Moral Hazard, the Irish setter owned for photo-op purposes by New York Times columnist David Brooks, searched the Young Fogies Club in midtown Manhattan for any room where politics were not being discussed. In the club room, Bret Stephens, the new pageboy and coat-check attendant, was praising the heat of the early summer morning as a monument to a thriving economy while Ross Douthat, who had that job before Stephens, fanned himself with an old copy of Humanae Vitae and prayed that the sprinkler system would go off by accident.

My god, it's too hot for this, Moral Hazard thought to himself, as he wended his way through the kitchen and off to the back fire escape, where it was shady and cool and stirred deliciously by a regular, if overripe, breeze from down the alley.

The night before, as he tried to sleep on the iron grate, Moral Hazard had heard Master reading his column aloud from a room on the 13th floor. Master often rehearsed his work this way. Moral Hazard long ago had learned to ignore it, but the guys looking for scrap metal in the alley usually freaked out when they heard the voice from above, and the stray cats moaned and screeched and clawed at each other's eyes. It made quite the din.

This time, though, Moral Hazard was struck by some of what Master was saying. He was using words—"Whitewater," "McDougal," "Parker Dozhier," "Mena"—of which Moral Hazard's predecessor in the job, his uncle Market Solution, had warned him to be wary. They were sure signs that Master's dementia wingnuttia might be coming out of remission again. Now, as the next morning ran hotly toward noon, Moral Hazard lay down on the fire escape in deep contemplation of how nothing really is new under the sun.

From The New York Times:

I was the op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal at the peak of the Whitewater scandal. We ran a series of investigative pieces "raising serious questions" (as we say in the scandal business) about the nefarious things the Clintons were thought to have done back in Arkansas. Now I confess I couldn't follow all the actual allegations made in those essays. They were six jungles deep in the weeds. But I do remember the intense atmosphere that the scandal created. A series of bombshell revelations came out in the media, which seemed monumental at the time. A special prosecutor was appointed and indictments were expected. Speculation became the national sport. In retrospect Whitewater seems overblown. And yet it has to be confessed that, at least so far, the Whitewater scandal was far more substantive than the Russia-collusion scandal now gripping Washington.

This may be the most shameless passage of political journalism I have ever read. It contains more of the elements of passive-aggression, self-absolution, historical amnesia, and outright falsehood in the same place than any other single location this side of the author's own frontal lobes.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Note the shabby, silly alibi that leads us off.

Now I confess I couldn't follow all the actual allegations made in those essays.

You were the editor, fool. It was your job to follow the actual allegations, because a lot of them were crazy tales from Arkansas con-men who looked at the national press and saw a battalion of easy marks.

They were six jungles deep in the weeds.

And hip-deep in pure bullshit, but do go on.

A series of bombshell revelations came out in the media, which seemed monumental at the time.

Some of those were contained in a series of "investigative essays" that helped drive Vince Foster to kill himself. We know this because the WSJ was specifically mentioned in his suicide note. I'm surprised a copy of it isn't hanging in the editorial department.

A special prosecutor was appointed and indictments were expected.

Actually, two special prosecutors were appointed. The first one, Robert Fiske, concluded that there was no crime involving the Clintons in regard to Whitewater and its attendant fiscal shenanigans. That's why Republican judges fired Fiske and we ended up with Ken Starr.

In retrospect Whitewater seems overblown. And yet it has to be confessed that, at least so far, the Whitewater scandal was far more substantive than the Russia-collusion scandal now gripping Washington.

This is a masterpiece of intellectual cowardice. I didn't understand it, even though it was my job to do so, and now that I'm a thought leader, I think one of the major boosts to my career may have been a crock of beans, but, hey, we had a real scandal there, unlike the current moment, which has revealed that my entire career has been devoted to building a fairy tale castle in which every ogre and troll of the lunatic right can find refuge.

There was nothing "substantive" about "the Whitewater scandal," at least as regards the Clintons. We know this because Ken Starr told the House Judiciary Committee that very thing. The real damage it did was to give ambitious conservative coatholders a leg up in our national discourse so that, now, they can deny the forces that created them. What a bunch of ingrates.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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