By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 6.27.02 @ 12:03AM
It's all about right-wing conspiracies and some horrifying conservatives.
Washington -- It is summer reading time, and I have a perfect
book for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to bring to Martha's
Vineyard, that posh Massachusetts resort where she and husband Bill
always find a nice captain of industry to loan them a cottage with
servants and golf clubs. The book is a modern French masterpiece,
L'Effroyable Imposture, by France's next Jean-Paul Sartre,
M. Thierry Meyssan, a sleepy-eyed moderate leftist, whose title,
translated into English, reads "The Horrifying Fraud."
It is not a book about the Clintons. Rather it is a book about a
topic Hillary herself introduced to America, the topic of
"right-wing conspiracy." When first she mentioned that a conspiracy
of conservatives was behind her husband's numerous scrapes with the
law and with scandal in general, the press was dubious and the
public bemused. Then gradual repetition of the conspiracy theory
began to take hold. Columnists discovered that Linda Tripp had been
a Republican, that Lucianne Goldberg once worked somehow for
Richard Nixon, that Kathleen Willey and Paula Corbin Jones --
though Democrats -- spent a lot of time with Republicans, and Mrs.
Willey's dead cat could have died by natural causes.
Soon reliable sources such as James Carville and David Brock
were telling all. They knew that almost everyone who spoke ill of
the Clintons had one thing in common, to wit, they were not
party-line Democrats. Nor had any contributed to any of the
Clintons' political campaigns. Some had military backgrounds. M.
Meyssan's book makes many useful contributions to the Clintons'
theory of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" here in America. "The
Horrifying Fraud" argues that the September 11 attacks on America
were carried out not by Islamic fundamentalists or by any
foreigners at all. The attacks were the work of a right-wing
conspiracy working within the American government. Who doubts that
when Hillary gets her copy she will turn immediately to the index
to see if Richard Scaife is mentioned or Lucianne?
By the way, this is no marginal book written by a writer on the
fringes of French society. It has sold over 200,000 copies in
France. It stands atop the French best-seller list shouting
"Hillary was right." And the argument is exquisite, offering
intellectual complexity that no Yankee Clintonite can match.
According to M. Meyssan, Lucianne's agents inside the government
were threatening to overthrow the Bush Administration by a coup
(America's first ever) if he did not agree to expand the military
budget and declare war against Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which
countries have gotten on the right's nerves. Oil interests were
also at issue, and in the case of Afghanistan, perhaps, rugs.
To increase pressure on the Bush Administration and possibly
avoid the necessity of a coup (America's first ever) the
right-wingers (or should we call them Republicans?) needed a
provocation for the administration to attack Afghanistan, and Iraq
and so they hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Then they
blamed the whole thing on the otherwise irreproachable Osama bin
Laden.
The attack went like this. The right-wing conspiracists laid
hands on a missile and fired it into the Pentagon. As for the
planes that we all saw hit the World Trade Center, they were
programmed to hit the towers. Apparently there were no pilots. Thus
Osama bid Laden could not possibly have been involved, and all
decent Americans owe him an apology. We should give him his caves
back and even the bats.
The argument does leave some unanswered questions. One is where
is that plane that the right-wingers would have us believe hit the
Pentagon? It was an American Airlines plane. Could American
Airlines be involved in the plot? That is a publicly-held company.
And where are the passengers on the flight that M. Meyssan tells us
never hit the Pentagon?
Possibly these questions will be answered by the time the
American edition of this useful French contribution to the study of
right-wing conspiracies hits the country. It is being translated
into English and several other languages for distribution in 16
countries. I hope the American edition will have an introduction by
a knowledgeable student of the "vast-right wing conspiracy," for
instance former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.
Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe will surely be asked
to do a blurb. And it is always possible that Hillary might too.
You can be sure that in a matter of weeks she will have read it
cover to cover. I am told she reads French and twelve other
languages.
topics:
Trade, Islam, Law, Military, Iraq, NATO, Oil
