Clinton ultimately settled Jones’ sexual-harassment case for the entire amount she requested. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright found him in civil contempt of court for “intentionally false” testimony, which led to the suspension of his Arkansas law license. Despite this, Media Matters, the journalism watchdog organization that Brock founded in 2004, after his ideological conversion, still occasionally savages Isikoff and Taylor for the reporting they did.

The lesson for journalists covering 2016, Brock told the Little Rock crowd, is that “Clinton-hating had nothing to do with what the Clintons did or did not do.” If only it were that simple. The truth is that while conservative outlets like the Scaife-funded American Spectator and the Wall Street Journal editorial page were wildly dishonest in their effort to gin up scandals that would sink Bill Clinton’s presidency, and although Republicans should, to this day, be ashamed for having tried to impeach him, Clinton’s behavior wasn’t irrelevant. He used the powers of his office—both as governor and president—to solicit sex and cover it up. He lied under oath and he urged others to lie. That’s far worse than sexting, which destroyed Anthony Weiner’s career.

Of course, Bill Clinton won’t be on the ballot in 2016. But not everything Clinton-haters said about Hillary was wrong either. Yes, the “Whitewater” investigation into the Clintons' Arkansas real-estate investments—to which Senate Republicans devoted 300 hours of committee hearings over 13 months—turned out to be a colossal waste of time. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, despite being appointed to investigate Whitewater, barely even mentioned it in his final report. Yes, “Travelgate”—in which the first lady influenced the decision to fire seven employees of the White House Travel Office—received far more attention than it ever deserved. Yes, some of the attacks on her reeked of sexism. Some still do.

But even when it comes to Hillary, it’s untrue that “Clinton-hating had nothing to do with what the Clintons did or did not do.” As Carl Bernstein details in his generally positive biography, A Woman in Charge, Clinton’s us-versus-them approach to politics not only outraged her opponents but alienated some on her ideological side. Had she not overruled advisers David Gergen and George Stephanopoulos, who wanted to release Whitewater-related documents when the press initially requested them, Bernstein suggests, Attorney General Janet Reno might never have appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the matter, which ultimately led to Starr poking into Bill Clinton’s sex life.

Hillary Clinton’s suspicions of outsiders also undermined her effort on healthcare. Her health task force, Bernstein notes, operated with “military-like secrecy unprecedented for a peacetime domestic program.” Xeroxing documents under discussion was not allowed. At many task-force meetings, outsiders were forbidden from even bringing in pens. Controlling the process so tightly not only drove Clinton’s adversaries wild, it kept her from making the adjustments necessary to win over congressional moderates who might have supported reform.