Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee, and the right-wing noise machine has already ramped up its long-running smear campaign against the Clintons, the most vilified and lied about politicians in US history.
The character assassination the Clintons have faced is unique for both the scope and the 30-year duration of the campaign, which started when Bill was governor of Arkansas.
Among the charges fabricated by the so-called “Arkansas Project,” and amplified by the right wing echo chamber, were claims that Bill Clinton was guilty of murder, drug smuggling, arms trafficking, and of fathering a child by a black prostitute. *
Much of the campaign was bankrolled by RIchard Mellon Scaife, a paranoid billionaire who told the now-defunct George magazine that at least 60 people associated with the Clintons had “mysteriously disappeared.”
After the ’94 elections, Clinton became the target of the scorched-earth partisanship of Newt Gingrich, resulting, by some counts, in seventeen congressional investigations.
Then Kenneth Starr was appointed independent counsel and relentlessly pursued Clinton for six years through a chain of phony scandals labeled Whitewater, including Filegate, Chinagate, Travelgate, Troopergate, cattle futures, the Marc Rich pardon and others.
When he came up empty, Starr used the Whitewater mandate to conduct a rolling investigation into Bill Clinton’s sex life, employing dozens of FBI agents, which Starr described in salacious detail in his final report.
Clinton’s lies about his relationship with Monica Lewinski became the basis for impeachment. He was acquitted but cited for contempt of court and paid a $90,000 fine.
The six-year, $80 million dollar witch hunt backfired on Clinton’s leading inquisitors whose hypocrisy was uncovered by the press: Newt Gingrich had adulterous affairs during his first two marriages; his replacement as Speaker, Bob Livingstone, had multiple infidelities and resigned; Henry Hyde, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, admitted to a five-year affair; and Dan Burton, another hardliner, confessed to fathering a child out of wedlock. Subsequently, it turned out that Dennis Hastert was a serial child molester.
Clinton's popularity reached 73 percent and he left office with a 66 percent approval rating, higher than Ronald Reagan’s and the highest since FDR.
Hillary Clinton was not cited for anything.
The manufactured scandals have been used to create an aura of corruption around Hillary, as are “Benghazi” (investigated by eight Congressional committees), and the death of Vince Foster, which Trump called “fishy” (five official investigations concluded it was a suicide, reported the Washington Post).
A recent Harvard/Shorenstein study that showed Hillary's coverage on the issues was by far the most negative of any candidate -- 84% negative, more than twice the negativity of Trump’s coverage. You can see it any day in the right-wing press and on Fox, whose talking heads label Hillary a career criminal, and assert that 150 FBI agents are investigating her while suggesting she is sure to be indicted for something or other.
The latest rap against Clinton is about the use of a private server for unclassified emails. She has said it was a mistake and that she regrets having done it. Several law-enforcement officials told the Wall Street Journal this month that they don’t expect any criminal charges to be filed as a result of the investigation.
For the sake of comparison, there was virtually no reaction to the revelation that 88 Bush administration officials used a private e-mail server at the Republican National Committee for official government communications, according to TIME magazine -- a violation of the Presidential Records Act. AP reported that as many as 22 million emails were deleted from the RNC server.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has acknowledged using a non-State system during his entire time in office. Nobody demanded an investigation of Powell.
After 30 years of hyping Clinton “scandals,” critics cannot point to a single instance of purposeful wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton. As Kevin Drum wrote in Mother Jones, “there's almost literally nothing to any of these ‘scandals;’ we also know exactly how they were deliberately and cynically manufactured at every step along the way.”
Is Hillary trustworthy? Jill Abramson, a former editor of the New York Times, followed Hillary – skeptically -- for thirty years. She concluded in the Guardian that Hillary is basically honest. Kevin Drum, writing in Mother Jones, concluded the same.
Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, is repeating the Big Lie, claiming Hillary belongs in jail.
It is Trump, one of the original “birthers,” who has an honesty problem. As the Washington Post editorialized this month, “Trump Lies and Lies and Lies Again.” Timothy Egan (New York Times) labeled him as “surely the most compulsive liar to seek high office.”
The non-partisan PolitiFact determined that 76 percent of Trump’s statements are lies, and awarded his campaign statements 2015’s Lie of the Year. The Washington Post Fact Checker found that 70% of Trump’s statements that it reviewed are blatant lies.
For the record, 5,000 people have sued Trump for fraud.
Hillary’s real offenses are being a Democrat and a woman.
Sources:
The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton
by Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, 2001
The Clinton Wars, by Sydney Blumenthal, 2003
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, by David Brock, 2002
A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President,
by Jeffrey Toobin, 2012
(A version of this appeared in the Mankato, MN. Free Press June 22.)