-Caveat Lector-
Alamaine please. One does not need a terrific memory to know if one has
been raped or not.
Hilary
----------
> From: Alamaine Ratliff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [CTRL] Politics: 02-27-99
> Date: Saturday, February 27, 1999 1:16 AM
>
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> <<Note: After listening to Juanita on NBC, I can have a certain amount
of
> empathy. But I also have a certain skepticism -- only because I'm not
> familiar with the culture that engenders such interpersonal relations. I
> also have reservations about two-decades-old recollections -- no notes,
> diaries, lettres, photographs (unless I missed something); like Jonesie,
> one tale against another, yet building, adding more mystique. As far as
I
> knew for -- well -- many years (until about 1988), Arkansas was a state
> somewhere close to Texas ... Another thought came beaming into (what's
left
> of) my brain: supposedly the strong vote for Clinton came from the women
> voters, even this last go-round with Dole, even with all the "womanising"
> rumours. The best analysis of the whole Clinton psyche-out was on Fox's
> Beyond the News, moderated by some PhD: there's something that women do
> but men don't get about him. No man close to Clinton has any good
stories
> (Dick Morris' are usually about Hillary); but each woman just seems to be
> in a queue, waiting to tell her story. A<>E<>R >>
>
>
>
> >From wsws.org
>
> WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : Clinton Impeachment
>
> Right-wing in US mounts new political provocation
>
> The Wall Street Journal and Juanita Broaddrick
>
> By Barry Grey
> 27 February 1999
>
> The latest round of scandal-mongering against the White House
demonstrates
> that extreme right-wing elements, backed by the media, are determined to
> press ahead with their campaign of political destabilization.
>
> With the Washington Post and the New York Times providing pre-broadcast
> publicity, NBC news on Wednesday night aired a thirty-minute interview
> during prime time with the latest Clinton accuser, Juanita Broaddrick.
The
> Arkansas businesswoman has suddenly emerged on the national scene with
> sensational--and utterly uncorroborated--allegations that Bill Clinton
> sexually assaulted her 21 years ago.
>
> Of particular significance in the Broaddrick episode is the role of the
> Wall Street Journal. The Journal was the first establishment news outlet
to
> break the story, publishing a lengthy interview with Broaddrick on its
> editorial pages on February 19. Editor Robert Bartley and writer Dorothy
> Rabinowitz made no bones that they were vouching for the truth of
> Broaddrick's allegations, highlighting in enlarged type their view that
> "this was an event that took place."
>
> Rabinowitz was chosen to write the interview in an effort to lend
> credibility to Broaddrick's story. Notwithstanding her right-wing views,
> Rabinowitz earned a certain stature within journalistic circles for a
> series of articles she published in the Wall Street Journal and Harper's
> magazine some years ago exposing high profile cases in which people were
> convicted and jailed on false charges of child abuse. Ironically, her
> defense of these frameup victims was based on exposing the allegations
> against them as consisting of precisely the type of unsubstantiated
charges
> that she is now supporting in Broaddrick's attack on Clinton.
>
> Bartley had to publish the interview on the Journal's editorial pages,
> which he controls, because the Journal's news editors refused to carry
the
> story. They judged it to be lacking the minimal basis in fact and
> corroboration required to bring it before the public. Such was the odor
of
> slander given off by the Journal's interview with Broaddrick that three
> days after its appearance, Bartley felt obliged to publish an editorial
> protesting the reluctance of other media outlets, including his own
paper's
> news pages, to publicize the rape allegation.
>
> The Journal's role in promoting the Broaddrick story is nothing new. Its
> editorial pages have supplied the main ideological ammunition for the
> political destabilization drive that began within weeks of Clinton's
taking
> office in 1993. The Journal led the character assassination campaign
> against Clinton aide Vincent Foster, which Foster cited in his suicide
note
> as the thing that drove him over the edge. Then the Journal turned around
> and initiated the "Who Killed Foster?" editorial campaign, implying that
> Clinton had his long-time friend and political associate bumped off.
>
> The Journal set the tone for the rest of the media, avidly promoting
every
> piece of salacious gossip and sexual innuendo that it could throw against
> the White House, culminating in the Moncia Lewinsky scandal, all the
while
> insisting that Clinton's alleged crimes were "not about sex." Such
denials
> notwithstanding, one of its editorial campaigns centered on the demand
for
> the publication of Clinton's medical files, which Bartley hoped would
> reveal a history of venereal disease.
