INSIDE AN ESSAYIST’S BRAINPAN— That was some column I wrote about Bill Clinton
          and Pardongate the other day. Sure, my gimmick of “reading” someone’s innermost thoughts
          (usually Bill or Hill) is getting slightly stale. But I can make the guy “think” anything about himself
           —and when I publish his bogus mental musings, they take on a certain patina of reality just
          because they’re printed in The Times. It’s incrimination without confirmation.

          What continues to amaze me is that nobody up on 43rd Street ever complains.
          I’m an industry unto myself; I guess they don’t dare.

          I hate to admit this, but we’ll never know why Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. Implying bribery is
          simple when you leave out most of the facts; proving it will probably be impossible. So the White
          House is getting nervous. “It’s a dead end,” a Bush aide whispered to reporters the other day,
          sending the President’s message to Dan Burton: Shut down that stupid Congressional investigation.

          Well, I can’t blame them for worrying. This could become an albatross like
          Whitewater, Filegate, etc. How many columns did I write about those dead-end
          cases, warning that Ken Starr would bring down the Clinton White House with a
          series of stunning indictments? Come to think of it, how many times did I type the
          phrase “stunning indictments”? I won’t make that mistake again for a while.

          Thankfully, nobody holds pundits responsible for making outlandish accusations. If
          anybody did, I might have to return the Pulitzer I won after pouring tar over
          innocent Bert Lance back in the Carter days. I made a lot of noise about crooked
          conduct involving the finances of the Carters’ peanut farm. I charged cover-ups at
          Justice then, too. None of which, alas, proved true. Ruined their reputations for a
          while and helped elect Ronald Reagan, though.

          Memories are mercifully dim in this business.

          Still, I understand why the Bushies are jumpy. Democrats are muttering about
          Poppy’s pardons and commutations, and there’s no denying he left behind an
          unopened can of worms. The Times lifted the lid slightly the other day, tardily
          reporting about that Pakistani heroin smuggler the elder Bush sprang in January
          1993. Nobody has had the poor taste to ask, but I can almost hear him trying to
          explain it in that awful off-English of his. Ugh.

          “Can of worms.” Terrific phrase for an “On Language” column. Wait a second …
          isn’t that what Nixon said on the Watergate tapes about the Cuban exiles? I suppose
          we could revisit all that, too, because of Jeb Bush’s lobbying for the parole of Orlando Bosch.
          The tricky part is that Bosch was strongly suspected of blowing up a civilian airliner in 1976.
          And that’s the year when Bush Sr. served as director of Central Intelligence.

          Just more creepy stuff we’re better off forgetting. Who needs historical context at a
          time like this? Providing context requires intellectual honesty—which implies moral
          consistency—and ultimately discourages political hysteria. Talk about a slippery slope!

          Where was I? Yeah, the Clinton pardons. We’ll get him (and her) on something
          someday, even if this Marc Rich probe doesn’t pan out. The exaggeration of
          outrage is holding up nicely so far. Marc Rich is radioactive, and so are the Clintons.
          My old Nixon White House crony Len Garment thinks his former client was
          railroaded, but even he’s keeping his mouth shut for a change. What a relief that
          Len didn’t have to testify about Rich before the Burton committee.

          It was bad enough watching Lewis (Scooter) Libby tell Burton off the other night.
          That was a clever stunt by the Democrats, hauling in the Vice President’s chief of staff to
          defend a Clinton misdeed. At least nobody brought up Halliburton Inc.’s office in Teheran,
          or what Dick Cheney knew about his firm’s dubious dealings with the mullahs.

          Not yet, anyway. There will be plenty of time to revisit that situation if the Big Oil
          boys in the White House start leaning on my man Ariel Sharon.

          Worse yet was when all three White House witnesses recalled how Ehud Barak helped change
          Clinton’s mind during that goodbye phone call with the prime minister on Jan. 19. The Times
          scarcely mentioned that testimony, while Barak himself is deploying leaks to downplay his role.
          Not so easy when the papers are reporting that Barak’s foreign minister asked King Juan Carlos
          to intervene with Clinton for Rich.

          This job takes plenty of nerve sometimes. How many guys who flacked for the most anti-Semitic
          President in modern times—as I did—would have the chutzpah to smear Clinton as “blaming the Jews”?

          Maybe I should call up Sharon to find out what’s behind Israel’s Rich itch. (I have
          Arik’s home number, or did I mention that already?) Except I don’t really want to know.
          Why bother reporting, when inventing is so amusing?
 

          You may reach Joe Conason via email at: jconason@observer.com