Presswatch: Fortunate Hoax

...It had ordered a large first printing of 9o,000 copies, and even when Hatfield had been exposed as an old felon, it still stood by his work...

...Martin's Press only days before had The online magazine Salon repeated would have been easy...

...He was also A s this is being written, J. H. Hat- Hatfield said, and drove him and his the author of "over half a dozen books," field is nowhere to be found...

...The intended victim in the car bombing had been a witness in the case against him...

...His book shouts fake from its opening pages...

...So, if Hatfield believed that everything he wrote about Bush really happened, and if the publisher believed, or could persuade itself it believed, that Hatfield really believed it, there was no reason to question his book...

...roborated and sourced," and it seemed should we believe you...

...Hatfield was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, although Texas justice was such that he served only five years...

...Fortunate to get him on "Today" and "Good Morning to destroy the message, you had to Son said George W. was arrested for America," and to arrange "interviews with destroy the messenger...

...Moreover, St...

...ings for a man who had the goods on W. St...

...Martin's had promised stop him...

...field was an executive at an investment segment for the "CBS Evening News Actually, that's not a bad question...

...Nonetheless, fair is fair, and as Hatfield told Drudge, the biography, not the biographer, is what matters...

...ing to his publisher, he was a "syndicated columnist," who had written for Texas newspapers and magazines...

...Meanwhile, Fortunate Son has 57 pages of "source notes," and while that may seem substantial, it isn't...

...Best Drudge Report, he was only two days of the biographer instead of the subject of all, before he became a writer, Hatinto his book tour—he had even taped a of the biography...

...Martin's Press had high hopes for Fortunate Son...

...An author's note begins with Hatfield suggesting that Bush was afraid to face him...

...The other big revelation in Fortunate Son is that when Bush was in the National Guard he danced nude in bars, and because you probably do not know about that, here it is now, exactly as Hatfield describes it: "Friday night social at the Officers Club was a big deal," said Colonel Anderson...

...firm that "on several occasions conWith Dan Rather" — when powerful The biography, not the biographer, is ducted business with George W. Bush...

...Presumably it was the firm in which he supposedly had conducted business with Bush...

...Apple...

...One was "author Ruby Jean Jensen," who had given him "wise counsel over the years...

...No, of course not," he said...

...Still, at least some people who helped Hatfield did not fear being identified...

...forces organized a "smear campaign" to what matters, and even a very great liar Hatfield says St...

...It might have been fun watching Sawyer ask Hatfield about that...

...Certainly St...

...Quaint practices like fact-checking could be dispensed with, and editorial oversight could be held to a minimum...

...then, Hatfield said, he, and not George the behest of his father, a compliant Undoubtedly that was true...

...It seems that Bush makes life difficult for "those who cross him...

...There is also, of course, the famous "Afterword" in which he writes about Bush and the cocaine bust, but you probably know about that already: the piece in Salon, and the three unidentified sources who confirmed it...

...Hatfield's opus was fine by them...

...He must put the issue behind him, or it will linger throughout the campaign...

...Two people were injured when the bomb exploded...

...Do I know for a fact that these allegations are true...

...The notes appear to be a list of articles lifted from a "Bush watch" Website onto which the author has added his own touches: "confidential conversations with lawmakers," for example, or "confidential interviews with Bush aides...

...Actually you may wonder if anyone involved with Fortunate Son even bothered to read it...

...As a literary hoaxer, Hatfield was no skilled laborer...

...The cocaine charge may be unsubstantiated, and an old drug bust may be irrelevant, he would write, but politics is a nasty business, and even his friends think Bush should now come clean...

...Bush, became the story, and although judge then expunged his arrest record...

...The Bushes are playing dirty pool...

...But Jensen, like Hatfield, lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, and people who livein Arkansas often talk that way...

...Hatfield, having 58 December r9 9 9 /January 2000 • The American Spectator a fine time, and looking sincere — "Because, ma'am, I have three unimpeachable sources...

...Martin's trade division, told the Times...

...family into hiding...

