What Sid Did - Some

What Sid Did - Some of my DFLer friends are raving about the new Sidney "Sid Vicious" Blumental memoir of the Clinton years.

Noted rightwing tool Michael Isikoff is less impressed with the former White House Aide.

Isikoff, who broke the Monica Lewinsky story in the major media (after Matt Drudge forced the hands of the editors at Newsweek), exposes Blumenthal's boat-anchory tome as a whitewash:

How, for instance, do you write about the campaign-finance scandal—another Republican "pseudoscandal," Blumenthal claims, in which "all the charges were revealed to be empty"—without even mentioning the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers or Clinton's connivance with Dick Morris to circumvent the campaign laws by crafting soft-money sponsored "issue ads" from his White House office? There is not a single reference to Johnny Chung or any others in the long parade of Democratic donors who later pleaded guilty to federal crimes in connection with Clinton's re-election campaign. Blumenthal defends the pardon of commodities fugitive Marc Rich. He calls Rich "a financier of the peace process"—and entirely skips over the role of Beth Dozoretz, a Democratic fund raiser who had pledged $1 million to the Clinton library and who peppered Clinton with phone calls about Rich during his final days in office.

The conclusion?

The point is not that Blumenthal is a hypocrite (although he seems to be exactly that). The point is that throughout this book Blumenthal seems utterly incapable of understanding how his own uncompromising, take-no-prisoners defense of the Clintons contributed to the poisonous political atmosphere that he bemoans. Time and again, in the book as in life, he rearranges facts, spins conspiracy theories, impugns motives, and besmirches the character of his political and journalistic foes—all for the greater cause of defending the Clintons (and himself). Hyde, Kenneth Starr, Hickman Ewing, Lindsey Graham, Tom DeLay—each was malicious, narrow-minded, bigoted, buffoonish, and anti-democratic. Meanwhile, Blumenthal wonders repeatedly why so many people dislike him. At one point, bizarrely, he suggests it is because he is "intellectual" and "Jewish."

It's useful as a lead-in to the upcoming Hillary! autobio, anyway.

Posted by Mitch at May 21, 2003 06:18 AM