Susan McDougal mentioned this incident in her Tulsa speech.

              "Hardball" strikes out
                   Chris Matthews mistakenly identifies a Clinton friend on the air as the "jogger"
                   who frightened Kathleen Willey.

                   - - - - - - - - - - - -

                   The tabloid programming that masquerades as broadcast journalism these days
                   achieved a sickening new low last week. On the evening of May 11, CNBC
                   "Hardball" host Chris Matthews identified an innocent person as the perpetrator
                   of a notorious felony. The following afternoon, Rush Limbaugh made the same
                   accusation on his nationally syndicated radio show. It also appeared on various
                   Web sites, notably the Drudge Report.

                   Neither Matthews nor Limbaugh, whose shows appear on networks that
                   purport to adhere to decent standards and practices, bothered to call the subject
                   of their reports to hear his side of the story. (Matt Drudge naturally posted the
                   story without checking as well.) For six days and nights afterward, the accused
                   citizen received dozens of death threats.

                   Had Matthews bothered to do his job professionally, he would have discovered
                   an important fact: The supposed perpetrator was more than 3,000 miles away
                   from the scene of the alleged crime on the day it supposedly occurred. And
                   there is ample documentation to prove it.

                   This disgraceful affair began last Tuesday night, when Kathleen Willey kicked
                   off her latest round of media appearances as a featured guest on "Hardball."
                   She is, of course, the Virginia socialite whose 1997 accusations of sexual
                   assault in the Oval Office helped trigger the controversy that nearly consumed
                   the Clinton presidency. Last January, she testified as a witness in the Paula
                   Jones case and later told her much-disputed story on "60 Minutes."

                   Sometime last year, Willey told investigators for independent counsel Kenneth
                   Starr that she had been threatened by an unidentified man two days before she
                   testified in the Jones case. The man, sometimes known as "the jogger,"
                   approached her early in the morning outside her home, she says. She claims
                   that he knew that her cat had disappeared and that her car tires had been
                   riddled with nails. "You just aren't getting the message, are you?" the mystery
                   man supposedly told her.

                   This tale of terror has been cited countless times since by Matthews, William
                   Safire, the New York Post, the Washington Times, political consultant Dick
                   Morris and others as damning evidence of a "secret police" apparatus employed
                   by the White House to silence its critics. Those said to be involved in this
                   conspiracy, aside from the president, have included Hillary Rodham Clinton;
                   Clinton aides Sidney Blumenthal and Betsey Wright; private investigators Terry
                   Lenzner and Jack Palladino; and the Pentagon press office. But until now, no
                   specific date or place has been attached to the nefarious activities of the "secret
                   police." All of the charges boiled down to rumor and innuendo based on
                   anonymous sources who had heard something secondhand.

                   Flash forward to last week, when Willey publicly recounted the details of the
                   "jogger" incident on "Hardball." The blustering Matthews, whose capacity to
                   imagine Clintonian treachery knows no limits, strenuously induced his reluctant
                   guest to admit that she had learned the jogger's identity.

                   "Who was that guy?" demanded Matthews. "I'm gonna ask you again, because
                   I think you know who it was."

                   "I do know," said Willey. "I think I know."

                   "Is it someone in the president's family, friends?" Matthews pressed. "Is it
                   somebody related to [Deputy Secretary of State] Strobe Talbott? Is it a Shearer?"

                   Willey resisted. "I can't say ... I've been asked not to dis--"

                   "You've been asked not to admit that?" interrupted the eager host.

                   "Yes, by the Office of Independent Counsel, because they are investigating
                   this," she said.

                   Minutes later, Matthews said, "Let's go back to the jogger, one of the most
                   colorful and frightening aspects of this story." Willey admitted that she had been
                   showed a picture by Jackie Judd of ABC News, and had identified it "positively."

                   Matthews said, "So it's Cody Shearer."

                   "I can't tell you," Willey replied.

