Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater

Gene Lyons

Originating in an article in Harper's, this is the anti-Whitewater book. There is no Clinton scandal in that unfortunate little real estate deal, according to Gene Lyons, a columnist with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The scandal Lyons sees is in the media hype that elevated the Whitewater story to a level that threatens the Clinton Presidency. Indeed, in a defense that turns into a controversial direct attack on the integrity of the reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post, Lyons alleges that the whole affair "rests on facts that are somewhere between highly dubious and demonstrably false." In scathing polemical detail, Lyons questions the competence and judgment of the journalists involved, concluding that the Clintons are victims of a deliberate smear campaign.

1 Gene Liars Does It Again...
I lived in Arkansas during the first Clinton term. Lyons' column was printed on Wednesday. Unquestionably, it took that long for his poorly written articles to be...oh, never mind, on to the book.

Lyons was the one guy who kept saying, "There's nothing there." Well, not exactly. Forgotten in this whole imbroglio is that while Whitewater didn't deep six the Clintons, it DID destroy Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, who went to the slammer. But Lyons' arguments are shrill and you need a lawyer to weed through the garbage.

Lyons most ridiculous claim is the notion that there is a 'conservative media bias' at work that caused the Whitewater scandal. One ounce of common sense and reflection should put this myth to rest.

1. He accuses the Washington Post and NY Times of being 'Republican outlets.' Yeah, makes sense to me. The NY Times hasn't endorsed a Republican for President in my lifetime, and the Washington Post destroyed Richard Nixon. Ben Bradlee's sister-in-law, Mary Meyer, was one of JFK's mistresses. Yeah, Lyons has a clear-cut case against the Republican media on this one.

2. With the obvious exception of the right-wing biased Fox News (which didn't even exist when Lyons began his writing on this subject), Lyons has absolutely no case. Tom Brokaw was considered for John Kerry's running mate. Dan Rather's run-ins with Republicans Nixon and both Bushes (including the forged documents scandal) is well-known.

3. Look at all the Democratic operatives who now work in the media. Ken Bode, Mark Shields, Jeff Greenfield, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Bill Moyers, Cokie Roberts (the daughter of former House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and sister of Democratic moneyman Tommy Boggs), George Stephanopolous. Other than Brit Hume and Tony Snow - both of whom work at Fox - where is the conservative counterweight?

Lyons' ENTIRE case is based on the 'conservative media' inventing Whitewater. Yet since there is no conservative media besides Fox who didn't exist in 1994 - well, I rest my case. Good example, though, of propaganda.

By the way, the weekly review claims Lyons is 'no friend of Bill.' Having heard Lyons tell this lie repeatedly - this is the same guy who went on "Meet The Press" and claimed Clinton didn't have an affair with Lewinsky and it was made up - I think his credibility is in the garbage can.

2 Not Enough Scandal
I am about 5 years too late in reading this book. There has been so much else written about this particular item that only a new comer to the issue will find this book full of new and interesting information. For the complete picture on Whitewater and all the other Clinton scandals you should read "Hunting the President" by this same author, it is more up to date and covers all the issues. With all that said I still did enjoy parts of the book, I never fail to like reading about how the very anti-Clinton crowd in the 90's did everything they could to make his time in the White House as difficult as possible. The book gives the reader the first cut at how the media and a few Clinton enemies created and kept going the Whitewater non-story. Too bad this much energy would not have been put to positive projects.

My complaint with the book is based on the fact that I have read a number of new books about this time frame that went deeper into the whole anti-Clinton industry of the 90's and with that back ground this book looks a little shallow. I would have liked more detail on how more of the right wing publications and benefactors pushed the story non-stop. I also would have liked a better review of how the Clinton White House handled the accusations. Overall the book is fine and if this is your introduction to the issue then it is a good starting point. If you have read a lot on the issue then this book will be nothing too new for you.

3 Anyone remember Runaway Bride?
Reading Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, I was reminded of the film Runaway Bride. Anybody see that? A drunken, bitter man distorts facts to Richard Gere who writes a column for USA Today. The man's bitter and desperate to lash out, so he takes a few basic facts and spins them wildly, padding them out with lies. His inflated and distorted tales fit the conventional wisdom of journalist Gere who devotes a column listing all the man's charges as factual. He gets a great column out of it, we see people reading it aloud -- most reacting favorably.

