Salon | Swamp Fever

S W A M P   F E V E R   |   B Y   J A M E S   C A R V I L L E

AMERICA'S out-of-control
SCANDAL MACHINE

Before we all jump to the next "scandal," --
Gore-gate -- let's take a moment to learn from
the investigation at hand.

as you might imagine, a lot of folks want to know why I won't let up on Kenneth Starr and his Whitewater investigation. Even those who happen to agree with me that this right-wing hack is unfit to carry out an impartial investigation question why I keep beating this half-dead horse. Two reasons, my friends. First, as if all of Starr's well-known conflicts of interest were not enough, two new doozies have just popped up. Second, I'm not done with Whitewater. It's about time we learned a lesson or two from this witch-hunt. Once again, the media are whining for another special counsel, this time to look into the Democrats' fund-raising problems. Before we do any such thing, I think we owe to it to ourselves to take stock of what went wrong this time around.
For the past five years, we have been treated to a staggering array of conspiracy theories centering on our president. Among the ranks of Clinton crazies who spare no expense promoting these theories, one man stands out above the rest. His name is Richard Mellon Scaife. An heir to Andrew Mellon's banking fortune, Scaife is loaded. Not only is he worth more than half a billion dollars, he controls several family foundations with hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- more in assets. He bankrolls the Western Journalism Center, the primary distributor of "investigative" videos and full-page newspaper ads fueling the theory that Vince Foster was murdered because he knew too much about the president. He publishes the far-right Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which prints a never-ending stream of Foster foolishness by crackpot reporter Chris Ruddy. Scaife's largesse helps fill the coffers of the rabidly anti-Clinton American Spectator and Heritage Foundation, too.
Scaife also invests heavily in higher education. I'll give you one guess as to which university is currently at the top of his gift list. That's right: Pepperdine. A week after it came out that Starr had accepted a job at Pepperdine, an enterprising reporter discovered that Scaife was the main benefactor behind Pepperdine's brand-new school of public policy, which Starr is going to run. Scaife's $1.1 million in contributions amounted to 40 percent of the school's $2.75 million in start-up costs. In effect, Starr's salary will be coming out of Scaife's pocket.
A blatant conflict of interest? Gene Lyons, a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, puts it this way: "It's as if Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh were to accept a chair funded by the Socialist Workers Party or the Iran-America Society." Starr admits he knew that the money was coming from Scaife, but holds tight to the notion that his arrangement has no whiff of impropriety. I beg to differ. At the very least, it makes it damn clear to me why Starr refuses to release his office's report on Vince Foster -- a report that concludes, after exhaustive review, that Vince Foster did in fact commit suicide.
Another appalling conflict of interest was brought to light in the last issue of the Nation. As if Starr's extracurricular agenda isn't full enough with his representing tobacco companies in court, lecturing at Pat Robertson's university, and jockeying for cushy jobs at Pepperdine, he also finds time to moonlight as an editor. It turns out that Starr has been using his post on the board of editors of the American Bar Association's journal to influence its coverage of Whitewater. Exercising impeccable judgment, Starr felt it appropriate to push Whitewater stories favorable to his investigation and even force a good reporter to resign because he was not happy with the way the guy covered the Whitewater beat. What's next for Kenneth Starr? A big book deal with Rupert Murdoch? Your guess is as good as mine.
But the take-home lessons here concern not only Starr and his conflicts of interest. We also ought to analyze this ordeal as a case study in the workings of the American media. How did the press get so hooked on Whitewater? Why were they so easy to hook? What will stop this from happening the next time?
It is truly staggering how long this nonsense has been going on. Saturday marked the fifth anniversary of the first story on Whitewater, by New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth. Since then, we have been deluged by more than 30,000 additional articles and untold thousands of hours of television coverage. And what do we have to show for it? Diddly squat. Whitewater has amounted to nothing but a bunch of petty Arkansas foolishness.
Ever since the Washington Post brought down a president with its coverage of Watergate, every media outlet in the nation has lusted after any possible opportunity to alter the course of political history. Every editor wants to be the next Ben Bradlee. Every reporter wants to be the next Bob Woodward. And, conveniently enough, they've got hundreds of right-wing loonies -- Deep Throat wannabes -- feeding them every lie and conspiracy theory you can imagine.
I would have no legitimate gripe if there were some accountability, some way to rein in reporters and editors who follow a Clinton-hater's lead and trample all over an innocent person's reputation in the process. But there ain't. Journalism is the only institution in America that hands out no penalty to those who are dead-ass wrong. If political consultants give the wrong advice, they lose races. Baseball managers are given a quick boot. Journalists who peddle a conspiracy nut's lies just move on from covering Whitewater to campaign finance. No punishment. No lost sleep. No incentive to get it right the next time.
Will we see more of the same with this fund-raising "scandal"? Of course. The media pack smells blood, so there's no stopping them now. Look at this nonsense they've stirred up over Al Gore's fund-raising efforts. Despite the breathless headlines, every single story I've seen is pure Dog Bites Man. The V.P. helped raise money. That's a real shocker! How do they think campaign contributions get there, anyway? The stork?
When the vice president is eventually exonerated of any wrongdoing -- as he will be -- not a single member of the bloodthirsty press will apologize. That's just not how the system works. The system will simply move on to the next victim. As Vince Foster said in his suicide note, it simply ruins people for sport. For God's sake, let's keep that in mind as we watch the scandal mongers running out onto the playing field once again.
(Want more information on Kenneth Starr's conflicts of interest, his rich wing-nut patrons, or the Deep Throat wannabes who are feeding the White House Press Corps with a daily stream of lies? Contact my Education and Information Project at 202-547-4545.)
March 10, 1997
Are the press hounds who are baying over Democratic fund-raising tactics once again barking up the wrong tree? Chew it over in Table Talk.