorney issued an affidavit that said his client had authorized him to say that Clinton had "never offered or indicated a willingness to offer any trooper a job in exchange for help in shaping their stories...
...CI 76 The American Spectator March 1994...
...A conspiracy, in my opinion, by right wingers," huffed Jack Nelson, Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times...
...1. One of Brock's sources was Danny Ferguson, an Arkansas state trooper, whom Brock did not quote directly, but who supported the assertion by trooper Roger Perry that Clinton had offered them federal jobs in return for their cooperation in squashing the pending stories...
...The idea that Brock's story could be ignored because it lacked corroboration will not do...
...Mrs...
Vol. 27 • March 1994 • No. 3