Meanwhile, far from the heart of media-land, Julia Roberts discovers one day, while going about her daily work, that she is now the target of ridicule, that the whole country has read various lies about her.

Fools for Scandal predates the film by many years, but it too is focused on the tale of the embittered spinning out factually incorrect tales based on a kernel of truth. For instance, an embittered convicted felon spun tales of a land deal that while unprofitable, was not illegal. Like Gere in Runaway Bride, none of the reporters on the scene felt the need to check out the facts in their haste to "get the story."

Gene Lyons and the editors of Harper's Magazine repeatedly document in their book how a little scepticism and some solid journalism would have set the record straight on Whitewater long before all that tax payer money was wasted on a goose chase/witch hunt.

Whitewater was basically the tale of a business deal that didn't enrich the participants. But business deals apparently are beyond interest in and of themselves -- certainly too lacking in interest for many journalists to stop a moment and question the allegations or the motives of the ones making them.

There were a lot of people making allegations that could stand in for the bitter drunk of Runaway Bride. And certainly there are a number of journalists who can stand in for Richard Gere, but does anyone fits the Gere character more than Jeff Gerth? Gerth's the NY Times reporter who "broke Whitewater," who's devotion to getting the word out -- regardless of whether or not it was true -- casts Beverly Bassett Schaffer firmly in the Julia Roberts role. While casting aspersions at Bassett Schaffer (that were disproved subsequently), Gerth felt no need to disclose the truth of his "source" -- a manic-depressive, unstable man who two years prior to appearing in Gerth's initial coverage had copped the insanity plea in a bank-fraud trial. Gerth describes his source as "stable, careful and calm."

The press has a lot to answer for in the spinning of Whitewater as this book powerfully outlines. Fools for Scandal is recommended to anyone who still feels the IOC's conclusions in the Whitewater matter were to simple. (I.e., nothing illegal occurred.) It should also be read by those who want to evaluate or understand Whitewater for themselves. But it should be required reading for anyone enrolled in a journalism program -- it demonstrates that stories have consequences and that therefore it's incumbent for reporters to do their research from the start and be as sure of their sources as they possibly can.

The defense of "I was only doing my job" only works when a journalist was in fact doing his/her job. And doing his/her job means doing research and printing the truth to the best of his/her ability. That wasn't done in the case of Whitewater.

Back to Runaway Bride, in the film, Julia Roberts reads the lies about her, fires off a letter to the editor of USA Today wherein she takes them to task for the lack of accuracy in the reporting and encloses a list of fifteen "gross factual misrepresentations" printed in the article. And the reaction of USA Today? They fire Richard Gere ("journalism lesson 101: if you fabricate your facts, you get fired"). Roberts doesn't have to spend the bulk of the film fighting for that response, Gere is fired twelve minutes into the picture and Roberts gets a printed apology in the paper.

Well, that's Hollywood for you. Check out the appendix of Fools for Scandal. You'll find not only Gerth's original article that appeared in the New York Times, you'll also find four memos Beverly Bassett Schaffer sent to Gerth attempting to correct him on his inaccurate reporting.

Oh but real life differs from film not only in that Gerth never gets fired, Bassett Shafer gets no apology. Check out the appendix for a letter to a Times reader from Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times wherein the paper takes no responsibility and further distorts the facts regarding Bassett Schaffer. Be sure to read Lyons response to the letter (also in the appendix) where he tries again to set the record straight with the facts regarding Bassett Shafer. And don't miss his statements on Bassett Schaffer's twenty typed pages of memos she sent to Gerth or Lyons conclusion that : "I doubt Times editors knew the memos existed. Had I concealed such evidence from Harper's Magazine, I suspect that my byline would never appear in this magazine again."

Gerth continues to write for the Times and with regards to Whitewater, the Times continues to distort Whitewater, most recently in a book review of Susan McDougal's The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk. Despite getting the facts wrong with regard to court findings, despite many readers drawing their attention to it, the Times took a week to print a correction. And in the correction? They again got it wrong. Which is why a week after the correction, they have to print a letter from McDougal clarifying the record. But even then, no apology from the paper itself.

I hope Lyons is correct, I hope at most papers reporters who print distortions and ignore clarifications get punished. It happens that way in Runaway Bride, but that's Hollywood.

