Hillary as diversion.

• Author: Douglas, Susan
• Position: Hillary Rodham Clinton - Pundit Watch - Column

I know that I have no choice. Given the Newsweek cover--"Saint or Sinner?"--the "bombshell" David Watkins memo portraying Hillary Rodham Clinton as Medusa, the President's threat to pop William Safire in the schnoz, the grand-jury testimony, and the apoplexy about all this by our favorite pundits, I have to deal with the latest episode in one of the Republicans'--and hence the media's--favorite parlor games: pin the crime on the First Lady.

But before I get to this, allow me to share with you a truly bizarre and revealing moment in the land of punditry, in case you were doing something constructive (like your laundry) instead of watching these bozos. On The McLaughlin Group, the host began fulminating about the various apocalypses that will result from Hawaii's legalization of gay marriage. To emphasize the preposterousness of such a move, he spontaneously asked Fred Barnes who he would want to marry if he were gay. Morton Kondracke, perhaps? Paul Gigot? (How was Michael Barone overlooked?) Boy, was this a knee-slapper, punctuated by overly forced guffaws, darting glances, and seat-squirming so characteristic of those who doth protest too much. (For the record, Barnes chose John Kasich.) What was it again that Freud said about jokes?

But back to Hillary. I must confess that my enthusiasm for this topic has reached a new nadir. I don't care about her role in Les Grandes Trailers, or whatever the latest alleged real-estate scam in the swamps of Arkansas was called. I don't want to read her book, since Katha Pollitt has already convinced me that it's saccharine, dumb, and hypocritical.

But John McLaughlin's shamelessly distorted account of "travelgate" (when will we ever be rid of this moronic suffix?) must be addressed. McLaughlin portrayed Billy Dale, the head of the travel office who was acquitted of embezzlement charges, as a figure akin to Dickens's Tiny Tim. McLaughlin described Dale and his colleagues, many of whom were Reagan and Bush appointees, as "dedicated, non-political, respected employees" victimized by the White House's "phony" charges of embezzlement. We then heard a lot about how Hillary's cavalier actions--taken only because she wanted to give these jobs to her friends--wrecked poor Billy Dale's life, since he was, after all, "found innocent."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

As any dope knows from the O.J. case, acquittal and innocence are two very different things. Dale was indeed acquitted. Yet the perception remains that the...