>
> Now, in the wake of the failed impeachment drive, the Journal has
escalated
> its attack from charges of sexual impropriety to rape. On Friday the
> Journal published a second editorial on the Broaddrick story, venting its
> spleen over the failure of the public to rise up in anger against the
White
> House in the aftermath of the NBC interview.
>
> Certain points in this piece are worth noting, because they typify the
> scurrilous methods employed by Bartley's scribes. The editorial praises
the
> NBC interview as a "strong report, well corroborated (such as pinning
down
> the date)..." In reality, the interview corroborated nothing, nor could
it,
> since there is no evidence to back up Broaddrick's charges. As for the
date
> of the alleged rape, the Journal skips over the fact that it was left to
> NBC to come up with a day in 1978 when Broaddrick was in Little Rock, and
> present that as a plausible date of the assault, because the supposed
> victim could not on her own "pin down" the month, let alone the day, of
the
> purported crime.
>
> The Journal's editorialists, while denouncing others for refusing to
accept
> Broaddrick's allegations, tacitly acknowledge that they cannot be proven:
> "Commentators who are dismissing it as gossip or unprovable are missing
the
> point... Juanita Broaddrick told her story. Either you believe it, or you
> don't."
>
> But there is a more politically significant and sinister side to the
> editorial. "Well, the President is not going to be impeached, tried,
> indicted or anything else," it states. "He won't resign. Those avenues
are
> behind us."
>
> What other avenues, then, are Bartley and company suggesting? The Journal
> does not directly answer this question, although it makes clear it
intends
> to continue its campaign of slander and provocation: "But with every
> dreadful shoe that drops--and of course there will be more--the
President's
> political capital expires."
>
> The piece concludes with an ominous allusion to the Hollywood western
"High
> Noon" and similar films: "Now, with Juanita Broaddrick standing among
them,
> the Washington political community appears to be averting its eyes. More
> than anything, the city looks like one of those small towns in a Western
> movie where something quite awful is happening out in the street, and one
> house after another draws the curtains to shut out the sight."
>
> The Journal does not cross every "t" and dot every "i." It doesn't have
to.
> The message is clear enough. As far as the Wall Street Journal is
> concerned, the President is a rapist and murderer, and the established
> political institutions are too cowardly to take him on. Extraordinary
> measures are called for, and a man on horseback who is prepared to carry
> them out.
>
> Since Clinton's acquittal, this theme--the need for an authoritarian
> government--has become increasingly prominent in the effusions of the
> Journal and its allies on the extreme right. It emerges alongside the
> assertion that the American people, by refusing to support Clinton's
> removal, have proven themselves immoral and unfit for democratic
self-rule.
>
> This view is, in reality, an inversion of the true situation, in which
the
> broad mass of working people, who take democratic rights seriously, are
> stubbornly resisting the efforts of significant sections of the political
> and business establishment to undermine those rights. The depravity which
> Bartley projects onto the people is, in fact, an increasingly predominant
> feature of the social elite for which he speaks. It is bourgeois politics
> that has sunk to a debased level, so degraded, in fact, that the politics
> of right-wing conspiracy and coup are tolerated as legitimate.
>
> The fact that the Wall Street Journal, with increasing frenzy, advocates
> the politics of political coup and dictatorship is of enormous
> significance. Much of what appears on its editorial pages verges on
> incitement, if not to overthrow, then to eliminate the present head of
> state. This is coming, not from a supermarket tabloid, but the principal
> organ of American business.
>
> Bourgeois academics generally scoff at the Marxist contention that the
> politics of the extreme right ultimately reflect the interests of, and
are
> supported by, powerful sections of big business. Today they need look no
> further than the Wall Street Journal for confirmation of this historical
> truth.
>
> See Also:
> Impeachment trial ends, but the conspiracy continues
> [13 February 1999]
> Journalist who turned in Clinton aide
> Scoundrel time redux: Christopher Hitchens as a social type
> [13 February 1999]
> Behind the Clinton impeachment trial
> Profile of a right-wing conspirator: The case of Theodore Olson
> [13 February 1999]
>
>
>
> Top of page
>
>
> Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. Please send e-mail.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> World Socialist Web Site
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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