4 All the truth that's fit to print
Lyons makes it depressingly clear how the contemporary media, particularly the New York Times and Washington Post, is owned by the Republican party. That fact became obvious to millions of previously na•ve Americans in the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, and certainly explains reporter's fascination with Whitewater in the absence of public concern. At the time of Clinton's Presidency, I subscribed to the NY Times, and had no idea how corrupt and biased they were and are, but couldn't understand why they were latching onto the Whitewater story, when there didn't seem to be any substance. I now know better, thanks in part to this book.

It's really quite chilling to read Lyons' account of how processed the NY Time's version of "news" was, how much of the truth they covered up, and how few of the inconvenient facts they allowed their readers to see. The Time's just prints all the news that fits the myth. It's very scary that most other newspapers follow the mighty Times like sheep and just accept their accounts.

I really didn't have much sympathy for Hillary Clinton until I read this book, and now I have some insight into what she endured, and why she made certain decisions. It's a disturbing and uncomfortable truth that Lyons tells, but Americans need to know.

5 Even more compelling now than when it was published.
Lyons's first book on the fabrication of the Whitewater hoax by the New York Times is even more compelling reading now than it was when it was published. In 2000, it is easy to see how the impeachment became inevitable; it will soon enough become evident why it failed (because the President is a sinner, but not a lawbreaker); and Lyons, almost alone among the country's journalists, demolished Whitewater as a credible scandal in 1996. Lyons demonstrates that Governor Clinton was not guilty of any abuse of power, because no such abuse took place. The Times did not make a mountain out of a molehill, it made it out of nothing at all. After Lyons briskly explains the banking law and practice that governed the decline and takeover of Madison Guaranty, the facts of Beverly Bassett Schaffer's appointment and actions regarding the supervision of this bank, there is simply no case left at all for believing the Clintons violated any standard of ethics or broke any law. And it doesn't take long for Lyons to demonstrate this--what he moves on to is an explication of how the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post soon began to make their own news. They could not, after all, report show trials in the U.S. Senate, or throw up their hands in shocked amazement at the findings of the Pillsbury Report without raising questions in their readers' minds as to why these trusted newspspers had been mongering this scandal for so long. Rather than admit their error, they simply hammered home, day after day, ever more nebulous accusations of the Clintons' character flaws and raised new "questions" about their behavior. In this climate, there was no voice of reason or justice to oppose Kenneth Starr's ever more desperate prosecutorial tactics in finding something to impeach the President for. Lyons also takes up the lesser "scandals" variously "reported" by the Times and others, including Mrs. Clinton's commodities trades, Governor Clinton's treatment of Tyson Foods and Stephens, Inc., and James B. Stewart's accusation of financial dishonesty on Mrs. Clinton's part in filling out a loan application (Stewart had neglected to check the back of a two-page form, on which Mrs. Clinton had given the information he accused her of hiding). Mr. Lyons got an awful lot of significant facts, and he got them first. He laid them out in damning order, and told the story in a tone of dry irony just this side of scathing. After reading this book, you will want to give it to any of your friends who are capable of distinguishing fact from propaganda. And your level of trust in the New York Times will drop precipitously. It is required reading for citizens with a sense of decency.

6 This book has stood the test of time
This book was written four years ago and has stood the test of time. When future Historians study our era they will be referring to this book to understand the massive hysteria that gripped the country for 6 years.

After the biggest witchunt since Salem, countless Congressional investigation, 3 independent counsels, dozens of prosecutors, FBI agents......still not a shred of evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons in Whitewater. So what happened? This book details the origins of the hysteria.

When future Historians look at all the facts and pass judgment their harshest condemnation will be reserved for the New York Times for their journalistic malpractice. Not far behind will be the rest of the mainstream press for blindly following the newspaper of record.

