Yes, it's time for the first semi-special edition of Bartcop Books, to fit in with all the preparations for Juliefest 2002. I know this book is already featured in the Library section, but I thought it was the best book to feature in this space this week, at least until Julie Hiatt Steele writes her own book and it goes straight to the top of the bestseller lists and the streets are filled with people saying 'Oh my God! They've been lying to us all along! Is it too late to get Bill back as President so he can actually concentrate on the job this time and not fending off the attack from Scaife-financed whores with a grudge against anyone with a sex life?'

Well, I'm allowed to dream, it's my web page.

Couple of links for you, going back to Issue 2 and The Blind Watchmaker. A school in England (supposedly a 'City Technology College') is being taken over by Creationist teachers - so if they're supposed to be teaching them technology, will anyone who goes on to work in IT after leaving that school suggest prayer as an alternative to anti virus software? As you might expect, Richard Dawkins has a response to it.

Also, to tie in with the quasi-religious theme of the links this week, here's Salman Rushdie (a man who knows hat happens when fundamentalists try to censor you) discussing the current situation in India. 'So India's problem turns out to be the world's problem. What happened in India has happened in God's name. The problem's name is God.'

And with those happy thoughts, let go on to this week's recommendation.

The Hunting Of The President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons

I can't help wondering how the historians of the future are going to look back on the 'Clinton scandals' of the 1990s. Listening to the right-wing blowhards, one would assume that William Jefferson Clinton was America's worst ever president, mired in scandal, sleaze and corruption and unable to make any difference to what happened during his term in office. Sorry, that should read 'terms' - they tend to forget that the man they reckon is disturbingly unpopular was actually re-elected and could probably have pulled off the same feat quite easily in 2000 if the Constitution didn't prevent it.

And if you look on the bookshelves and magazine racks, there are still seemingly hundreds of books and articles about all the failings of Bill Clinton, how he should have been driven out of office, how he evaded his rightful removal from office and how he was involved in scandal after scandal throughout his presidency: Gennifer Flowers, Troopergate, Travelgate, Vince Foster's suicide, Paula Jones, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky...  The constant drip of character assassination goes on and on, and even the fact that he's left the White House doesn't stop those who want to put him on trial for his 'crimes' as if some court would have the power turn back time and wipe his Presidency off the records allowing some good, squeaky clean Republican to take his place. Because, as we know, Republicans never get involved in scandals or corruption, do they?

Of course, looking at all this anti-Clinton action on so many continuing fronts, one would be tempted to think that there may be some co-ordination behind it all, some conspiracy on a large scale among those on the conservative side of the political spectrum to 'get Clinton'. A Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, you might even say. Of course, that's just rubbish, all those writers having a go at Clinton were honest and decent reporters, conscientiously investigating the leads they found and discarding the obviously fake, dispassionately looking at the evidence and coming to an independent conclusion about the facts. They didn't go out there actively looking for scandal, knowing that they'd be paid good money for finding scandal, and just as good money for making up scandal, did they?

Uh-huh. And if you believe that, I'm sure you'll be out in your garden in a couple of weeks, hoping to catch a glance of the Easter Bunny...

Which brings us to The Hunting Of The President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (you were wondering when I was actually going to mention the book, weren't you?) Lyons and Conason are the archetypal watchers of the watchmen, choosing not to write a book that just refutes the claims of the Clinton attackers, but to actually look at their methods and motives, examining the links that bring them all together and tracing back their funding to the source: Richard Mellon Scaife, founder of the so-called Arkansas Project that set out to find information to use against Clinton, with no real regard as to whether it was true or not.

What's crucial about the book is that Conason and Lyons have taken the care that a lot of their subjects didn't, and actually checked their sources, cross-referenced information and made sure that their words match reality, rather than just writing what they wanted to be true and hoping to persuade everyone else to see it that way. In looking up information for this article I did a few Google searches, hoping to find some right-wing sites having a go at the book, trying to turn the tables on it's authors. I couldn't find anything. Sure, there's a lot of invective out there, a lot of personal attacks on the authors and dismissal of the book off hand, but no substantial refutation of any of the points in it. Maybe they feel if they ignore it, then it will just go away?

The book places the attacks on Clinton in context, not presenting him as a saintly man, incapable of doing any wrong, but showing where the attacks came from - disgruntled ex-employees and political rivals, old feuds from Arkansas, and just those who felt some Bubba from the South shouldn't be allowed to be President. Lyons' experience as a reporter on Arkansas politics contributes majorly to these sections of the book, explaining the bizarre culture of the state's politics, how wild rumours circulate about every prominent person there. However, when an Arkansas politician rose to national prominence, and national attention got focused on his home state and the nest of vipers residing in Little Rock, the wild rumours found their way out of the bars and restaurants of a small southern state and into the pages of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Suddenly, obscure characters with a grudge against Clinton like Larry Nichols could become national figures, receiving thousands from their new friends on the right to peddle their lies about the Clintons, adding to the constant drip of lies until people started to believe that 'something must be true, if they're saying so much about him.'

The closest parallel I can find to The Hunting Of The President is that other classic of Presidential scandal, All The President's Men. Not just because it was written by two journalists with substantially different backgrounds, and is about to be made into a film (though it'll be a documentary with no Redford or Hoffman appearing in it) but because it reflects what journalism can still do, what can be discovered if you keep looking for the truth and not try to find the truth you want. Woodward and Bernstein's investigative diligence probably inspired a generation of journalists to follow in their footsteps. I'd like to think that Conason and Lyons will do the same, but the picture they reveal of what purported to be journalism in the 1990s is a disturbing one, showing that when the 'Fourth Estate' is perverted, the truth is denied to the people and distrust of government, press and everything else reaches new depths.

Beyond the mud-slinging of Arkansas, it also reveals the machinations behind the scenes in Washington, as Republicans connived with the various independent counsels to get Clinton impeached for anything, effectively deciding that he had to go for something, and their only task was to find something to get him for, not to determine whether he might actually be guilty of anything. It reveals the frightening level of power given to the Office of the Independent Counsel, showing how those who stood in its way got crushed (though some of its victims, like Julie Hiatt Steele, wouldn't let themselves get crushed by it) and how Ken Starr came to see his job as convicting Bill Clinton, not investigating him.

I could go on for ages about how good this book is, and I've already gone way over the amount I usually write for these recommendations. To put it simply, this is the definitive book about the Clinton scandals, and if you want to know the truth about what went on behind the scenes, and how so many 'Clinton crimes' were purely in the imagination of a handful of journalists and right-wing jackals you'll find all you need to know in here. Read it to find out the story the 'liberal media' isn't telling you, then pass it on to your friends. It's a fascinating work, and those future historians I mentioned back at the start could well be using this as one of their primary sources for finding the true story of Bill Clinton's Presidency.

That's it for this week. Remember to go visit Bartcop's page for Juliefest 2002 (she's mentioned in the book, and likely to have a key role in the film) and show your support for someone who stood up to the anti-Clinton forces, not for any cash reward, but because it was the right thing to do.