Washington -- My literary reputation is made! This week in the
New Yorker magazine I am likened to a member of the Communist Party
U.S.A. You might remember that not so many years ago for a writer
or actor to be recognized as an American Communist by the "New
Yorker" was to be recognized as very progressive. If you were a
writer it went without saying that you were an exquisite writer and
probably a humanitarian and advocate of early child schooling. All
that talk about Soviet prison camps and general repression was
presumed to be a lot of anti-Communist hysteria. Communists were
essentially soft-hearted folks or "liberals in a hurry," as the
phrase had it. So now it is official; I am a moral and literary
colossus.
My sudden literary recognition in the venerable "New Yorker"
comes in an adulatory review of David Brock's new book, "Blinded by
the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative." The reviewer is
Hendrik Hertzberg, who rose to literary prominence many years ago
as a poet in President Jimmy Carter's speech-writing stable. Jimmy
is the fellow who campaigned on the slogan, "If I ever lie to you
don't vote for me." He presided over an administration that saw
American international prestige and American economic vitality sink
to a post-World War II nadir while he transformed the presidency
into a soap box. Naturally the American people thought he was lying
and did not vote for him in 1980; electing, instead, Ronald Reagan,
a man whom Hertzberg and the other Carterites will still tell you
was a dreadful failure.
From the literary plateau of the Carter White House Hertzberg
has vaulted from literary Himalaya to literary Himalaya, and now at
the "New Yorker" he is touting Brock as heir to Arthur Koestler,
author of "Darkness at Noon," and a writer in the vanguard of the
anti-Communist literary movements of the 1940s. In our day Brock
himself is in the vanguard of our era's cutting-edge literary
movement. He stands with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose,
Michael Bellesiles, winner of the Bancroft Prize for history, and
-- I would guess -- scores of other writers in employing such
heretofore uncelebrated literary techniques as plagiarism,
fictitious citations, made-up reportage, and bold fraud. Brock's
fraud begins in his book's title, in the phrase "The Conscience of
…." So replete is his book with fabrication that Brock
obviously has no conscience.
Hertzberg, writing in his usual spumoni of confusion, is not all
that clear as to whether it is he or Brock who has likened me to a
Communist, but I am not alone in receiving this gratifying
accolade. His "New Yorker" review likens ALL conservatives and most
Republicans to members of the Communist Party U.S.A. That means
nearly half the citizens of the United States are Communists. Who
says the Cold War is over? We Reds may win yet. "Yuppies, you have
nothing to lose but your chains."
There is more confused writing in Hertzberg's testimonial that
touches upon me personally. For instance he claims that "The
American Spectator's" "Troopergate" story (which along with a "Los
Angeles Times" story quoted Governor Bill Clinton's bodyguards as
having pimped for the Governor) is now "discredited." This weasel
word may mean many things, but "discredited" does not mean refuted.
In fact, Clinton's subsequent behavior has only validated
Troopergate's gravamens that he is a sexual predator and abuser of
power. His perjury, obstruction of justice, contempt of court, and
abuse of the pardoning power came later.
Hertzberg's confusions continue. In the "New Yorker" he seems to
be saying that at "The American Spectator" I commissioned "the
story" that White House deputy counsel, Vincent Foster, "had been
murdered by or at the behest of the Clintons, who were
orchestrating a monstrous cover-up." I never commissioned or
published such a story. The piece is a concoction of Brock's
literary art. Both he and Hertzberg are misrepresenting a 1995
review by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of Independent Counsel Kenneth
Starr's report on Foster's death. Evans-Pritchard's actual piece
concludes thus: "It is not the purpose of this article to explain
what happened to Vincent Foster on July 20, 1993. I do not have any
answers." The American Spectator never claimed Foster was murdered
and eventually lost the financial support of a major donor for
ridiculing a book that argued that Foster was murdered.
Hertzberg, apparently still under Brock's spell, goes on to
repeat Brock's equally fictional claim that the present Solicitor
General of the United States, Ted Olson, wanted the nonexistent
Spectator piece published, telling Brock that the imaginary piece
"was a way of turning up the heat on the administration until
another scandal was shaken loose, which was the Spectator's
mission." Had Hertzberg asked Olson before publishing this
balderdash Olson would have told him as he has said repeatedly of
Brock's claim that as a lawyer it was not his responsibility to
interfere with or second-guess the editorial judgment of the
Spectator's editors.
Now, of course, Brock is a self-confessed liar. In fact, he is a
self-confessed fraud, he boasts of having published fraudulent
claims about Clarence Thomas. He is the first member of this rising
literary movement to draw attention to his arty technique. Perhaps
Hertzberg aspires to become the New Charlatans' Professor Lionel
Trilling. His next rave review will be for Doris Kearns Goodwin,
whose plagiarisms have stirred the country.
topics:
Bill Clinton, Law