7 A Book Worthy Of Reading But Difficult To Believe!
When it is all said and done about Clinton's Legacy, Gene Lyons has assured himself a place in the Presidential Library by writing such a book. The book does point out several areas that Clinton haters seldom want to see or believe. For example, regardless how you feel about Bill, you must admire his ability to not only survive a sad, sordid and disadvantage childhood but achieved his goals in education, public service and politics. He did so on his own initiative, using and abusing close friends who also did the same to him, and focusing on saying anything at anytime that could help him at that time. Whitewater was a shady inside financial political deal, made among many politicians with profiteers when the Saving and Loan sector was deregulated, not just in Arkansas but throughout the country. It was denied during the campaign and avoided by a phony accounting report that was needed in the primaries, but proved to be less than accurate after Clinton was elected president. On one hand, two of Clinton's friends became upset when the deal went south and felt Clinton abandoned them when he became president. Now did those friends feel betrayed by Clinton and wanted to bring him down as the book points out? The author has made a great case saying so and I believe him. On the other hand, was it the silence of others who refused to answer pivotal questions whether such meetings with Clinton took place? This would lead back to the president when he was a governor and would show he plotted and scheme with them? No doubt about it, their silence saved this president. Therefore, in the book Gene Lyons wants us to believe the former but some facts clearly show an investigation was needed and reported properly by the media contrary to the author's CONclusions. Either way, 17 convictions including the Solicitor General's convictions are facts not fiction. The author has been trying to apologize and justify Clinton's behavior since the impeachment. In the end, no book using revisionists history is going to exonerate this president's actions prior to and during the first four years of his presidency that accomplished more than people expected. At the same time, no book can change the fact that president Clinton was able to avoid impeachment for many acts that even his party said can be punishable after these last four years of absolutely few accomplishments whatsoever. No friend or enemy of the Clintons' have been able to help or hurt the Clintons' more so than themselves as well as this book that lives off of a public's poor memory. The only problem is, when you view the Clinton presidency even after Whitewater, it is one few can be proud of and the only fool is the one who claims it had made up scandals to bring them down. Sorry, they did it all by themselves and still are doing it, to the dismay of the many who support them, and frustration of those would destroy them. The book is worth reading to provide an overall view of the Clintons' but it can't change history.

8 Biased Nonsense
While I am not a fan of Bill Clinton, a few years back I read this book for the purposes of "opposition research". There are a number of problems with it.

I do not buy Lyon's assertion early in the book that he is not a Clinton supporter. He has made a career of defending Clinton and attacking his detractors. It doesn't necessarily invalidate his viewpoint that he's a Clinton supporter, but his claims otherwise invite skepticism.(I know Amazon does not like comments about the author, but given that this was in response to a claim he made about himself in the reviewed book, I hope this will be allowed.)

He gets some things wrong. For instance, in discussing the troopers claims that they were informed early in the evening of Vincent Foster's death, he makes much of the fact that they did not testify before the Whitewater Committee. This would not be so bad if he did not go on to assert that the troopers did not want to make their statements under oath. They already had, in sworn affidavits! Given that this was mentioned in the work by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard that he was critiquing, this was either extremely sloppy work or an out-and-out lie. Lyons treats similiar slips (if this can be called a slip) in the work of others as evidence that nothing they say is trustworthy.

Other things Lyons said are true enough but not nearly as meaningful as he thinks they are. What appear on a superficial reading to be devastating rebuttals are merely repeated assertions that conservative causes and publications tend to get funded by rich conservatives, and that Clinton's critics tend to be people who don't like him. These assertions are ad-hominem arguments, and they are not even good ones. Furthermore, Lyons never stops to ask himself why so many former Clinton friends and associates seem to dislike him so much.

Finally, Lyons exaggerates the severity of Clinton's critics and investigators. You would never know from this book how many Clinton scandals end up getting buried way past page 5 of the front section. Another example is his treatment of Ken Starr's investigation of Vincent Foster's death. He goes on at length about the trips to Fort Marcy Park with a metal detector to find the bullet. He treats this as grandstanding when in fact what Starr was doing was looking for evidence that Foster DID commit suicide in Fort Marcy Park. But Lyons would never allow thought to get in the way of some good Starr-bashing.

I will admit I have a grudging admiration for Lyon's Menckenesque prose style, and if I knew how to give his book an extra half-star for this, I would have.

9 Sorry expose into wishful thinking
Gene Lyons is a terrific writer of fiction, and that's what this book mostly is. After reading the book, I researched the so-called errors that Lyons points out and found that Lyons himself made many, many more errors than he accuses the news media of making. Lyons' errors start on the opening page of the book in the credits section where he mistakenly attributes some source to being a job he never had. It was a small error, but to someone as self righteous as Lyons, no error is small. I consider Lyons to be very hateful and mean spirited toward conservatives in general, and toward Clinton detractors specifically. Heaven forbid someone think that lying under oath and obstruction of justice are crimes not only reserved for Republican Presidents. If you want definitive sources on Whitewater, order the hearings books and final reports from your Congressman and/or Senator. If you want to engage in the fantasy that Bill Clinton never did anything wrong in his life and all his problems are related to a right wing conspiracy, this book is for you.

