BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Friday, June 04, 2004
DRUDGE AND CLARK REVISITED.
For anyone who still cares, Alexandra Polier's account of her
non-sex
non-affair with John Kerry
in the current New York magazine contains pretty convincing
evidence that Wesley Clark really did play a key role in passing the
rumor along to the media, or at least in further inflaming their
loins.
You may recall that Drudge fingered
Clark at the time, writing that the then-Democratic presidential
candidate had told reporters that Kerry was about to "implode" over
an intern scandal. Clark supporters and some other Democrats were
upset that pundits - including Media Log - were accepting Drudge's
word rather than investigating the Republican dirty-tricks
machine.
Well, check this
out from Polier's piece:
Drudge claimed Clark
himself had told reporters on his campaign bus that Kerry was
going to "implode" over a scandal, but when I called Wesley Clark
Jr., a screenwriter in L.A., who had helped out on his father's
campaign, he told me Drudge had ignored the context of his
father's quote. "He was reacting to the latest issue of The
National Enquirer, which had just run a front-page story about
Kerry and possible scandals, when he said that."
But? What do you mean "but"?
This is confirmation, not contradiction. It also comports perfectly
with what Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant told
me at the time in
describing the background of a column he'd written on Clark's role in
spreading the rumor:
In addition to summarizing
the background to Clark's behavior, I also wrote that his comments
directed attention [to] (some said specifically mentioned)
the piece in The National Enquirer before it was published. The
piece was transparently a clip job, but the effect was to increase
the level of chatter by a lot. Drudge took it down to the next
level, which I described as a frenzy about a story that hadn't
been written concerning an allegation that hadn't been
made.
Chris Lehane, who'd earlier worked
for Kerry and who ended up on Clark's campaign, also figures
prominently - and negatively - in Polier's piece.
DEBASING THE BASE. In an
interesting juxtaposition showing that both George W. Bush and John
Kerry are trying to appeal to the middle, the New York Times
today reports
that some conservative activists - mostly smaller-government types -
are disgusted with Bush, while the Boston Globe
details
liberal discontent with Kerry.
Make of it what you will. Bush sure
as hell is no centrist, but he's certainly not a conservative in any
commonly accepted sense of the word, either. Radical right-winger is
more like it. Kerry is sort of a moderate liberal. I
guess.
posted at 8:33 AM |
2 comments
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2 Comments:
Ryan Lizza of TNR was actually in the group of reporters that Clarke spoke to and _categorically_ rejected the claim that Clarke said that Kerry had an 'intern problem.' Read her archives.
What Ryan Lizza wrote at the time was kind of weird. He said: "I was there when Clark spoke, and just to make sure I didn't miss anything, I've also checked with other reporters who were there. Since it was off the record (sort of), I can't get into what Clark actually said (let's just say it was not his finest moment on the campaign trail), but I can report that the quote Drudge attributes to him - 'Kerry will implode over an intern issue' - is not accurate. He never said that."
What does "let's just say it was not his finest moment" mean? Lizza doesn't say. In any case, I would argue that Lizza now must certainly yield to Wesley Clark Jr., wouldn't you?
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
