Hillary Fired from Watergate Legal Job

You guys do realize that the “story” of Zeifman’s ‘revelations’ is actually more than a decade old, right?

From the Washington Post’s 1996 review of Zeifman’s book, “Without Honor: The Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment of
President Nixon”, we find:

In 1973 Jerry Zeifman, chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, decided to keep a diary of the “extraordinary events” surrounding the impeachment of President Nixon. Now, Zeifman draws on that diary to give us Without Honor: Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment of President Nixon, in which he accuses government officials of obstructing the impeachment inquiry. Their reason? Not any sympathy for the besieged Richard Nixon, but a desire to protect the reputation of John Kennedy. Zeifman’s book will surely excite conspiracy buffs on the lookout for sinister coverups in high places. But those wary of such unsubstantiated theories (myself included) will find Zeifman’s book an unconvincing, if imaginative, tale of intrigue.

Zeifman’s theory goes something like this: John Doar, Hillary Rodham, Bernard Nussbaum and other Kennedy loyalists investigating Nixon obstruct his impeachment “to cover up malfeasance in high office throughout the Cold War.” The scheming starlets are abetted by Peter Rodino, a weak, corrupt chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who is afraid that Nixon might expose his own Mafia ties. Rounding out the list of conspirators is Burke Marshall, Robert Kennedy’s assistant attorney general, who orchestrates the bogus investigation in the hopes of keeping Nixon in office, which will, he believes, help Ted Kennedy win the White House. Using a variety of dubious legal strategies — still with me? — Doar and his co-conspirators do everything they can to avoid putting the president on trial, a strategy, they hope, that will prevent Nixon’s lawyers from revealing the “crimes of Camelot.”

The lack of evidence makes this theory hard to swallow. Zeifman’s most reliable source — his diary — contains few revelations and seems little more than a chronicle of his suspicions and speculations. The book’s jacket cover, which promises readers “truths even more startling than those brought out in Oliver Stone’s movies ‘Nixon’ and ‘JFK’, ” does not help matters. Perhaps the book’s publicists forgot that “Nixon” and “JFK” were, after all, only Hollywood movies.

Zeifmam also tried to push this story (and, apparently, his book) in 2003, in a letter to the NY Post (as reported on Free Republic – see Google for links).

I’m always suspicious of a ‘whistleblower’ or ‘truthteller’ who just happens to be trying to sell something. It also bothers me to see old stories–questionable when they first surfaced–rebroadcast with no new information or confirmation.

I think we should step carefully on this one; it has that hint of conspiracy theory that just doesn’t smell right.

This is something that an extreme narcissist would do. They would believe they could get away with it and they could create a new reality by simply saying so. Sadly, so many of our politicians are extreme narcissists that this is not unusual behavior. Witness the recent actions by the Governor of New York.

Not to mention the infamous ‘unnamed aide’ to President Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Sad, but true – national politicians live in bubbles of their own creation. The pursuit of unfettered power tends to do that…

Re: “This is something that an extreme narcissist would do.”

This is how the Right-wing media and loyalists work.

A dubious story is put out. Usually with little or no proof other than what Conservatives “know” to be true. (The Washington Times and NewsMax being the usual first outlets).

Then the story is immediately debunked, or cast into extreme doubr.

No at all deterred, Conservatives immediately pretend that the story is Biblicaly true and begin expounding on what they “know” must be the personal motivations of the Liberal/Democrat in question must have thought, felt and knew. (The “mind reading phase”. Bill O’Rielly does this on a weekly basis when he “body language” expert tells us what Liberals are “really thinking”).

From there it gets spun into all kinds of stories that eventually are cemented into “fact” pur pure repetition, from one Conservative to another.

That is why, despite all the public comisssions, we have “absolute proof that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear bomb and mushroom clounds were only minutes away from Cleveland” and “Sddam was fullin in bed with bin Laden from day one”. (as well as absolute proof of Creationism and the fact that Bill Clinton personally ordered the murder of Vince Foster).

Facts never get in the way of a good Conservative rumour.

Since both Accuracy in Media & Accuracy in Academia are Hillary Clinton creatures, it’s a wonder Mr. Zeifman ever got his account of firing Hillary Clinton into the light of day.

Oh, it not only saw the “light of day,” but Zeifman wrote a book about it back in 1995. Later, in 1996, he wrote a book entitled “Hillary’s Pursuit of Power.” The fact that this story has been “out” for almost 15 years tells me that there isn’t much here. Apparently, his personal papers, including the diary mentioned in the original articles, are in the Gelman Library at GWU. I’m sure that someone will be reviewing them…just as the review I posted did years ago.

The woman was fired for profoundly unethical conduct, and some would have us dismiss it because it was “a long time ago?”

It is to laugh!

But, I suppose it’s good to ask what has happened since then.

Here is just one of many links with insight into the lack of character of that character.