10 Gray Lady Down
Not since the late I. F. Stone debunked the Pentagon's PR campaign for Vietnam has a journalist so completely destoyed a popular myth perpetuated by a lazy press in service of the forces of reaction. In a year of searching, I have never found any reviewer who has rebuted a single factual claim or historical inference made in this book. The book reads like a great short story (just when you think the bad guys could not get away with anymore, they do) and the ending is better than any pulp fiction. After reading this you won't care about Monica. After all the perjury Starr and the GOP sponsored against him, Clinton still has a few more 'Get out of jail free' passes.

11 A Classic in Journalistic Criticism
The nucleus of Lyons' book began as an October 1994 article in Harper's Magazine. In it he confirmed what I and others had suspected: There was no there there in the Whitewater story, and that it was a hoax with regard to the Clintons.

Two years later, at around the 1996 elections, Lyons and the editors of Harper's came up with this book. More than just a recounting of the Whitewater saga, this book is one of the most damning indictments of journalistic malpractice ever written. At the core of the book is the behavior of journalists at various newspaper and broadcast media outlets in general, with particular emphasis on the New York Times and the now-discredited reporter Jeff Gerth. Needless to say, Lyons' book got a lousy review in the NYT Book Review, yet nobody has ever refuted anything Lyons wrote. Indeed, his book has stood the test of time.

Breezily written, yet meticulously researched, Lyons' book can be read in a sitting or two. I also recommend the section in the back of the book featuring a discussion with Lyons and a number of other journalists with regard to the lack of journalistic standards in the Whitewater reporting.

This book can also be seen as a forerunner to Lyons' (and Joe Conason's) upcoming book on the so-called Clinton Scandals, "The Hunting of the President." If that book is anything like "Fools for Scandal," it should be very good, indeed. Lyons and Conason will still not be invited to the Georgetown cocktail parties, however.

12 Unrefuted, Unrebutted
This book has stood the test of time. Despite all the carping of the Clinton Crazies, none have been able to factually refute what's in this expose. A pity more haven't read this, since Lyons' voice in the wilderness has accurately skewered the "accuracy" of one of America's icons, The New York Times. Had everyone been paying attention, the Starr investigation may have wound down much sooner, and Wen Ho Lee may have been spared being called a traitor based on the usual inaccurate, slanderous reporting of the Times' Jeff Gerth.

The anti-Clinton comments in these reviews are, in hindsight, kind of funny. One writer couldn't wait for Ken Starr to tell us the real truth about Whitewater. Well, he has, and he was forced to admit that there was no scandal there after all. The other anti-Clinton comments are notably lightweight, since they in no way even attempt to factually refute this book.

Because they can't.

13 The American People are Vindicated
I remember when Bill Clinton won his second presidential election the media was kind of shocked and basically said, "The American people just don't get it!" On the contrary, the American people did get it and this book proves it. Never in my life time have I seen the media try so vigorously to sway public opinion through such deception and then public opinion going the opposite direction. Perhaps Americans are much smarter than the press thinks we are. It will be interesting to see how all their hard "work" influences the results of the next election. The media needs to reclaim the journalist standards it once had in the days of Edward R. Murrow but I don't see that happening.

14 The only report on "Whitewater" that counts
This is the only book on the Whitewater nonsense that will be used in future history classes. The facts are stated in the simplest and most straight forward manner. Whitewater is in the end a political assassination, an attempt to undo the will of the american people by any means possible. Evidenced by the fact that Kenny kept the Grand Jury seated to investigate the President's sex life, even he knew, from the very beginning, that this was a dead end.

15 Well-documented and rational
This book is an example of real journalism in which sources are checked and properly cited. The author does not claim to be totally dispassionate, because he has seen injustice done and he seeks to right the record. However, every fact can be checked.

