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Bill Safire -- Still a Liar
Isn't it time you resigned from the Pulitzer Committee?

By Mac MacArthur

March 14, 2000 -- Washington, DC (AmpolNS) -- Joe Conason has a piece in Salon today in which he takes GOP whore William Safire to task.

Conason didn't go far enough, I suppose, because Joe is a journalist and I am a commentator.

As for William Safire -- he is a sick old man, so clinging to the past that his mind has been fogged with hoping -- hoping to recapture his glory days when he was prostituting himself for Dick Nixon. One of the most overrated writers in America, Safire enjoys the protection and the newsprint offered him by The New York Times, itself a stealth right wing newspaper now run by Baby Sulzburger much as the Bush family is steered by Baby Bush. Safire, who lies not only about the facts, but about his access to any information at all (he has been cut off by most but the most Naziesque wing of DC blabbermouths), said he would eat humble pie if he was proven wrong about the so-called Filegate, Whitewater and Travelgate scandals -- that were not scandals at all, of course!

Two years ago Safire told us that criminal indictments would soon follow the Starr report of September 1998.

Well?

Where are they, Mr. Liar?

Where are the crimes, Mr. Safire?

There are none. There never were any. And we know you will never admit this -- going to your moldy grave with prevarication on your lips. Safire did the same in early 1997 when he assured us that Starr would present evidence of criminal behavior on the part of the Clintons and their allies re. Whitewater, Travelgate and Filegate. Then Starr tried to flee to "Malibu U" and Safire fell quiet again.

As Conason reminds us, Safire predicted in 1998 that Starr would reach such far-flung conclusions that none of us could imagine. His tune: the government itself could fall. As Safire continued his paid-for assault on the Clintons, he realized that he was beginning to look -- even to the casual reader -- like the idiot he was. He said in the fall of 1998 that Starr might have to let Mrs. Clinton et al off the hook. All the friends of the Clintons that Safire accused openly of a long list of crimes would "...go free" in his sick little mind. Of course, Starr proved Safire a liar during his testimony before Hyde the Hypocrite and the rest of the GOP goon squad now fighting for their political lives in congressional races across the country. Starr told the Committee of Thieves that he had found NO substantial and credible evidence of criminality with regard to the these three scandals - except from Safire, of course, who has the luxury to simply make up stories that will please his GOP whoremasters. Nearly a year and a half later, and after many more false accusations against the Clintons and their aides, Safire continues to enjoy his position at the Times and to lie to the American people.

Safire even predicted that three more forthcoming reports from Independent Counsel Ray's office will "detail tawdry corner-cutting and egregious evasiveness, but not prosecutable crime." What a chuckle -- sure they will. Conason writers: "Rather portentously, [Safire] warns readers once more that 'Hillary Clinton, I presume, will face far greater problems with Travelgate than with Filegate,' while her husband just might be indicted someday next January for lying about Monica Lewinsky. Given his record, Safire is probably wrong about all that, too. But while we're on the topic of 'corner-cutting' and 'evasiveness,' isn't it long past time that Safire answered publicly for his own journalistic misconduct?"

You bet it is -- and the time is at the next directors' meeting of the Pulitzer Committee.

Safire should be asked to resign in disgrace.

He has disgraced the institution with his presence for more than five years and writers everywhere are calling for his head -- at least writers with conscience. Conason writes, "The making of bonehead forecasts is normal practice for pundits of all persuasions, so much so that nobody thinks to hold them accountable. It is a different matter altogether, however, when a columnist on the most influential opinion page in the country repeatedly predicts that people he doesn't like will be indicted and convicted of serious crimes, thereby essentially convicting them in print. "

Safire, over an over again, accused the Clintons -- people he openly loathes -- of crimes, as Conason succinctly points out. Safire predicted that they would be indicted and convicted of serious felonies and in a way lynched them in the print of The New York Times -- still a venerable newspaper, that should also hand Safire his walking papers. Safire, although nothing but a twerp pundit himself, is still perceived as a "great intellectual" with sources few writers enjoy. He has abused his reputation -- if only to take vengeance for his dead brother Nixon. Safire has charged the Clintons and their aides with such offenses as fraud, conspiracy, perjury, witness tampering and obstruction of justice and once hinted they might be guilty of murder.

