The X-man's last stand.

• Author: Weigel, David
• Position: An interview with Allan MacDonell - Interview

A "punk rock dropout" who edited a department store's newspaper ads before moving to Hustler in 1983, Allan MacDonell spent 20 years climbing the greasy pole at Larry Flynt Publications. He was sent packing after insulting his boss-at a roast. His new memoir, Prisoner of X (Feral House), offers a firsthand look at some of the key First Amendment battles of the 1980s and '90s, not to mention the scandal that nearly brought Bill Clinton down. Assistant Editor David Weigel spoke with MacDonell in July.

Q: What's the connection between Hustler's sexual content and the oddball political content, like Larry Flynt's JFK conspiracy theories?

A: At Hustler we valued sensationalism, and a winning conspiracy theory must be sensationalistic. There were very few restrictions on reality at Hustler. We created an alternate world with our manufactured biographies of the models and our fake letters of sexual confessions. So a straight-faced expose of extraterrestrials committing date rape seemed right at home.

Q: How much credit should Hustler get for saving Bill Clinton?

A: Bob Livingston [the Republican speaker-elect of the House, whose extramarital affair was exposed by Flynt] resigned the same day the House voted to impeach. Look at the front page of The New York Times for that day; the split of the coverage is not precisely 50/50 between Clinton and Livingston, but it's close.

Livingston folding sapped the momentum of the impeachment right at the start, at a crucial moment. Maybe the credit should go to Livingston for his...