The central theme is the lousy journalism perpetrated by lazy and biased reporters who preferred passing on rumors to checking their facts and, when confronted, totally abdicated responsibility for correcting or even acknowledging their errors. It is astonishing that the press can be this incompetent and so totally disrespectful of their responsibilities.

I just wish the book had been longer and had covered more topics. This is REAL reporting.

16 comment
Thank you for your review of "one weak to freedom"

17 Gene Lyons exposes dishonest journalism at the NY Times
After reading Jeff Gerth's Chinese spy stories in the NY Times, and realizing that they were mostly anti-Clinton innuendo with very few facts, I decided to read this book.

Lyons dissects Gerth's "journalism" word by word, innuendo by innuendo, half-truth by half-truth, lie by lie, smear by smear. Any reporter at a self-respecting college newspaper who was as dishonest as Gerth was in his Whitewater stories would've been immediately fired.

Before reading "Fools for Scandal," I was annoyed by Jeff Gerth's "journalism"; now I'm angry at both him and The New York Times, since they have obviously become tools of the most poisonous element in our political culture, the right wing.

When the history of this era -- with its right-wing smear machine and the corrupt journalism that is the machine's partner in crime -- is taught, "Fools for Scandal" should be required reading.

18 Starr Even Proved in His Report this Book is Accurate
I did not vote for Clinton. I read this book two years ago and it opened my eyes how the media can botch a "story". There is no "conspiracy" going on here, it's a fact-by-fact account of the so-called Whitewater scandal. Before this book, I actually thought the media was "moderate" in it's spin. But it's obvious how far to the right it has become since the Reagan spin doctors came along. They were instrumental in the demonization of the term "liberal".

19 Revealing look at methods of todays's mainstream press
The recent Susan McDougal trial prompted me to read Gene Lyon's book. I found it fascinating and troubling. I am a daily reader of the the NY Times and have noticed inaccuracies on occasion, but Gerth's work seems to be pure fiction. I wonder if the committee that recently awarded him a Pulitzer knows about his history of shoddy, inventive reporting.

20 A truth we don't want to hear
Gene Lyons' book contains truths we as a nation don't want to hear, but it is invaluable nonetheless. It shows how dangerous the situation when the media do not do their jobs, when supposed reporters accept allegations without verification and without applying any critical thinking, when writers lazily accept the latest rumor rather than investigate the issues the hard way, and when nobody asks about motives. While Lyons doesn't make much of it, the larger implications for American freedom are dire.

21 Excellent commentary on how the press can fail us.
My college history professor emphasized the importance of checking "the original source." This book shows how, once journalists started quoting each other, or doing sloppy and lazy investigative work, the story went wrong in a big way.This is more a look at the responsibility of journalists to carefully and meticulously check out their stories, than it is a defense of President Clinton.

22 The must read book for "honest" critics of the President .
This book is overwhelming proof of the current control of the news and information media by the enemies of our Democratic President, if not the enemies of our democracy. Kenneth Starr has conclusively proven by his unconfessed total failure to find fault in all of the matters that he pursued against the President that Gene Lyons was the ONLY HONEST AND INFORMED newsman on this story LONG BEFORE everybody else in America learned by Starr's silence that the Clintons were innocent of all the Whitewater matters ferociously investigated by the laughingly referred to "Independent" Counsel. It is imperative that Americans ALL learn from this book AFTER THE FACT how badly they were MIS-INFORMED in this matter by the so-called "news and information media", so that they can start demanding a stop to this same bias in the "mainstream media" post haste!

23 Absolutely essential for understanding "whitewater"
Mr. Lyons - no friend of Mr. Clinton - exposes how specific excesses of the mainstream media, especially the NY Times, helped to cultivate a largely baseless series of accusations refered to generally as "whitewater". In so doing, the very media that the public depends on to cover the news became an indispensible and inappropriate part of the story. Very troubling read.

24 A prescient account of the end of Ken Starr's inquisition.
After I read FOOLS FOR SCANDAL nearly two years ago, I told everyone who would listen that all the voluminous Whitewater investigations would amount to zilch, zippo, nada. With the end of all the GOP led investigations, as well as the culmination of the Starr investigation, with its two mentions of Whitewater, Mr. Lyons was indeed correct.

Mr. Lyons, reviled as a "Clinton Apologist" by the media elite, has been proven not only prescient but courageous in his relentless determination to reveal the truth, no matter what kind of forty million dollar hoax the Washington elitists wanted to propagate.