“Move along. Nothing to see there” — Wesmorgan1

Yeah, riiiight!

Mike wrote:

Wes: If you doubt the veracity of Zeifman’s account it’s easily checked. Just get Hillary to release the letter of recommendation Zeifman claims was never written.

Nice rhetorical flourish – but I don’t think anyone is claiming such a letter exists.

I’m sure you can think up all kinds of excuses to dismiss this story. But the old saying “there’s no smoke without a fire” proves true in this case. There is so much smoke of Clinton lies that the behavior described in Zeifman’s account rings true.

It rings so true that absolutely nothing happens in almost 15 years? It “rings true” that he thought her behavior was bad enough to warrant disbarment, but never took any steps to discipline her or let others know until years later? It rings so true that, from what I can discover (and, please, correct me if I’m wrong) there’s no one corroborating Zeifman’s claims in all these years?

yonason wrote:

“Move along. Nothing to see there” — Wesmorgan1

Yeah, riiiight!

I didn’t say that – I just suggested that the story should be corroborated. When the media comes of with a single-sourced (or anonymously sourced) story, we always ask for (or, at least, hope for) corroboration; why not do so in this case?

Save your snark for someone who can’t do anything but spout partisan drivel. I just find it difficult to take this stuff at face value when no one else involved in the Nixon impeachment–the most significant impeachment crisis in US history, and probably the best documented from all sides–has come forward to back Zeifman’s claims.

It isn’t mine to refute, but I did cite at least one source that seems to do so. In fact, the contemporary reviewer of Zeifman’s book wrote:

The lack of evidence makes this theory hard to swallow. Zeifman’s most reliable source — his diary — contains few revelations and seems little more than a chronicle of his suspicions and speculations.

Gee, forgive me for wanting more than “suspicions and speculations”…just as I don’t buy the innuendo around McCain and Vicki Isemann, I don’t buy this without some evidence. As I’ve said here any number of times, I’m cynical about anything dealing with national politics or national politicians.

Anyway, I see a deeper and more disturbing question that Zeifman’s allegations raise, and that is, “if he sees it as such a profound lack of ethics now, why didn’t he back then? (especially since he was supposed to be one of our ethical watchdogs.)” You don’t suppose that Zeifman’s being a self-styled “lifelong Democrat” would have anything to do with that, do you?

I think that Zeifman’s political career plans went straight into self-protection mode. We see political players of every stripe pull this kind of stuff on a routine basis; let them get into a cushy position or achieve financial security, and here come the tell-all books and the post-dated “I knew it was wrong” comments. Look at Feith’s book; according to him, the fault for all our missteps in Iraq lie with everyone but–guess who?–Rumsfeld and Feith himself.

Try “lifelong political player,” and you’ll be closer to the truth.

Mike, get off your hobby horse. I never disputed the question of any letter of recommendation. Given the rest of Zeifman’s (apparently uncorroborated) allegations, a letter of recommendation isn’t even worth arguing about. I don’t really care if he gave Clinton a letter, and I can certainly believe that he didn’t. (His allegations would have little merit whatsoever if he had given her some glowing recommendation, true?)

Give up on the red herring, dude – you can’t yell at someone to “refute” something they never challenged. I, as well as reviewers at the time who reviewed his diary, challenged the whole conspiracy theory Zeifman presented, not the particular point of a recommendation letter.

Guess what? There’s TONS of stuff to dislike about the Clintons, and there’s tons of pure political manipulation in their history. That doesn’t mean that every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike is true, or even that it deserves the benefit of the doubt.

All I said was that there should have been some third-party confirmation/corroboration of this stuff at some time in the last 15 years. That’s a completely reasonable statement, but you basically accused me of drinking the Kool-Aid (with your ever-so-special graphic to boot).

It’s really simple – I have a hard time believing ANY single-sourced story, especially one that comes wrapped in a conspiracy theory. I said the exact same thing about the McCain/Isemann “story” on this very blog, remember? I wasn’t on this blog at the time, but I said the same thing about “W snorting coke” back in the day.

As far as the Clintons are concerned, go read the “Hillary Spins More Tall Tales” article currently on the front page. Someone posts a “this couldn’t be right” article, everyone chimes in with “she’s lying,” and then 5 minutes’ worth of Googling shows–and in a rather straightforward fashion–that there was, indeed, a time when the situation facing the survivors of our fallen military matched what Clinton described.

Color me Reaganesque – I like “trust, but verify.” (Yes, I participate in Democratic/liberal blogs too, and they get the same treatment from me.)

Oh, and you don’t anger me by “pointing out that this is most likely true.” It isn’t possible for you, or anyone in the “blogosphere,” to anger me.

How did this simple story become a “conspiracy theory?”

You either believe it or you don’t Wes. Which is it?

P.S. “Reaganesque?” Give me a break!