Right wing stepping up war on Hillary Clinton (dark days for conservative activists)

Right wing stepping up war on Hillary Clinton
Monday, June 20, 2005
By DICK POLMAN

PHILADELPHIA - These are dark days for the conservative activists who despise Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and they're itching to brighten their mood by taking her down.

Much to their horror, she appears to be shedding her 1990s image as a leftist Lady Macbeth, winning plaudits as a hawkish senator who talks about God and breaking bread with many of the same Republicans who impeached her husband. It's gotten to the point where a Fox News poll last week found that her national favorability rating - 52 percent - matched President Bush's.

This is why the anti-Hillary forces feel compelled to kick into overdrive - before it's too late and the woman is ensconced in the Oval Office.

This explains the current flurry of activity - a slew of fund-raising Web sites that explicitly vow to do to Clinton what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to John Kerry, and heavy promotion, in the Web-based conservative media, of a new book from a major publisher that paints the New York Democrat as a "duplicitous," "ruthless" manipulator who is "widely rumored" to be a lesbian, and whose daughter was allegedly conceived during an act of rape.

In response, the Clinton camp is dismissive. "We don't comment on works of fiction, let alone a book full of blatant fabrications written by someone who writes trash for cash," Philippe Reines, the senator's spokesman, said. But it's noteworthy that Bill Clinton's aides similarly invoked "trash for cash" while he was under fire during the 1992 presidential campaign.

In other words, the Clintons still spark controversy, and, as a presidential candidate, Hillary would find this her greatest potential obstacle. As New York pollster Lee Miringoff asked the other day, "Can she convince skeptical Democrats that she is electable, that she can overcome the anti-Hillary attacks and pick up enough red states to win? Because they won't want to take the risk of coming up short again."

The Hillary bashers intend to sow those doubts. Mike Krempasky, a veteran conservative organizer who trains young activists, said: "The machine is starting to gear up. The main audience will be the people who should be against Hillary but who have been numbed over the past few years by her successful efforts in the Senate to sand down some of her hard edges. Right now, she doesn't attract the broad opposition she used to get - the almost visceral negative reaction."

In a bid to rekindle the old emotions, many bashers are eagerly awaiting Tuesday's release of "The Truth About Hillary," written by Ed Klein, a former New York Times Magazine editor, and published by Sentinel, a division of Penguin that was created two years ago as a home for conservative books. The provocative charges have been reverberating on the Web for weeks.

Former Rep. John LeBoutillier, R-N.Y., a Klein friend and proprietor of a stop-Hillary Web site, said the other day: "The 'new media' is where it's at. In the old days, you'd send out review copies of a book and beg to go on the 'Today' show. But now you can advertise on Web sites and go on talk radio and Fox News Channel. That's where the action is."

Here's a glimpse of the action: Klein's book is being heavily promoted by NewsMax.com, a conservative Web site that, in turn, is partially bankrolled by conservative scion Richard Mellon Scaife, who financed investigations of the Clintons in the 1990s. NewsMax has placed ads for Klein's book on conservative blogs. Meanwhile, the Drudge Report Web site has leaked book passages, which have been repeated on Fox News. And Rush Limbaugh has told radio listeners to expect "some interesting, juicy details."

But there's the hitch: Many Hillary bashers are denouncing the book. They don't buy the charge in it, made by an anonymous source, that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted his wife in Bermuda in 1979, resulting in Chelsea's conception. They don't buy (or care about) its contention that Hillary embraced "the culture of lesbianism" as a student at all-female Wellesley College.

Craig Shirley, a prominent conservative operative who worked with anti-Clinton publishers during the '90s, said: "This stuff is disgusting. It makes your skin crawl. It could backfire and make Hillary a more sympathetic figure. People get squeamish when you start going into somebody's private life, especially when everyone agrees that the Clintons have a wonderful daughter."

Krempasky said: "The last thing we should do is turn her into a victim. I'd rather talk about how she tried to socialize one-seventh of the economy" in the failed 1993 health-care reform plan "than bring up an unseemly allegation from 35 years ago, which can't be accurately sourced, that makes our politics look like 'The Jerry Springer Show.'Ÿ"

Even the conservative New York Post has questioned the alleged lesbianism. Its gossip page, which is generally inhospitable territory for Hillary Clinton, interviewed two Wellesley alumnae whom the book names as "rumored" lovers of the future senator. Both women said Klein never contacted them, and they denied having had any relationship with Clinton. One said, "No one deserves this kind of crap."

Klein isn't speaking publicly until the book is released, but LeBoutillier, a NewsMax pundit who aided Klein's project "from its conception," said the other day: "Ed is not a member of the 'right-wing conspiracy.' People need to read the book first, then decide if it will backfire. There's no evidence or accusations about him playing fast and loose with the truth."

Yet Maura Moynihan, daughter of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., made that accusation back on June 9. Klein writes that sparks flew in 1999 when Pat Moynihan and his wife, Liz, met with Hillary Clinton, who was weighing a bid for the seat he was vacating. In the book, Liz tells Hillary, "Jews don't like you." But Maura, who was also in the room, told a cable-TV show that her mother, whom Klein did not interview, had said no such thing.

Whatever the truth, many Democrats fear that the static generated by a Clinton candidacy could outweigh the benefits. Eric Hauser, a party activist who was press secretary to former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., during the 2000 presidential primaries, said: "There are widespread and legitimate concerns about her ability to win an election. On the other hand, if the right wing gins up its attacks, [moderate] voters may not like that, because they tend to rebel against hysteria. That's what happened during the Republican impeachment drive."

Also, Clinton's penchant for teaming up with conservative Republicans on key issues (health care with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, manufacturing jobs with Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, TV violence with Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas) might pay off politically by showing voters that the dragon-lady image is outdated. In pollster Miringoff's words, "She has had a second chance to make a first impression, and that's hard to do in politics."

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