Safire, for seven years, has written that the Clintons took "graft, plain and simple" in the Whitewater case, and that they "ripped off of the taxpayers." Yet, according to the illustrious firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, Conason goes on to say, "there were no improper advances by Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to the Whitewater group, and all of the company's outstanding loans were repaid. The Clintons lost money on their Whitewater investment and were never shown to have done anything illegal or improper. The project's failure didn't cost taxpayers a single penny."

Conason discusses Safire's "finger[ing]" of Bruce Lindsey, "defaming him as the 'coverup coordinator' and the President's 'notorious consigliere'"; in fact, Safire arguably libeled Bruce Lindsey as a criminal, Safire was nearly beside himself with happiness when he wrote that Lindsey was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in Starr's 1996 trial of two Arkansas bankers who had contributed to Clinton.

Somehow, Safire forgot to mention the outcome of that trial -- both of those men were acquitted.

Safire also libeled Lindsey as the author of the famous "Talking Points," which Conason describes as Safire's "supposed 'smoking gun' in what his column termed a 'corrupt pattern of witness-tampering.'"

Of course that document was produced by Lewinsky as a memorandum of an earlier conversation she had with Linda Tripp -- and author Jack Gillis presents devastating forensic evidence of Tripp's involvement in the crafting of these points. Safire has never apologized to Lindsey, and we are sure the melonhead still believes all he wrote about him. We trust Mr. Lindsey will sue the pants of Safire and the Times in the near future.

Safire then accused Sid Blumenthal of a crime and suggested that he, a top Clinton aide, would be indicted by Starr for something the stupid old man called "conspiracy to defame or defamation of conspiracy -- to obstruct justice."

Blumenthal, it turned out, was NEVER a target of any Starr investigation. But Safire sure targeted him -- because he knew Blumenthal was quite capable of pillorying Safire should he find the time. Of course, Safire has not apologized to Blumenthal either.

Safire's favorite targets, of course, are women -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and, indirectly -- as with all the blood sucking right wing whore writers -- Chelsea Clinton as well. Safire, like the rest of his Clinton-hating brethren, never considered the permanent damage he was doing to the sensitive and loving teenaged daughter of the Clintons.

To quote Conason again: "Safire wrote, in 1996 that the first lady is a 'congenital liar,' and said that her lost-and-found Rose Law Firm billing records would prove 'her involvement in a fraudulent land deal' called Castle Grande."

Conason says that Safire was probably misled by his own sources -- but this is untrue. It's more likely that Safire has no sources -- especially inside the Starr camp -- and never did. Even a man as low as Kenneth Starr knew that Safire was dangerous and could fatally flaw any case Starr might build against the Clintons. In fact, it is my opinion that Safire made up every word of his rants against the Clintons and is hiding behind his undeserved journalistic badge to cover these lies.

Conason: "Hillary Clinton remains unindicted -- except in the minds of Safire and other right-wing conspiracy psychotics who have, sadly, poisoned some public minds with there lies."

Herein lies Safire's true crime: his failure to admit that he is a liar until he is certain that Hillary Clinton is as damaged as possible by his pap and it is too late to undo the damage.

If I were Hillary Clinton, I would sue him now to bring this criminal under public and judicial scrutiny at the earliest possible time.

How are the Clintons able to retrieve their reputations from liar Safire and the rest of his co-liars? These include Brit Hume of Fox News, Robert Novak, Matt Drudge, Lucianne Goldberg, Linda Tripp, Paula Jones, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Tim Russert, Richard Mellon Scaife, Larry Klayman, Kenneth Starr, Henry Hyde and those House Managers who perjured themselves before the United States Senate and the Chief Justice of the United States, as well as the rest of the vampires who made nothing but money through their treachery -- not to the Clintons, but to the nation.

The only way this can happen is that Safire and his friends are "stoned" out of town.

Each should be stripped of their positions, board memberships and reputations. They should be run naked down Constitution Avenue lined with the people, armed with leather straps, stones and clubs -- running a figurative gauntlet of the hatred they falsely sowed for so many years.

Safire, the senile grandfather of them all, should lead the pack to Elba.

For he is as close to a Nazi propagandist as this writer has ever read.