                   Before 11 p.m. EDT, Drudge had posted the Matthews "scoop" in his usual
                   overheated style: "Willey was shown a picture of Cody Shearer -- the
                   brother-in-law of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and long-time friend
                   of President Bill Clinton!"

                   The following afternoon, Limbaugh weighed in with his own review of Willey's
                   "Hardball" debut: "She says Ken Starr asked her not to reveal the identity of the
                   man who she says threatened her two days before her testimony in the Paula
                   Jones case. Here's who it is. It's Cody Shearer, S-H-E-A-R-E-R ..."
                   (Presumably the radio reactionary spelled out the name so that anyone wanting
                   to call or visit Shearer would be able to find him more easily.)

                   Wondering whether any of this was true, I did what Matthews should have
                   done and called Shearer. He told me that on the date cited by Willey, Jan. 8,
                   1998, he was far from her house in the leafy suburbs of Richmond, Va. He can
                   prove that he stayed at the Hyatt Regency hotel in San Francisco on the night
                   of Jan. 7 and that at 2:53 p.m. on Jan. 8, he withdrew money from a cash
                   machine at the Embarcadero Center in that same city. In fact, he can show that
                   he flew to Los Angeles before Christmas 1997 and didn't return until Jan. 11,
                   1998, the day Willey testified in the Jones case. By chance, he sat next to former
                   Secretary of State Warren Christopher on the United Airlines flight back east.

                   Those are inconvenient facts for Chris Matthews, not to mention the credibility
                   of Kathleen Willey, Ken Starr and all the pundits, pols and reporters who have
                   promoted hysteria about the Clinton "secret police."

                   To anyone keeping track of leaks from the Office of Independent Counsel, it is
                   interesting to note that ABC's Judd and her producer, Chris Vlasto, would know
                   the identity of someone Starr is investigating. Apparently the ABC team has
                   unusual access to Starr's ongoing investigations and to his witness Willey, who
                   has been granted broad immunity despite her admission that she lied about
                   certain matters to the OIC.

                   For a prosecutor to leak the name of someone being investigated is disgusting,
                   even more so when that person is innocent. But Judd didn't broadcast Shearer's
                   name. That distinction belongs to Chris Matthews, who didn't return several
                   phone calls seeking his comment about this matter. Matthews opened his program
                   on Monday with a quick, half-hearted apology to Shearer, whose denials he said he
                   now finds "credible." He also said he now realizes he shouldn't have mentioned
                   Shearer's name without having "vetted" Willey's allegation.

                   No one expects Limbaugh or Drudge to behave any differently than they did,
                   although in all decency they should. (Limbaugh's slurs emanate from WABC
                   radio in New York, evidently immune from any standards that govern ABC
                   News.) But Matthews writes a column for the San Francisco Examiner and
                   carries the title of "Washington bureau chief." In other words, he fancies
                   himself a journalist. The first thing journalists learn to do is pick up the
                   telephone. He should try it the next time he thinks he has a big story.

                   salon.com | May 18, 1999

                   Remember this part?

                   Here's who it is. It's Cody Shearer, S-H-E-A-R-E-R ..."
                   (Presumably the radio reactionary spelled out the name so that anyone wanting
                   to call or visit Shearer would be able to find him more easily.)

                   Since Joe didn't write about it, maybe it had not happened yet, but crazed-Nazi
                   Pat Buchanan's brother went to Shearer's house with a gun!
                   he wanted to kill Shearer, since Chris the Screamr and the vulgar Pigboy falsely
                   accused Shearer of being a criminal. Buchanan got inside Sheaer's garage with
                   his gun and waited. When Shearer came home there was a confrontation, Shearer
                   slipped away and called police, who promptly arrested Buchanan.
 
                   The reason Susan brought this up was to recall how the GOP is always so damn
                   tough on crime until it happens to their family. Pat begged and pleaded that his
                   brother had "mental problems" and should not be held accountable for his crimes.
 
                   But, ohhhhhhhhh if that man with a gun had been black - then his family can
                   go to hell because "we are a nation of laws," right, Pat?
 
                   Republicans are such hypocrites...