Newsreal: The roots of the Clinton smear

Jackson wasn't the only Clinton-phobe to fall in with Case and Nichols. In 1992, Floyd Brown, chairman of the far-right group Citizens United, had the two flown to Washington, D.C., for a meeting in connection with Brown's forthcoming book, "Slick Willie: Why America Cannot Trust Bill Clinton." Besides Case and Nichols, Brown's other main Arkansas source was none other than the racist "Justice Jim" Johnson, who is fulsomely thanked in the preface. Brown's earlier claim to fame was for creating the "Willie Horton" ad that played so pivotal a role in sinking the presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis in 1988. Also present at the Washington meeting was Brown's ace investigator, David Bossie, credited by many for keeping the Whitewater scandal ticking with timely, if one-sided and ultimately inaccurate, leaks to the press. Bossie's headquarters during his expeditions in search of anti-Clinton scuttlebutt was the law office of Clinton's fierce Republican opponent, Sheffield Nelson. Bossie would later work for Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., on the Senate Whitewater committee. That's the same Lauch Faircloth who had lunch with Judge David Sentelle just before Sentelle's panel, in a highly questionable move, appointed Kenneth Starr to replace Robert Fiske as special prosecutor in the Whitewater affair. More recently Bossie transferred his services to the campaign fund-raising probe of ultra-conservative Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. Another attendee at Brown's meeting was Wall Street Journal editorial writer John Fund. A frequent critic of the Clinton administration on TV talk shows, Fund's presence at a meeting of partisan political operatives was nevertheless regarded as highly unusual, if not downright unethical, by many journalists. At the meeting, the indefatigable Arkansans regaled their audience, including Fund, with wild tales of Clinton's perfidy -- his scores of mistresses, his looting of the state treasury, the lot. Case came away with a $65,000 contract from Citizens United in return for agreeing to provide documents and videotapes dealing with the 1985 conviction of Roger Clinton for cocaine distribution. Alas, the deal fell through. Instead of a big payday, Case found himself in a fistfight with Bossie at the Little Rock airport a couple of weeks later. He accused Citizens United of trying to make off with a suitcase filled with his investigative materials without making payment. By late September 1992, with Clinton's victory over George Bush looking more and more certain, Case and Nichols began to worry. What if an angry President Clinton were to exact vengeance upon his Arkansas enemies? In a phone conversation taped by Case, the pair discussed their prospects. "We're the people that when he gets in, he's gonna be pissed at us," Case frets. "And we're the people that if he don't get in by some quirk of fate, we're gonna get blamed for it." Case however, had thought of a backup plan. "What the hell would they do," he asked "if you brought the Republicans in now? What would the Republicans do to you?"

"What the hell can they do? They ain't gonna be in power." "You think you could roll [Arkansas Republican Chairman] Bob Leslie?" "I know I could." "You got a paper trail on everybody?" "Sure do." Nichols proceeded to name as his collaborators in smearing Clinton virtually every name-brand Republican in Arkansas, and claimed to have documentation to prove it. While reluctant to make new enemies, he'd consider turning for the right price. "You'd be amazed at who I've got on that phone," he chortled. "You'd be amazed at the phone numbers on there." Nichols' claims against Republicans, of course, cannot be taken any more seriously than his bizarre charges against President Clinton. But the wild charges against Clinton, which have been bubbling up from the gassy swamps of Arkansas politics for over a decade, continue to pollute the national dialogue, now more strongly than ever. There exists among the mainstream media the notion that a sharp line can be drawn between the Arkansas-based "Clinton-crazies" on the one hand and Clinton's "responsible" critics in Washington on the other. That distinction is much less clear than the media would like to think. Maybe Clinton did indulge in a tragicomic Oval Office tryst with a young intern. He'd be far from the first oversexed politician to be ushered from the stage with his trousers around his knees. But it won't be because a fearless, independent press exposed his shenanigans through vigorous reporting. Instead, the Beltway media have bought the image of Clinton as an out-of-control sex fiend from a bunch of dubious Arkansas characters with dubious motives. Indeed, to many of us homefolks, the single greatest irony of the Clinton presidency has been the export of bare-knuckle, eye-gouging Arkansas political mud-rassling to an unexpectedly gullible national press corps. And we thought we were the hayseeds.

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