rewriting history, Clinton style

With the elections over and with Republican victorys across the board and with the liberally-baised mainstream media in retreat after getting caught in their over-the-top support for John Kerry, one might expect that the Clintons would lie low and wait for better times. But no -- instead it appears that the opening of the Clinton library with its paranoid ("that bitch set me up") view of the Clinton scandals has launched a new effort by Clinton partisans to whitewash and sanitize the records regarding the Clintons.

Salon.com has carried water for the Clintons and other liberals since its inception. So loyal are they to the liberal cause that they even publicized a story that had been leaked to them by the anti-Bush staff at the CBS 60 Minutes II operation. The story involved the bogus claim that George Bush relied upon forged documents in claiming in his state of the union message that British intelligence had uncovered information that Saddam Hussein had attempted to puchase uranium in Nigere. CBS itself decided to cancel the story lest it remind viewers of Dan Rather being duped by forged documents regarding Bush's national guard service.

But now we see Salon writer Eric Boehlert showing just how far a liberal writer will carry water for the Clintons.

"History will show that the Clintons were exonerated of all the Whitewater accusations and that the president was acquitted of all charges in the impeachment trial. For refusing to testify before the grand jury to implicate the Clintons in crimes as Starr had demanded, McDougal was held in prison for 18 months, sometimes in solitary confinement. And when she finally did testify, she said she knew of no wrongdoing by them; she was acquitted of all charges in the case."

While it is true that the Clintons were not charged criminally with any Whitewater-related offenses, it is misleading to say the least to characterize what happened as "exoneration". In addition, holding up Susan McDougal as some sort of hero for her failure to cooperate with the grand jury is even worse. McDougal was imprisoned for contempt of court for her unwillingness to testify before the grand jury. Solitary confinement or not, as in all such cases, McDougal had the keys to her own cell -- she simply had to testify to the grand jury (as any American would be expected to do). She was finally released when the grand jury expired. As a result, she never did testify. If she knew of no wrongdoing by the Clintons she had the opportunity to testify to that effect to the grand jury instead of spending 18 months in jail.