Monday, May 1, 2000 (AmpolNS) -- Having read the first couple of chapters of the new book "Truth At Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton" by Susan Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf, I can see that Messrs. Schmidt and Weisskopf are following in the "proud" tradition of Bob Woodward in telling a "story" instead of practicing journalism.
It makes one wonder whether this counter-charge to recent "pro-Clinton" books really belongs more in the category of historical fiction.
This book provides very little information to the reader concerning the foundation for the author's description of the events surrounding those first few days when Linda Tripp came to Ken Starr's OIC. We are just supposed to accept -- on faith -- that they are relating the issues as they actually happened.
The problem with this is that it obscures some very fundamental questions: for example, the authors continually say that Ken Starr and his staff did not know that Linda Tripp was dealing with the Paula Jones team of legal "elves" during the days leading up to President Clinton's deposition.
Yet no attribution is supplied by which we can judge this assertion. In fact, it isn't even made as an assertion so much as it is inserted off-handily in a way as to suggest that the very idea is just to absurd to consider.
Now, a real journalist would have at least included comments like "Ken Starr insists that the OIC did not know of Tripp's prior relationship with the Jones legal team". But the authors don't even give us that courtesy.
Another example: on the night that Monica Lewinsky was waylaid by Ken Starr's men, Linda Tripp's lawyer, James Moody, and one of Jones' elves, George T. Conway III, made a midnight visit to a local Howard Johnson's in order to meet with a couple of representatives from the OIC. At this meeting the OIC lawyers handed over a copy of the Dec. 22nd Tripp tape to Moody (this was the tape that Moody subsequently played for Michael Isikoff and the editors of Newsweek an hour or so later). The existence of this meeting did not become known until the pre-trial hearings for the Maryland wiretapping case against Linda Tripp.
It was a significant piece of information -- because it was one of the clearest pieces of evidence yet that some members of the OIC did know that Linda Tripp was dealing with the Jones legal team (otherwise, why was Conway there?) This could be very damaging for both the OIC and the Jones team if the implications of collusion bore fruit, yet the major media has essentially ignored the significance of this meeting.
Well, that is until Schmidt and Weisskopf "got through with it."
You see, as they relate it, Conway did take Moody to that meeting. But at the last second he held back, literally in the shadows, while Mr. Moody met alone with the OIC representatives.
Why?
Because "he [Mr. Conway] knew how bad it would look if he was there".
Forgetting for the moment how cloak-and-dagger this hiding in the shadows business sounds, the reasonable reader might want to know how is it that the authors know that this is in fact what happened.
It is logical to presume that the only people who would know what actually happened at that meeting are Mr. Moody, Mr. Conway, and the OIC lawyers. Schmidt and Weisskopf fail to tell us how they know that Conway hid in the shadows. They again just assert it as fact with no foundation.
But can we really trust a piece of information that most logically came from people who have a strong incentive NOT to reveal the truth if Mr. Conway DIDN'T hide in the shadows?
These are the kind of muddy waters that are produced by Woodward-style journalism, in which the narrative supersedes attributing facts. It may make for a good read, but is it good journalism?
One final point: the authors, in their attempt to decry the alleged "smears" by Clinton "partisans," practice their own form of smear.
On page 14 they relate an incident in which Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons sent an e-mail to James Carville regarding a rumor about Ken Starr having a paramour of his own. The description provided in this book makes it sound like Mr. Lyons was doing this in order to instigate a smear against Mr. Starr. Unfortunately, even the short extract of the e-mail presented in the book strongly suggests that Mr. Lyons was passing this on as an example of the kind of silly rumors that are par-for-the-course in Arkansas politics.
Would the full context of the e-mail confirm this reading? We don't know -- because the authors again don't give us that courtesy. Was this really an attempt at a smear? Or was Mr. Lyons just pointing out how silly this rumor is BECAUSE it was about Ken Starr? Maybe we are to believe that suggesting Mr. Starr is NOT an adulterer is to be considered a smear?
Finally, in one short paragraph the authors perpetrate a smear against a journalist whose own book ("The Hunting Of The President", written by Lyons with Joe Conason) refutes many of the smear campaigns that have been attempted against the President. Furthermore, said book takes to task several prominent Clinton scandal journalists, including Susan Schmidt, for falling prey to the very same wild rumors Mr. Lyons was discussing in that e-mail.
So Susan Schmidt compounds the smear by not letting the reader know that she has reason to hold a grudge against Mr. Lyons.
This is journalism?
Copyright © 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, American Politics Journal Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN No. 1523-1690