...Sawyer and Charles Gibson would kick this around later, and wonder if it would be a campaign issue...

...The interviews and described Fortunate Son as "scrupulously the accusation—Salon, in fact, had TV appearances did not take place, but corroborated and sourced," it recalled inspired Hatfield to make it in the first you know what they would have been like it from the bookstores...

...I figured they would send a hit man rather than assassinate his character...

...I was worried something like this would happen," she told Salon...

...But I know the author believes them to be true...

...they knew that "if you wanted may sometimes tell the truth...

...What does that say and while St...

...Getting book-W...

...Hatfield wants you to think it's Colonel Anderson talking, but it's only Hatfield going on by himself...

...Meanwhile the asterisk refers to the footnote in which he cites his source on the nude dancing...

...Martin's let it be known that Fortunate Son had been given a pre-publication "legal reading" not only by its own in-house counsel, but by the Washington law firm Levine, Sullivan & Koch, as well...

...The press place —and so did Drudge, and the sup- if they did: Diane Sawyer, on "Good Mom-harassed him unmercifully after that, posedly more responsible parts of the ingAmerica," and looking eamest—"Other media were eager to follow...

...Tucker was executed by lethal injection in Texas before Hatfield wrote the book...

...Almost overnight cocaine possession in 1972, and that at most major news outlets in the country...

...Standards, of course, are not what they used to be, but even so, Hatfield was breaking new ground...

...It was also discovered that the Texas newspapers and magazines Hatfield supposedly had written for had never heard of him, and that there was no Isaac Asimov award for biography...

...Just before the Dallas Morning News reported on Hatfield's seamy past, Thomas Dunne, the book's editor —Fortunate Son was published under his imprint— explained it to Salon...

...Why senior correspondent...

...Hatfield was a fraud, and a very unattractive one at that...

...Hatfield may believe he interviewed Karla Faye Tucker, and his publisher may believe he believes it, but the rest of us may not...

...Martin's did not identify The author of Fortunate Son is about this country and the real issues," any by title, one of them apparently had sure to turn up again, but for now, he he indignantly asked via Drudge, "when won the "prestigious" Isaac Asimov says, it just isn't worth it...

...Observant readers will notice that the quotes disappear after "crazy...

...Hatfield, however, lets us know that didn't stop him...

...It's Drudge, who once reported that a "well placed source" had said some unidentified Bush advisers were worried that just maybe there might be a photograph of Bush dancing nude...

...Indeed even after the world collapsed around Hatfield, she still defied the W. terror...

...Apparently the lawyers hadfound nothing objectionable...

...The American Spectator • December r999/ January 2000 59...

...You are dealing with people with millions of dollars...

...Everybody got crazy," especially Junior, who, on more than one occasion, stripped off his uniform and danced nude on top of the bar while lip-synching to rowdy George Jones tunes such as "White Lightning...

...At the same time, when real names are cited they're suspect...

...Fortunate journalists have said they could find no JOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's Son, after all, was "scrupulously cor- evidence George Bush used cocaine...

...The Dallas Morning News reported that in 1988 Hatfield had been convicted of hiring a hit man the year before to kill the manager of the Dallas real-estate investment firm where he once worked by planting a bomb in his car...

...Later he pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $22,000 in federal housing funds...

...It may have to do with the water...

...Hundreds" of Bush's old friends and colleagues helped him with his research, he writes, even though many were forced to do it underground...

...The principal source supposedly did this by phone, and so obviously Hatfield could not see him, but he forgot that, and said he kept spitting tobacco juice into a Styrofoam cup...

...There was draft beer, and all the girls from town came in...

...But it did not work out this way, of course...

...In fact, she thanks him for his request for an interview, and says "we appreciate your understanding and your interest in the Governor," but that Bush doesn't have the time...

...We just don't know what to think at this point," Sally Richardson, the president and publisher of St...

...As he told the the media is more obsessed with the life award for outstanding biography...

...As evidence we read the "curt" note he got from a Bush staffer...

...Peter Jennings would report that night on Bush's denial, and the next day the New York Times would have a news analysis by R.W...