Don't expect the television punditocracy to recognize or admit that Mr. Lyons was right, they don't have the journalistic integrity or character to acknowledge their failures.

A must read for anyone who wants a roadmap to this four year and forty million dollar boondoggle. Now, this is a fleecing of America!!!!!

25 Good fiction.
A very slanted book about how the right-wing media (what a laugh) worked against the saintly, clean-cut Bill Clinton. I would wait on buying this book until Judge Starr releases his supporting documentation of the Starr report that shows what really happened with Whitewater.

26 Great Fiction
Superb fiction. Mr Lyons is wonderfully invintive and not bothered by the facts. I am looking forward to his next novel

27 Witty, factual, eye-opening, but ultimately disturbing.
The basic thesis of Gene Lyons' witty dissection of coverage of Whitewater and the resulting "scandal" is that the traditional "mud wrestling" of Arkansas politics was unleashed on gullible and incompetent major news organizations. His step-by-step refutation of Jeff Gerth's reporting for the New York Times was breathtaking; a strict logical analysis hasn't given me such a thrill since I read Pascal's "Provincial Letters," many years ago. However, at bottom, the portrait of the Times and the Washington Post that emerges is very disturbing. Gerth apparently thinks nothing of reversing the chronology of major events and ignoring virtually all the documentary evidence when they contradict his thesis. The fact that Gerth is also the author of the Times' recent stories on the China missile technology flap has caused me to doubt those stories also. If you can't trust The Times, who can you trust? Still, read this book for a very eye-opening experience.

28 Finally...some true reporting!
A great read...exposes the hypocricy of the media and the unfairness of the continuous Clinton-bashers

29 The truth about Whitewater
This book is an excellent expose of the media invention known as Whitewater. It is compelling reading, and proves beyond doubt that the Clintons are being smeared every day on Whitewater. A must read for the Clinton supporter

30 This book gives a compelling picture of media wrongdoing.
Gene Lyons makes it clear in this eye-opener of a book why you have never been able to understand just what this Whitewater affair is all about, and he forces you to the terrible conclusion that you have been deliberately deceived and manipulated by the mainstays of the mainstream press. Lyons is not one of those fevered sorts of conspiracy theorists who thinks that Elvis is behind the governmental cover-up of UFOs, but rather an engaging writer who is able to make straightforward sense of what you may think is a convoluted tale. Though the author limits his investigation almost completely to Whitewater and does not touch upon other allegations of scandal, his book nonetheless becomes a lens through which any conscientious citizen must view all reporting on the President and his wife. The reader is cautioned, though, that Fools for Scandal could lead to a complete loss of faith in the credibility, and even the integrity, of the New York Times.

