Blinded by the Right [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITIONSILENCE ON THE RIGHT"How can you be believed?"The question, NBC's Matt Lauer had said, leaning in for effect, was one that he was sure I was ready for. Lauer was right, in the sense that the question was no surprise; as a leading conservative writer in the 1990s, 1 was confessing to having been complicit in a propagandistic campaign of lies against liberal targetsAnita Hill and the Clintons, among others. The question, of course, is one that all whistle-blowers, publicly exposing nefarious activities in which they themselves were likely compromised, inevitably must confront.Yet no matter how ready I was for the "once a liar, always a liar" question, there was really no way to be ready for it. That morning on the Today show and in the many media appearances that followed, 1 admittedly had difficulty finding a satisfying answer. 1 must have tried a dozen somewhat different responses in as many interviews before giving up and throwing myself on the mercy of the court: People could either choose to believe me and my account of the inner workings of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," or they could choose not to.Eventually, I came to see that the credibility of Blinded by the Right would not have to remain forever a matter of guesswork. Because this book is a first-person account of how the conservative movement used character assassination to forward its ideological and political agenda in the '90s, the question would be settled for many reviewers and readers only if it could withstand the scrutiny of those it targeted for exposure. I will review that scrutiny here, erasing, once and for all, any doubt about the veracity of this work in a way that I could not upon its publication.PROLOGUEThis is a terrible book. It is about lies told and reputations ruined. It is about what the conservative movement did, and what I did, as we plotted in the shadows, disregarded the law, and abused power to win even greater power.My story is about those familiar corrupting influences of ambition, greed, and ego. It is about how human weakness, lack of confidence, and emotional discomposure can lead to a susceptibility to manipulation for bad ends. It is also about the dangers of zeal and extremism in a political cause, and about how one can be blinded to the ethics of one's own actions.1 came to Washington in 1986 as a conservative rebel from Berkeley, California, and from that moment through the latter part of the 1990s, as the leading right-wing scandal reporter, 1 was a witness to, and a participant in, all of the scandals that gripped the capital cityIran-Contra, the failed nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, the Thomas-Hill hearings, Troopergate, Paula Jones, Whitewater, and the secret scheming that led to the impeachment of President Clinton. The conservative culture I thrived in was characterized by corrosive partisanship, visceral hatreds, and unfathomable hypocrisy. I worked for leading institutions of the conservative movementthe Washington Times, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Spectatorwhere I fought on the wrong side of an ideological and cultural war that divided our country and poisoned our politics.The process of breaking ranks from a tight-knit political movement has been slow and torturous. The break came not in one decisive moment, but in a series of revelations great and small, about the character and actions of those who were my friends, about my own character and actions, and ultimately