Jan 19, 2006 
Is it just me, or does it seem to you the Right is more frantic than usual these days?
This week, through the media echo chamber, the VRWC has fallen back to snapping at the Clintons. They’re on the third day of a rampage because Hillary Clinton said Congress is run like a plantation — Chris Matthews has been wanking over Hillary and the P word since Tuesday — and they managed to place “Clinton” and “Cover-Up” together in a headline in today’s New York Times. On page 1, right under the masthead, no less. Seems like old times.
Like the plantation flap, the Times’s story — “Inquiry on Clinton Official Ends With Accusations of Cover-Up” — is one that begs the question, “What is it about the Clintons that drives righties batshit crazy?” Here’s the lede:
After the longest independent counsel investigation in history, the prosecutor in the case of former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros is finally closing his operation with a scathing report accusing Clinton administration officials of thwarting an inquiry into whether Mr. Cisneros evaded paying income taxes.
Yes, indeed; the investigation of Henry Cisneros, which cost taxpayers $21 million and lasted more than a decade, is finally closed.
You might recall that in the long-ago days of the Clinton Administration, Cisneros was indicted on 18 felony counts, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lying to investigators, and eventually was pardoned by President Bill C. Yet the prosecutor, David M. Barrett, has been toiling away these six years since trying to pin more indictments on Cisneros, and he blames a Clinton cover-up for his inability to do so. (It couldn’t possibly be because Barrett is an incompetent investigator or that there wasn’t any more wrongdoing by Cisneros for an investigation to uncover, huh?)
Barrett’s final report will be made available today. The Times says is “reveals little new about the accusations that led to Mr. Barrett’s appointment” in the 1990s.
But, sure enough, the report was “leaked” to the New York Times early — “A copy of the report was obtained by The New York Times from someone sympathetic to the Barrett investigation who wanted his criticism of the Clinton administration to be known.” And it worked, too; the righties got their “Clinton Cover-up” headline.
In spite of the Times’s compliance with the VRWC program, some rightie bloggers are screaming about liberal bias. Makes me wonder what the Times would have to do to appease them.
The rest of the article consists of Barrett accusing the Justice Department and IRS officials of hiding evidence that would have incriminated Cisneros, and JD and IRS officials saying that Barlett is too incompetent to sort his own socks. The ever-optimistic Captain Ed writes that the story “will prove explosive to the 2006 re-election effort of Hillary Clinton, but even more damaging to her expected run at the Presidency in 2008.” So some good may come of it after all. However, seems to me that unless Barrett has actually uncovered something new it’s going to be hard for the Right to sustain this story long enough to impact the elections, no matter how hard the VRWC flogs it.
But, no question, today the VRWC wins on points. These are some of the stories not on the front page of the New York Times: “White House won’t discuss meetings between officials, Abramoff“; “Congressional Agency Questions Legality of Wiretaps“; and “Going Nuclear: Iran and North Korea seem determined to build up arsenals of nuclear weapons.” I say righties should enjoy success when they’ve achieved it.
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