The anti-Clinton disinformation machinery is now in full swing. The conservs know that Hillary will be running in '08 and they're starting now to discredit her and tell the big lie.
The dems should fight back in the same manner because they have no choice. The repubs have more money and will not hesitate to smear any opponents. Hillary was exactly right -- there is a vast right wing conspiracy in place. Isn't it evident to anyone with half a brain?

Oh please, Mr. Thau. What "big lie" is that? That she and hubby are a couple of demagogues and crooks? Pure truth. Surely some Republicans have a visceral dislike, but I find it unlikely that any high level Republicans consider Hillary a serious contender. There is NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER of her actually being elected president.

I'll ignore the banter here in the comments and just say that Brian, I actually agree with you. Having dealt a bit with a similar issue myself, both in my own life and in those of people I know very well, I can say that hope spring eternal, and I can believe very well that Ms Clinton was just as naive as she claims. Indeed, I see no reason whatsoever not to take her at her word, especially when it seems to most clearly explain her behavior at the time. To skeptics, I would just suggest that you not ascribe to malice what may be explained by stupidity. (Though I would prefer "naivete")

Of course, Brian, at least some of the skeptics are not only on an ideological warpath, but because Ms Clinton is someone with a general reputation for being less-than-intimate with the truth. Also, I know relationships that keep going long after I assumed they would dissolve, because I consistently underestimate the willingness of people (women especially in my experience) to forgive and move on, always hoping for better.

Still, that defense only goes so far, and it does seem like most people have a special bee in their bonnet for Ms Clinton for reasons I can't quite figure out.

Al wrote
"That she and hubby are a couple of demagogues and crooks?"

Demagogues you could argue. Idealogues, too. But crooks? Since Whitewater amounted to nothing but a big waste of time and money, your argument there is flimsy.

George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, on the other hand, are robbers, murderers, and frauds. If they're not philanderers, then more power to their marriages, but I have no faith that they haven't broken their vows of fidelity.

He struggled with his problem, but he failed.

Does anybody really even for a second believe that Clinton has made any effort with his "problem" other than the effort to not get caught?

I won't claim to understand what are the no doubt complex strands of their dysfunction, but they are both serial liars. When Hillary says that she didn't know the truth about Monica Lewinsky until just hours before Bill's public confession, for example, it does not ring the least bit true.

They may "love" each other, whatever exactly that means in their world. It's just a general thing that you know you can't believe a word either one of them says about anything.

I've heard, from a relative who works in the Secret Service, that the Secret Service can barely keep up with Clinton's post-Presidential philanderings. Dude is just totally out of control. So it doesn't sound like he's making much of an effort.

Although (or perhaps because) I'm a leftie, I'm the first to say that the Clintons, Chelsea excluded, are unreconstructed sleazeballs. As Mary McCarthy famously said of a rival, every word they say is a lie, including the "the's" and the "and's." Whether or not they have a good marriage is not something I want to speculate about for even one second.

Al,

Is this your logic:

Hillary is lying when she says she didn't know the truth about Lewinsky until August 17, 1998.

Proof: She lies about everything.

Brian, really. I won't claim to know what goes on in her mind, but absolutely everybody else knew the truth. She knows the bastard better than anybody else. We're supposed to believe that she didn't? C'mon.

Can't we just move on?

Hey Brian,

Your quote, "I don't understand why some people refuse to believe that Hillary and Bill Clinton may actually have a marriage, not an arrangement."; could be changed to, "I don't understand why people refuse to believe that Saddam did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction".

People will absorb the available data, however distorted by the media, and make their decisions. Some folks will look at the various peccadillos Mr. Clinton has had over the past 20 years and ask, "how can an intelligent woman like Hillary put up with this?" Some will say, this cannot be "love". I don't know, but that is their opinion.

Likewise, some will say how can people refuse to believe in Saddam's WMD program when the UN, the US Congress, J. Chirac, and even Bill Clinton assured us he had them?

Go figure.
Mark in Raleigh

Bob Somerby continues his excellent work on the standard Hillary spin at today's Daily Howler.

Al,

"C'mon" is not really proof. It's an appeal to your own belief. Doesn't really convince me.

In fact, at the time Hillary claims Bill Clinton told her that he really did fool around with Lewinsky, the DNA tests on the dress hadn't yet been done, and the Clintons had endured literally dozens of bimbo accusations from the far right--at least some of which Hillary knew weren't likely to be true. (Even Ken Starr, for example, determined that Kathleen Willey was not credible.)

HRC had no way to know if the Lewinsky accusation was another one of these manufactured scandals--at that time, it was Bill's claim that he just helped an emotionally troubled girl versus the accusations coming from the far right. ("Right-wing conspiracy" was her term at the time, and it is an accurate description of the forces working against the Clintons.)

