President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton have both accused their political opponents of undertaking a “well-financed, well-coordinated campaign” to “smear them.” Indeed, Mr. Clinton has specifically cited a $1 million “slush fund” allegedly amassed by Republicans and conservatives to “get” the Clintons.
As a lifelong political activist I was, of course, appalled. I thought I had been part of every conservative conspiracy since we sicced that killer rabbit on Jimmy Carter back in ’79.
I immediately called David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU) and demanded to know, as a board member of the ACU, what was up with this conspiracy thing. And where could I sign up? Mr. Keene apologized and replied that it was simply an oversight – that, in fact, the “Get Clinton” conspiracy group was meeting that afternoon. “Come on over,” he said.
What a pleasure it was to get together with Rush, G. Gordon, Ollie, the “Vig” (AKA Richard Viguerie), Pat Buchanan, Floyd Brown and Dave Bossie, the editorial staffs of The Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, the staffs of the Republican National Committee, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, Pat Moynihan, Cliff Jackson, Newt, Al D’Amato, Mike Isikoff, the Arkansas State Troopers Association, the Teamsters and other card-carrying members of the “Get Clinton” conspiracy. We met in secret at RFK stadium. Mr. Keene called the meeting to order, noting there was barely a quorum, as hardly any of the women Bill Clinton had the troopers approach was present. Also missing were Bob Novak, who was off clubbing baby seals, Bill Kristol, who was writing a memo, and Bob Tyrrell, who was giving assault weapons and cocaine to 9-year-olds. “Beginning with old business, let’s review what has been arranged by the Sub Task Forces on Whitewatergate, VinceFostergate, Fornigate, PaulaJonesgate, Travelgate, Hillarygate, HealthCaregate and HillaryRodhamClintonCommoditiesgate. Floyd, please give us your Task Forces’ Report,” Mr. Keene said.
“Well David, we had extraordinarily good success in arranging for Robert Altman to hold three clandestine meetings in the White House to brief the staff on the RTC investigation into Madison Guaranty and Whitewater. I can tell you it wasn’t easy, but I was finally able to persuade Mr. Altman that this course of action was all good for Mr. Clinton and that there was no downside in subverting the feds’ investigation. We then, of course, alerted the members of the Senate Banking Committee on his meetings at the White House.”
“Nice bait-and-switch, Floyd.”
“Thanks David.”
The group murmured its approval. “But really, the credit must go to good ol’ Jim McDougal when we met with him years ago and bribed him to bribe the Clintons into all those shady dealings. David, let me say you were wise to organize the ‘Get Clinton’ conspiracy 12 years ago,” concluded Mr. Brown.
“Thank you Mr. Floyd. Let’s now hear from Richard Viguerie on the membership recruitment drive for our top secret ‘Get Clinton’ conspiracy,” Mr. Keene said.
“Thanks Dave. We’ve so far been able to keep this under wraps, although Sidney Rodham Blumenthal and some journalists have begun sniffing around. We’ve got to be careful that we don’t end up exposed like the JFK conspiracy, and I’ve asked our friends with the FBI, the CIA, the WPA, the NSA, organized crime, the Pentagon, the Military-Industrial Complex and the Salvation Army not to let this leak out like they did last time!
“So far, active dues paying membership in our conspiracy is in the neighborhood of 73 million people, give or take a hundred thousand. But we’ve got to be careful. Clinton the other day said we had a $1 million slush fund. As we all know, it’s now in excess of $1 billion and stashed in accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. But it’s important to keep this quiet, David.”
“Thanks, Richard. Given our time constraints, I suggest the report on Hillarygate be moved up, since we were so successful in getting the New Yorker magazine to get their reporter to get Betsy Wright to say they’re preparing Hillary for a presidential bid. So now, let’s hear from [identity withheld] of the CIA on this.”
“Thanks, David. Although the public poll numbers on Hillary have shown steady erosion of support, we all know that her approval rating according to our own surveys is actually 96 percent favorable. We were able to buy off all the pollsters in America to get them to ‘cook’ bad numbers for Hillary. But I think one of our best moves was to arrange for Hillary to start off 1992 with the ‘baking cookies’ comment. Some of our operatives were able to convince Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Paul Begala that if Hillary said this, it would appeal to the ‘man-hating-leftist-granola-crunching-strike-oriented-caucus.’ Also, our operative on her Health Care Task Force convinced her to write a plan that would anger almost everybody in America. Our work is proceeding, and we’ll have a full report at the next board meeting on the yeoman work done on Hillary by Red Bone.”
At this point, I leaned over to Newt and asked, “Tell me again how you convinced David Watkins that it was okay to take that helicopter.”
Mr. Keene said, “Given the lateness of the day, let me express the board’s many thanks to the College Republicans for arranging for that girl to ask Clinton the underwear question. That was a master stroke worthy of Donald Segretti. Let me also put a motion on the table to delay the other reports until the next board meeting – is there a second?”
I seconded.
“All in favor?”
The group unanimously passed the motion. As the group was breaking up, Recording Secretary Gennifer Flowers announced the time and place of the next board meeting: “It’s on the Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. But don’t forget,” she said, “it’s a secret.”
Craig Shirley is a GOP consultant, lacrosse coach, and newly registered member of the “Get Clinton” Conspiracy Working Group.
LOAD-DATE: June 21, 1994
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
Copyright 1994 The Washington Times LLC All Rights Reserved
