CLIFF'S NOTES
By Cliff Kincaid

YOU MIGHT THINK THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES, HAVING SUFFERED acutely from the damage to its reputation by Jayson Blair, a young black reporter employed by the Times who had little respect for the truth, would have noticed that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is a lot like Jayson Blair. Her 561-page autobiography, Living History, is loaded with outrageous lies, serious omissions and careless errors. Since the Times devoted over four pages to admitting and correcting the lies and errors of Jayson Blair, why would it publish two reviews of Hillary's book that completely overlooked obvious serious lies and errors of the book by the junior U.S. Senator from New York?

THE TIMES ASSIGNED ITS SUNDAY REVIEW OF LIVING HISTORY TO ITS tart-tongued columnist, Maureen Dowd, who wrote 2,225 words in which she mentions only one of Hillary's many lies without identifying it as such. This is her claim that her role in the Travel Office scandal was limited to "an offhand comment" she had made after hearing about "mismanagement and waste" in the Travel Office and she told chief of staff McLarty that she hoped he would look into it. You will see from the first article in this Report (by Reed Irvine) that she was the driving force behind the firing of the Travel Office staff and the vindictive prosecution of the director, Billy Dale. Dowd, who seems to miss no opportunity to attack President George W. Bush, didn't mention this well-known fact.

DOWD MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN THE DETAILS ABOUT TRAVELGATE, BUT IT SEEMS UNLIKELY that she could have forgotten every one of the many stories, columns and editorials in the New York Times about why Hillary's dear friend, Webster Hubbell, had suddenly tendered his resignation as associate attorney general on March 14,1994. Nor is it likely she forgot the subsequent scandalous arrangements made by the White House to funnel funds into Hubbell's pockets to keep him from succumbing to pressure from Ken Starr to dish up dirt on the Clintons. One of the most unforgettable of these was the lead editorial on April 3, 1997, titled "Welfare for Webster Hubbell." It described the efforts made by Mack McLarty, the White House chief of staff, and other top officials "with the blessing of Hillary Rodham Clinton and possibly the knowledge of President Clinton," to "raise hush money of a kind" for Mr. Hubbell. Dowd should have been reminded of Hillary's penchant for prevarication if she read on p. 266 that Hillary was surprised to hear on the radio on Nov. 24, 1994 that Hubbell was going to be indicted for stealing money from his law firm. Abe Rosenthal pointed out in his column in the Times that it was necessary for the Clintons to insist that they believed Hubbell was innocent of any wrongdoing. Their defense against the charge that they were behind the solicitation of hush money was that they didn't know Hubbell had committed any crime.

THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE FACED INDICTMENT WAS WHAT CAUSED THEM TO DEMAND Hubbell's resignation in March 1994 and the immediate rush to collect hush money. The first $100,000 was obtained in June from the Lippo Group, headed by James Riady. Riady had made several visits to the White House, seeking a big favor for one of his projects. He was cajoled into giving Hubbell $100,000 in a lump sum for some ill-defined services. The Times reported that by the end of the year, Hubbell had raked in more than $400,000. The House Government Reform Committee subsequently said the total exceeded $700,000, in addition to Mrs. Hubbell retaining her well-paid job at the Dept. of Interior. Asked at a news conference on January 28, 1997 about the Riady money, the President denied knowing anything about it until he read about it in the press. He said, "I can't imagine who could have ever arranged to do something improper like that and no one around here know about it." The late Michael Kelly said in his column in the Washington Post, "As for the notion that Clinton did not know what his aides were up to, there is this awkward fact: McLarty, Jordan, Kantor and Bowles were four of the president's closest advisors and most trusted friends. Does anyone believe that, without the president's blessing, they would have undertaken a mission that could expose the president to suspicions of potentially impeachable misconduct?" Hillary shows in her book her satisfaction with the success of this project. She says on p. 391, "Despite prolonged questioning, Kenneth Starr had failed to wrest any damning tidbit from Webb Hubbell, who was serving 18 months in federal prison..." One damning tidbit was recorded in a prison phone call. Under White House pressure he said, "So I need to roll over one more time."

FEW REVIEWS OF HILLARY'S BOOK HAVE DEVOTED ANY SPACE TO EXPOSING HER LIES. The New York Times published a review by Michiko Kakutani, a daily reviewer, on June 10 that was more critical than Maureen Dowd's review. Kakutani listed several omissions and matters that were glossed over in the book, but she made no effort to tell what was wrong with them. She says, for example, that Gennifer Flowers claimed she had a 12-year affair with Bill Clinton, but Hillary said that Bill had told her it wasn't true. The Arkansas state troopers who served Gov. Clinton as bodyguards, chauffeurs, gatekeepers, and procurers of women, have said that they regularly drove him to Gennifer Flowers' apartment, and Gennifer has tapes that indicate the relationship had a long duration. Neither of these two female reviewers mention any of the numerous women with whom Clinton had affairs except for Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. Hillary mentions Paula Corbin Jones, his most costly and least accommodating target. Neither Hillary nor the reviewers discuss Juanita Broaddrick, the nursing home operator who has accused Clinton of raping her when he was attorney general. Mrs. Broaddrick was recently interviewed on TV, and she mentioned Hillary, saying that the one time they met, years after the rape, Hillary gripped her hand and thanked her for all she had done for them. She had not gone public with her story until 1999, 21 years after the incident.

TIME MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EIGHT PAGES OF SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK, ONE page of an interview with Hillary and two pages of a review of the book by Joe Klein. The excerpts include Hillary's claim that persons on the White House staff had "misinterpreted an offhand comment" she had made after learning about "financial mismanagement and waste" in the Travel Office. Klein did not deal with that in his review, which was titled "The Humanity of Hillary." The title reflects Klein's apparent admiration for her standing by her man when she endured "one of the most spectacular spousal humiliations in history." Nine years ago, Joe Klein was inspired by an ad that AIM had placed in the New York Times to give the readers of that paper the facts about the Paula Jones case that the editors had refused to print. He wrote an article for Newsweek titled "The Politics of Promiscuity" in which he argued that "the dishonesty, the lack of principle and steadfastness which characterize the private conduct of the President clearly infects the President's public life, his formulation of policy." That applies to Mrs. Clinton as well. Where was her humanity when she tried to send Billy Dale, the director of the Travel Office, to prison despite the absence of any evidence he had committed a crime?

THE WASHINGTON POST HAD JONATHAN YARDLEY REVIEW THE BOOK TOGETHER WITH A companion volume, The Clinton Wars, by Sidney Blumenthal, a close friend and hatchet man for the Clintons. Yardley, the Post's book critic, concludes his 3,200-word review with a negative assessment of the Clinton administration. He says, "Between the first inauguration and the pardons lay eight years of bumbling, dissembling, concupiscence and amorality. That the American people not merely tolerated this but gave Clinton the benefit of just about every doubt is a sign, perhaps of their capacity for forgiveness, but it is a sign of moral obtuseness as well. These are matters with which Clinton's defenders must contend, but from the two books at hand you'd never know they existed." He points out that the book is "as much campaign document as memoir," designed for the voters both in New York and nationwide. Yardley cites the "circumlocutions and outright lies" of the Clintons but does not describe them in detail. Nevertheless, his review is more helpful to the cause of truth and conservatism than the humorous review by P.J. O'Rourke in the conservative Weekly Standard. His three pages would not encourage anyone to read Hillary's memoir, not that many readers of the Standard would do so. They do nothing to undermine the campaign document by exposing the omissions, circumlocutions and outright lies of the author and her spouse. It is too bad that this opportunity was wasted.