31 A lame excuse for a scandal meets its antidote
Liking Clinton, I always felt nagging worry as Whitewater was constantly mentioned. "How the Media Invented Whitewater" INVENTED!! Surely that's biting off more than could possibly be said with confidence and a straight face. Then I read the book. Apprehension turned to outrage. Jeff Gerth of the New York Times went to Arkansas looking for a story. He extensively interviewed Clinton's Commissioner of Securities regarding S&L regulation. Finding Gerth long on opinions and shakey on the facts, the Commissioner wrote Gerth long memos (reprinted in "Fools for Scandal") detailing the facts of regulatory activity, corroboration existed in state government files and the RTC office that had participated in the joint regulation that included ultimately kicking Jim MacDougal out of Madison Guaranty, then the RTC taking it over. With these facts, Gerth went on to write "news" stories that are half false and half disinformation, published at a time when Clinton's 1992 campaign was imploding and this kind of story could have been the last straw. But nobody is tougher than Clinton. Lyons details each basic fact of Whitewater as a business, as a deal, and as a scandal. That it has been turned into a scandal is a tribute to how easily we can become victims of a hoax. Take the case of Jean Lewis, the so-called RTC whistle-blower. Since Madison Guaranty had no assets to recover for the RTC, Jean Lewis was assigned to other Arkansas S&Ls that had cost the government 20x more and did have recoverable assets. Jean Lewis announced to the coworker she was "out to change history" during the fall 1992 campaign and disobeying her superiors and her assigned case load worked full time to follow Madison Guaranty. She referred criminal charges and pressed the Republican Federal prosecutor in Little Rock, who said he would be guilty of prosecutorial misconduct if he brought a case with such a lack of evidence. Did you know that Jean Lewis had a side business selling "Presidential Bitch!" coffee cups with Hillary's picture on them, and on her company's business cards she used her RTC's office phone number? Jean Lewis is a cross between Mary Matalin and Gordon Liddy. She bought a tape recorder, and secretly taped her coworkers as she attempted to get them to make implicating remarks. She testified to the Whitewater Committee quoting coworkers based on her tapes, but adding insult to injury she misquoted what they had said. She testified she had bought this tape recorder after these quoted conversations occurred. Richard Ben-Veniste, the Committee's Democratic counsel, subpeoned the records of the store to find the tape recorder was bought before any of these conversations started. Jean Lewis committed perjury about half a dozen times in her tesimony to the Whitewater Committee. Having watched her testimony that day, and Richard Ben-Veniste's interrogation of her, I couldn't believe she was still being called a whistle blower. Afterwards, she puked from stress, and was too nervous to testify the next day. But the Republican propaganda machine was in full swing, with Jim Leach as pointman, who I lost all respect for as a result of his reckless attacks. Ken Starr, who continued to represent clients in litigation against the RTC even while serving as Independent Counsel, took Jean Lewis as an "advisor" since nobody at the RTC wanted her back. Those big S&L's in Arkansas she was assigned to recover money from? The statute of limitations expired while she ignored her assigned work and changed history. Don't expect Ken Starr to prosecute her for perjury. Don't expect the news media to put her tesimony up to scrutiny. Personal sarcasm not in the book: Arkansas politics, always referred to in the media as "inbred" (read: hillbilly), is an easy target of the "sophisicated" Eastern media. A subliminal message is they're looking down their collective nose at Arkansas - as if no scandal in New York politics? Or no one who would subscribe to a scandal sheet for entertainment? No, everything we print is true. I see why The Star is now quoted in the same company with this media, and reeking of resentment that a little hillbilly from a backwater state, took the government from its self-appointed owners, and "now we'll punish them for being successful" mentality. Arkansas the state has taken such a beating from national Republicans that the Arkansas Republicans started complaining. Negative politics, which we profess to hate, is recycled in the form of smear, scandal and the Rush Limbaugh School of Character Assassination. Bill Clinton is smarter and tougher than can be imagined. He is tough enough to withstand this unbelievably insane assault, and he is the real victim of Whitewater both financially and politically. Finding no substance in Whitewater, we have watched all year while attacks are packaged into another series of accusations. The media parrots the Republican smear campaign, and are insulted at non-cooperation from the Clintons, having distorted quotes and facts. Clinton is smart enough to use the legal protections of the justice system for the innocent. He is also smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and suffer the slings and arrows. Bill Clinton went into business with Jim MacDougal. Other people went into business with Jim MacDougal, such as Sheffield Nelson, Clinton's 1990 Republican opponent for governor, and Jerry Jones, natural gas/real estate wheeler-dealer turned Dallas Cowboys owner. "Fools For Scandal" provides considerable perspective of the business activities engaged in by these people. It's a big story. Don't make the mistake that you think you understand what's going on. Many people are convinced Clinton is guilty of crimes in Whitewater. Ask them what they are, though, and they can't tell you. Ask them why it's illegal to have lost $42,000 in a business venture, which the Clintons did, and they can't explain why that's a crime. Then neither is any thing else. There are other victims in Whitewater, I think. Like Roger Altman, who may have made the mistake of believing what The New York Times reported about the President, and got nervous, like I felt hearing it too. It's always easier to announce the conclusion of a book in a review than it is to recount the facts point by point. I feel the book stated the facts convincingly and the facts were woven together with background and context. If you can find any thing in this book that can't be verified by original documents, I'd like to know. This book is an investigative report where the media is investigated and scrutinized and found untrustworthy. And it took somebody from Arkansas to show us that.

32 Must reading!
For those of us who have despaired of ever seeing a balanced account of Whitewater in the media, this book is fantastic. Buy it, read it, show it to your friends, and keep it handy whenever the NY Times, your local paper or even (yes) NPR start spouting off about Whitewater. This is a case study of how a scandal-hungry media got totally snookered by the GOP propaganda machine and nearly destroyed a presidency in the process