| Tyrone Slothrop |
06-22-2005 03:53 PM |
And we are off.....
Look for it in the fiction section, since the author just made shit up to fit his smear job:
- Smears and Lies: Klein on Clinton
by Maura Moynihan
It is sorry proof of the national decline of standards and the perversion of priorities that Senator Hillary Clinton isn’t getting coverage in Vanity Fair magazine—a New York–based publication—for her work in the U.S. Senate. Rather, the magazine’s editors have decided that it is more newsworthy and relevant to excerpt a tawdry new book that hits a new low in Hillary-bashing.
Ed Klein, author of the book in question, The Truth About Hillary, alleges that New York’s late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan "despised" Mrs. Clinton, that he once hid in a cloakroom to terminate a conversation with her. Nonsense. I think I know Senator Moynihan better than Mr. Klein, because he was my father. Mr. Klein also claims firsthand knowledge of a meeting between my parents and Mrs. Clinton that took place in their apartment in Washington. It was during this meeting that Mrs. Clinton, then the nation’s First Lady, discussed the idea of running for the seat my father was about to vacate.
Mr. Klein puts quotes around statements that were never uttered. I can confirm this because the only other persons present during this meeting were myself and our Tibetan cook, who speaks about 10 words of English. Mr. Klein has now gone on the record to say that he spent "several hours interviewing Mrs. Moynihan." Puzzling indeed, in that Mrs. Moynihan—my mother—hasn’t seen Mr. Klein in over 20 years. I’d like to see the transcripts or hear the tapes of his on-the-record talks with Mrs. Moynihan. And it would have been difficult for him to interview Senator Moynihan, because he’s dead.
Mr. Klein has an established record of slandering Democrats and using dead people as sources: Remember his book about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette—New Yorkers and private citizens—also excerpted in Vanity Fair? If Mrs. Clinton were merely a movie star, one could shrug off the Klein book as tabloid trash, but she is the junior Senator from New York and former First Lady of the United States of America. So when national publications offer legitimacy to smear artists who attack our elected officials, the consequences are real, as it further degrades the profession of journalism and injures our public servants and the institutions they serve.
Mr. Klein’s mission here isn’t "reporting"; it’s an attempt to sever Senator Clinton from her predecessor and colleague, Senator Moynihan, and to delegitimize her political career. The book also is a swipe at our deceased senior Senator. Daniel Patrick Moynihan worked with thousands of people in his 50-year career in public service—in academia, diplomacy, the Congress, journalism—who can attest to his extraordinarily high ethical standards, his respect for protocol, his disdain for the low blow. Senator Robert Dole wrote: "Pat Moynihan never had an unkind word about any of his colleagues on either side of the aisle. In Washington that says enough about his remarkable character." If Senator Moynihan had a problem with you, he said it to your face. His few disagreements with the Clintons were always about policy and are clearly stated in the Congressional Record for the world to see. As for the claim that Senator Moynihan "despised" Mrs. Clinton, to my knowledge the only person my father actively despised was Josef Stalin.
As Mr. Klein wrote this book with a specific agenda, he failed to research the friendship and intellectual discourse sustained by my father and Mrs. Clinton for over a decade. In the early 1990’s, Senator Moynihan asked to read Mrs. Clinton’s Wellesley senior thesis about Saul Alinsky and gave her an A. President Clinton honored Senator Moynihan with the Medal of Freedom. We dined at the Clinton White House regularly and stood side by side with the Clintons when the First Lady was elected to the Senate in 2000. None of this is reported in Vanity Fair, because it doesn’t fit the program.
As Senator Moynihan famously said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts." New Yorkers are weary of the incessant Clinton-bashing that the national media seemingly never tires of. We have seen Senator Clinton become a powerful legislator, orator and advocate for New York. She travels from Buffalo to Montauk, listening to her constituents, and then she goes back to Washington to fight for them.
She has endured years of personal attacks on herself and her family, and has somehow managed to bear herself with dignity and grace throughout. A lesser person would have abandoned politics and retired to the Gulf of Siam years ago. Fabricating stories about Mrs. Clinton’s relationship with Senator Moynihan is an offense to New Yorkers, an insult to my deceased father and a sad commentary on the state of "journalism." Let the woman do her work, for God’s sake, and if you want to know what Senator Moynihan said or thought about anything, visit his papers in the Library of Congress.
NY Observer
(link will work this week only) |
