David Brock Slams Hillary Smear Job

Late Monday afternoon, Brock published an "open letter to the Penguin Group," publisher of Edward Klein's smear job on Hillary Clinton, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It and How Far She'll Go to Become President."  Here are a couple of exceprts, which pretty much sum up Brock's view of the book:

In light of its false and defamatory charges, many of which are easily discredited, your publication of this book constitutes gross negligence at best.

Throughout his book, Mr. Klein engages in gay-baiting innuendo. One of the most striking examples of such negligence occurs on page 94, where Mr. Klein introduces Nancy Pietrafesa, whose name he misspells throughout, as someone "rumored to be Hillary's lesbian lover." An attorney for Ms. Pietrafesa, a non-public figure, told the New York Post: "These allegations are totally false and unsubstantiated. Klein has apparently done no investigating. This is scurrilous, despicable and politically motivated."

[,,,]

I suppose it is not an accident that the Penguin imprint Sentinel has analogized this book to the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Sen. John Kerry last year. Frankly, the public has had more than its fill of drive-by political character assassinations. I can assure you that if this matter is not redressed satisfactorily, Penguin's actions won't be forgotten as progressives shop for books.

The "reviews" of the book at Amazon.com are also highly revealing.  First and most tellingly, the vast majority of "reviewers" haven't even read the book; they already know what they think about Hillary Clinton and don't need to, obviously.  Second, the reviews are generally either "1"s or "5"s -- the lowest and highest Amazon.com ratings, respectively -- proving once again what a polarizing figure Hillary Clinton has become in this country.  Third, what quickly becomes obvious from reading the reviews is that Klein has nothing interesting or original to say about Hillary Clinton, just rehashed garbage about how she isn't sufficiently feminine, how "ambitious" she is, how she might be a "mannish" lesbian. 

What is this garbage?  In short, I believe it's known as "Modern Day McCarthyism," this time aimed not at "commies," "pinkos" nad "fags," but instead at strong women and "lesbians."  The well-known Democratic blogger Stirling Newberry has an interesting take on what's behind the right wing's Hillaryphobia, in an article entitled "Edward Klyin' and the New Bigotry:"

The Republican Party is the anti-urban party. It has packaged anti-urbanism in a variety of ways over the last 30 years. The most effective was linking crime and the cost of government to african-american poverty. However, with the demographic wave that produced those circumstances ebbing, and with the revival of cities, some new meme for "keep the city folks out" had to be developed. It had to have a large basic constituency, a hard core of ignorance, a reactive emotionalism, a linkage to reactionary religious and social values, as well as a tie to the economics of suburban married existence.

Homosexuality filled this bill neatly. It is irrational, and yet can be cloaked in psuedo-rationality. It is perceived of as a threat to the institutions of marriage and the military, from which the reactionaries draw a great deal of their strength. It is a code word that allows churches to be used to politic. Put a "defense of marriage" act on the ballot, and churches can whip up turn out without expressing opinions on candidates. It is better than abortion, both legally and socially, because it is not seen as a tool of economic and personal autonomy.

In short, it is a perfect meme while it runs.

Aside from being despicable, what I find most striking about the right-wing's "perfect meme" against Hillary Clinton is its political stupidity.  Seriously, if the right wing really believes that Hillary Clinton is as bad as they portray her, wouldn't they want her to be the Democratic nominee in 2008?  I mean, if I were a right winger and believed what I did about Hillary Clinton, I would LOVE to have my candidate run against her in the next election, rather than against someone like Mark Warner, Joe Biden, John Edwards or Wes Clark for instance. 

Of course, I certainly wouldn't want to give right wingers and potential Republican Presidential candidates like George Allen any political advice.  But...aren't you guys (and yes, right wingers are almost all guys) getting your timing a little bit wrong here?  Shouldn't you be waiting until after Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination to smear her?  Don't you think it's kind of stupid to do it now?  Unless, of course, you'd really rather run against Warner/Clark, Clark/Edwards, Biden/Bayh, Warner/Biden or whoever in 2008.  Hey, sounds like a plan to me!

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