So she believed what her husband told her about Lewinsky--which doesn't mean she believed that he had never cheated on her in her life. She just believed that he had reformed himself, as he had claimed to (and as even the Starr report indicates he was trying to do--in that report, his dalliances with Lewinsky are filled with self-loathing and shame).

But this isn't good enough for the far right. The Clintons can't merely be a husband and wife who got into politics to change the world together. They have to be unfeeling, immoral schemers out to serve only their own selfish interests. So Hillary must be lying. Always.

Mark,

There is no evidence to suggest Hillary that knew the truth about Lewinsky and her husband before April 17, 1998.

In contrast, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that George W. Bush manipulated intelligence reports to create an interpretation that supported war, rather than an interpretation that accurately reflected the known facts.

This was apparent to pro-warriors even here on Blogcritics. You can tell by the 58 comments here. In 58 comments, not a single pro-warrior is willing to take a stand on Bush's honesty with regard to the run-up to the Iraq war.

The issue with Bush's lying isn't whether he did it--there is pretty much a tacit agreement that he was not honest with the American people. The dispute is whether it matters. Some people think it does.

Brian-
Somehow, I just knew that the Clinton's marriage had something to do Bush being a liar.

As to your link above, you posted a piece, you were questioned on it, you were unwilling to provide an explanation as to the logic of why said intelligence would be fabricated prior to the war but proof wouldn't be fabricated after. Besides the fact that of those 58 comments about quarter were your own, it's rather disingenuous for you to point to that thread to support your argument.

"Come on," Brian, I call BS on your statement. The number of comments is not "evidence" of anything but interest, and the specific comments in the linked thread *repeatedly* refute your specific claim ("not a single pro-warrior is willing to take a stand on Bush's honesty...") here.

Stating that there is "tacit agreement" enough times doesn't make it so. I can tell you that there is not agreement on that subject, and I submit the very link you tried to use as real evidence.

Phillip,

Great. Perhaps we're making actual progress on this matter. What's your specific stand on whether the Bush Administration lied in the run-up to the war again? I might be mistaken, but I believe you have yet to state it clearly and concisely. In fact, unless I'm not remembering correctly, whenever you are asked to take a specific stand on this matter, you refuse.

And, to me, that refusal is evidence that you don't really care whether Bush lied or not. You don't even care enough to state a position on the matter. In the absence of information from you, my guess is that your position is that Bush and his Administration did in fact lie--or, at the least, on the continuum that runs from "lie" on one end to "truth" on the other, many Administration claims place significantly in the direction of "lie"--but you don't really want to talk about it. Alternately, you could be truly unaware of any deceitful statements. In that case, I still have to assume you don't really care about lies, because these war-related lies were published far and wide, and anyone who is interested in the matter can easily find them.

It's a simple question. Did Bush and/or his Administration lie in the run-up to the war? I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for your answer.

I will answer you this time just like I answered you repeatedly in your linked thread: I flatly deny that President Bush told any lies in the entire time he has been in office. If you don't understand that, try this one, from the same thread: Nobody in the Bush White House has ever lied about anything. They're all as pure as the driven snow.

You refused to address those statements then, and continued to pretend they weren't there then and again now.

Stop deliberately picking fights over stupid things and then acting like a baby. I tried to keep my post to you civil, but your behavior in return is simply childish - are you pretending you can't read? This is a big waste of my time. Go play with somebody else if you're going to lie about me.

Sorry, Phillip. Forgot to qualify what I said. I meant you refuse to give any non-sarcastic opinion on this matter.

Admittedly, you did offer a sarcastic response, but I can't do anything with that as far as determining your real position on this matter.

As far as "acting like a baby," I don't know how to respond to that kind of name-calling either. If I have been uncivil in my language here, I wish you'd point it out to me. I don't see it. "Childish" I don't see either--I've asked you to state a sincere, clear position on this matter. You haven't.

I'm still left with nothing from you--no real answer to the question. I can't tell where you stand on the issue. I can only guess.

Brian, by your own logic, you must agree with comment #12.

Anybody else? I ask a jury of my peers: Does nobody else think that I've clear and definitively and honestly answered Brian, an answer he refuses to acknowledge or answer? I'm not sure what I have to do to make Brian accept any of my answers, so I've given up on that. But can anybody else think of any way in which I have to rephrase my answers to be understood by anybody who speak English?

Brian - playing games is childish. Asking for answers, then ignoring them or dismissing them when they're giving and proclaiming loudly that people won't answer you when they quite clearly have is a game and childish.