Lying? It's OK
...if you're a Republican (or a Clinton accuser)!
by Tamara Baker

June 27, 2004 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (apj.us) -- These days, you almost can't turn on a TV without hearing one or another discredited Clinton enemy, pissed off at how well his book is selling and whining about how "He's still lying!" (EDITORS' NOTE: Both Robert Novak and Kate O'Beirne did just that last night on CNN's "The Craptacular..." ahem, "The Capitol Gang" -- and neither of them cited an example, probably because they haven't read the book.)

What the TV won't tell you, of course, is that every single one of these people is a much bigger liar than Bill Clinton could ever be.

Here's a little refresher course -- and do feel free to print this out and keep it ready, in case you catch any of these folks on a call-in show:

Gennifer Flowers: Cripes, where do we start?! Fortunately, Bob Somerby has done the grunt work for me . Among the Gennifer lies he's managed to pack into one small web page:

-- She claimed she was Miss Teenage America in 1967. No, she wasn't. Ever.
-- She claimed to have attended a fashionable Dallas prep school. No, she didn't.
-- She claimed to have earned a nursing degree from the University of Arkansas. Uh-uh.
-- She claimed to have a twin sister named Genevieve. No, she doesn't.
-- She claimed to have once been the opening act for Rich Little. Nope.
-- She claimed to have been kidnapped, as a way to excuse her two-week absence without leave from her job on the TV show Hee Haw. In reality, she had spent the entire time with a man she'd met at a Las Vegas casino.
-- She said that her "twelve-year affair" with Bill Clinton started in the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock in 1979. Trouble is, the hotel didn't exist until 1982.

(To be scrupulously fair -- something that Flowers and her media allies are not -- Clinton admits to having met her at least once. But this obviously was not the long-term relationship Flowers keeps saying it was.)

Paula Corbin Jones: Ah, yes. She of the ever-changing lawsuit -- and the Republican operative husband, who is now her ex-husband.

Steven Jones was the mastermind behind Paula's lawsuit. If you remember, it was originally about the alleged loss of her good name, due to David Brock's "Troopergate" story in American Spectator, the Scaife-propped-up conservative mag that for most of the 1990s existed mainly to further the aims of the "Arkansas Project", the giant smear operation launched against Clinton by the conservative movement. Brock's article had alleged that a woman named "Paula" had met Clinton at an Arkansas hotel in May of 1991. When asked about this, Clinton denied that this had ever happened.

When intelligent people started asking her why she was suing Clinton instead of Brock, the troopers or the American Spectator, she suddenly changed her lawsuit to claim sexual harrassment on Clinton's part. However, her story was so shaky -- and kept changing so often -- that the case never made it to trial.

One key problem: Clinton was not in the hotel when Jones said he was -- in fact, he was standing on the lawn of the Governor's Mansion, in the midst of a well-attended public function. Oooops!

Eventually, Clinton paid Jones' lawyers (who by then were themselves sick of Jones and her husband) a sizable sum just to make sure it would be settled for good. Steven Jones divorced Paula soon thereafter.

As for David Brock, he has repented of his deceitful ways. He is now on record, in his book Blinded by the Right, as saying that the Jones case was bogus from the get-go.

Kathleen Willey: Here is a woman who lied about so much, and lied so badly, that she violated the terms of her immunity agreement with the OIC. But Ken Starr, the OIC's head, wanted Clinton's head on a platter so badly that, instead of punishing or jailing Willey, he merely gave her another immunity agreement. And Starr's gambit might have worked, too, if it wasn't for the brave stand of a woman -- and a registered Republican, at that! -- named Julie Hiatt Steele, an acquaintance of Willey's. Ms. Steele's refusal to lie for Ken Starr cost her a good job, her home, and her life savings. Starr even tried to look into Julie's adoption of a Romanian child, apparently to see if he could take her child away from her. But still, she stood firm.

But it's not just Clinton accusers who have shaky relationships with the truth.

Consider this report concerning an interview given George W. Bush by Carole Coleman for the Irish network RTE (thanks again go to Atrios for spotting this):

THE White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy
in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview
with US President George Bush.

And it is believed the President's staff have now withdrawn
from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to
RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.

It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign
Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for
11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as
interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be
available.

The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House
told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecess-
arily and was disrespectful.

She also received a call from the White House in which she was
admonished for her tone.

And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to
Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a
question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the
G8 summit.

But guess what? According to Ms. Coleman -- and again, thanks to Atrios for transcribing:

"The policy of the White House is that you submit your
questions in advance, so they had my questions for about three
days."

Now isn't that interesting?

They knew, three days in advance, what she was going to say. So why throw the hissy fit now?

And why isn't the US media mentioning this? Could it be that they don't want it noised about that they are never allowed to ask Bush any questions that haven't been pre-vetted, examined, and masticated to death by Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, and/or their flunkies? Or does the three-day advance period only exist for nosy foreign journos who aren't as utterly cowed as is the American corporate press?

So, once again, as far as the American GOP/Media's concerned, lying's OK -- if you're a Republican or a Clinton accuser.