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 o
get a sense of the magnitude of Sidney Blumenthal's humiliation
at the hands of Matt Drudge and his puckish
counsel, Manny
Klausner, you have to remember how most of the deep thinkers had
immediately left Drudge for dead. The Blumenthals unleashed their
righteous indignation from the lofty reaches of their White House
offices, launching subpoenas with gay abandon, threatening Drudge
and his friends with quick and violent decimation. They picked their
lawyer carefully, a pompous bully named McDaniel, once of the great
Williams & Connelly juggernaut in Washington, now relocated
a few miles away in Baltimore. Their public posture and their private
threats suggested a confidence verging on certainty, and when their
intended victims asked for common decency or normal good faith,
they responded with the backs of their hands.
When my wife
Barbara and I were summoned to testify, we asked that the session
be open to the press (the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern).
No way. We asked if a pool reporter could attend. Forget it. How
about our children? Nyet.
Once in reach
of their preposterous questions, we were asked to identify any and
all members of the press (the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern)
with whom we had discussed the Sidney matter. Virtually all of them
were subsequently subpoenaed for interrogation. It was a farcical
replay of Sidney's cameo appearance on the steps of Kenneth Starr's
courthouse, when he lied to the assembled journalists, accusing
Starr's prosecutors of asking him about his contacts with the press
(then, as always, the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern).
The suit against
Drudge was never about "damage" to the Blumenthals' reputation;
the accusation that Sidney beat his wife was quickly withdrawn,
accompanied by a full apology (a lot better than most public figures
get under like circumstances). The Blumenthal/Drudge skirmish was
part of the Clinton campaign to intimidate administration critics
by any and all means. It goes under the name of the politics of
personal destruction.
That Blumenthal
despised the very idea of a free press was clear from the outset,
and became clearer still as the case dragged on. When we had the
audacity to post our depositions on the Internet, Blumenthal was
outraged, and demanded that the judge put a stop to such outrageous
behavior. Imagine! Someone had the gall to actually provide the
public with something they had every right to know.
In addition
to trying to frighten the opponents of his administration, Blumenthal
had other, more esoteric objectives. Along with Hillary Clinton,
Sidney seems to be one of the handful of true believers who actually
embraced the notion of the "vast right-wing conspiracy,"
and he no doubt hoped that he would be able to document its wicked
ways once he got its chief practitioners on the witness stand, all
sworn to tell the truth. Thus, the repeated questions about people
with whom we spoke. Thus, the widening circle of subpoenas. Even
as he fades away in the direction of a softly padded room, Sidney
insists he was done in by a conspiracy: There were just too many
people prepared to finance Drudge's defense.
Sidney's bad
joke has now ended, and we will now have to wait for his White House
memoirs to see his manic vision in full detail. Not to worry, we
can bear the delay. For now, we can revel in the refreshing spectacle
of the full exposure of yet another factotum of the Clinton era.
The ill-considered pardons punctured Bill's balloon; Sidney's retreat
collapsed his.
But that is
not the end of the story, for we must still deal with the alleged
object of Blumenthal's concern: the press. Precious few journalists
had the stomach to write the obvious truth about this sorry matter,
and some very illustrious defenders of the press (Floyd Abrams,
to name one) proclaimed the suit a noble cause, and Drudge a worthy
target. That is no small matter, because it shows once again that
a large part of the press is so thoroughly politicized (or, if you
prefer, intimidated), that suppression of the truth is accepted
as an ordinary occurrence.
So let us toast
two unconventional, and precious characters: Matt Drudge and Manny
Klausner. Unwilling to be cowed, patient to a fault, full of good
grace and good humor, they live to fight another day. For which
we are most grateful.
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