At times, "My Life" is written at the level of John Birch Society propaganda, and I mean no discourtesy to the society, if it still exists. Clinton practices what the historian Richard Hofstadter called "the paranoid style in American politics." It used to be characteristic of the far right. Now it is practiced by adepts close to the center of the Democratic Party. That is not a sign of political vitality.
I cannot begin to expose all the lies -- many, as I say, gratuitous -- in this, the most trivial presidential memoir ever written; but I can expose those made about The American Spectator, a magazine the Clintons place at the center of their imagined "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy."
On page 711, he states that the trial of his old business partners, the McDougals, was somehow prejudiced by "the money and support Hale (David Hale, chief witness against the McDougals) had been receiving from a clandestine effort" at The American Spectator. Clinton's Justice Department first brought this charge of "money and support" (that is, witness tampering) against us back in 1998, and the consequence was to put us almost out of business -- though ho, ho, ho, here we stand exonerated, Purple Hearts and all.
After a year of fully cooperating with the government inquiry, I could savor -- as can any fair-minded American -- the final judgment of the grand jury's investigation of the Spectator. Encapsulated in the independent counsel's press release, it reads: "After conducting an independent investigation into allegations the David Hale may have received payments to influence his testimony in matters within the jurisdiction of the Office of the Independent Counsel (OIC), the Office of Special Review has concluded that ?many of the allegations, suggestions and insinuations regarding the tendering and receipt of things of value were shown to be unsubstantiated or, in some cases, untrue.'"
Further, the Office of Special Review concluded that: "In some instances, there is little if any credible evidence establishing that a particular thing of value was demanded, offered or received. In other instances, there is insufficient credible evidence to show that a thing of value was provided or received with the criminal intent defined by any of the applicable statues."
Nonetheless, despite this rigorous government investigation of the trumped-up charge, Clinton continues to lie that a witness received "money and support" from us. A paragraph later he lies that the magazine paid "a former state trooper $10,000 for the ridiculous yarn accusing me of drug smuggling." No Spectator article ever accused Clinton of drug smuggling. Clinton has made this claim before, but anyone with eyes to read back issues of the magazine will perceive the lie.
Nor did the magazine pay a trooper for such an article. Clinton even continues to lie about the magazine's initial Troopergate articles (there were two) that outlined his misuse of state credit cards and state employees, and chronicled sexual behavior by Clinton that was almost precisely repeated in the carefully documented Lewinsky scandal.
Lying about all this again is, to my mind, a bit weird, as is continuing to lie about women after promising the whole truth. Clinton really only confesses in this supposedly candid memoir to an affair with Lewinsky, thus ignoring the dozen or so other women who reasonable people will recognize were wronged by him.