1998 and All That - The Lewinsky affair nailed-at last. - Review - book review

National Review, May 22, 2000 by Jay Nordlinger

'WE'VE been over and over this." That's what George Stephanopoulos would say. That's what any other Clintonite would say. That's what they always say when confronted with inconvenient facts or questions. Stepha nopoulos pioneered this technique in the 1992 campaign, when he tried to make Gennifer Flowers go away. He pretty much succeeded, too. Isn't the public weary of this? he would say. Can't you get on to something else? What are you, some kind of obsessive? A Clinton-hater?

We have, it is true, been "over and over" the Clinton messes, including the Lewinsky affair. But not well enough. The Clinton fog machine belches day and night, trying to obscure what ought to be plain. The president himself revises and spins at every opportunity. He will likely spend the rest of his life beclouding the events of his presidency-portraying himself as the would-be victim of a lawless right-wing cabal. The American Society of Newspaper Editors had a taste of his act at a recent meeting. Clinton put on a remarkable performance, and a typical one. He knows his lines to a T.

"I made a terrible personal mistake. I think I have paid for it. . . . On the impeachment, I am proud of what we did there, because I think we saved the Constitution of the United States. First of all, I had to defeat the Republican revolution in 1994, when they shut down the government, and we beat back the Contract on America. [This is what Clinton and other Democrats call the GOP's "Contract with America."] Then we had to beat it in the impeachment issue. Then we had to beat it when I vetoed the tax cut last year."

And "I am not ashamed of the fact that they impeached me. That was their decision, not mine. And it was wrong. As a matter of law, the Constitution, and history, it was wrong. And I am glad I didn't quit, and I'm glad we fought it. And the American people stuck with me, and I am profoundly grateful." Yes, "I'll deal with impeachment" in the presidential library to be built in Arkansas. "But you have to understand: I consider it one of the major chapters in my defeat of the revolution Mr. Gingrich led, that would have taken this country in a very different direction than it's going today, and also would have changed the Constitution forever, in a way that would have been very destructive to the American people."

The president even had a book recommendation. Two, actually. "If you want to know what's really been going on, you have a good book here, Mr. Toobin's book. You have the Joe Conason and Gene Lyons book, which explains how this all happened."

Say this for Clinton: He clearly knows who his friends are. A Vast Conspiracy by Jeffrey Toobin tells the story of 1998 just the way Clinton likes it. Even better, from the Clintonite point of view, is The Hunting of the President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. It's hard to say who were the greatest Clinton apologists of the entire impeachment drama, but Conason and Lyons would be hard to beat. The work of these two columnists could hardly be distinguished from the machinations of Sidney Blumenthal, one of Clinton's most poisonous aides. In fact, it was, to a large degree, the same work.

So, we have a crying need: for a book that will set the record straight; that will lay out the facts in a sober, unsensational manner, free of cant and spin; that will disperse some of the fog. That book, thankfully, has arrived. It is The Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton by Susan Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf. This is the book that the White House has feared, and will do everything in its power to discredit. It is a blow to Clintonian revisionism, or fictionalizing. It is an antidote to Toobin, Conason, Lyons, and the rest of that claque. Because it is a true book, coming amid a sea of lies, it is a necessary book. Also an enormously gratifying one.

Susan Schmidt is a reporter for the Washington Post, Michael Weisskopf a reporter for Time. They were among the handful of journalists in Washington who went hard after the truth of the Lewinsky story, refusing to be intimidated by the White House or by their skeptical or embarrassed peers. Others in this group included Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, Lisa Myers of NBC, and Jackie Judd of ABC. These reporters were hardly political partisans; chances are, none was a registered Republican. But they were professionals. For their efforts, Blumenthal labeled them "assets of the enemy." The White House constantly railed at them, or whispered about them, tagging them as biased or out of step with their colleagues. (This last bit, sadly, was true.)

The Schmidt/Weisskopf book contains many new details, some of which have received attention in the press. The Starr team came very close to indicting Mrs. Clinton for Whitewater; the death of a key witness, James McDougal, probably saved her. Clinton confessed his guilt to one of his "spiritual advisers" early on-some six months before his partial confession to the public. The Justice Department, represented by Janet Reno and her deputy Eric Holder, joined heartily in the campaign to undermine Starr, a duly appointed law officer of the government; Reno and Holder were no more honest in the Lewinsky matter than they have been in the Elian Gonzalez affair. James Carville taped phone calls from tipsters claiming to have salacious information about Starr and his staff. And so on.