The Slur Against Hillary Clinton
             By DAVID BROCK

                WASHINGTON -- By now, most people have heard the
          sensational charge that Hillary Clinton let loose an anti-Semitic
          slur against her husband's Congressional campaign manager 26
          years ago. The accusation appears in "State of the Union," a book that
          purports to examine the Clintons' marriage and is yet another in a long line
          of books that delight in and profit from bashing the first couple.

          In researching my political biography of Mrs. Clinton in 1995, I conducted
          several lengthy interviews with the sources of this story, Paul and Mary Lee Fray.

          While they did describe in colorful detail a shouting match between Mrs.
          Clinton and Mr. Fray in campaign headquarters, they never mentioned
          Mrs. Clinton's alleged -- and, one has to think, unforgettable -- use of an
          ugly anti-Semitic epithet against him. Apparently, in their dealings with
          Jerry Oppenheimer, a former National Enquirer reporter and author of the
          new book, the Frays' memory was somehow enhanced.

          But this incident is about more than recovered memory; it's about authors
          anxious to make news in order to sell their books. The current flap reminds
          me of my own difficult experience. My book, "The Seduction of Hillary
          Rodham," was widely anticipated on the political right as the October
          surprise that would swing the 1996 election to the Republicans. Having
          whetted the appetites of the Clinton-hating audience with a lurid article
          about the president's alleged past sexual infidelities in The American
          Spectator, which I now regret having written, and working under the
          pressure of justifying a huge advance, (Scaife's $80,000) I struggled mightily
          with giving my  readers what I knew they wanted: Hillary Clinton in leg irons.

          I couldn't do it. The facts weren't there, nor was I willing any longer to use
          innuendo and unverified charges to spice up my material, which I had done
          in the past. After the book was published, I found myself picking up the
          pieces of a broken career as a right-wing muckraker, but I was proud of
          my book even though it had trouble in the marketplace.

          All authors of big nonfiction books face the arduous task of generating
          headlines to spur book sales. Too often, authors succumb to market
          pressures by trafficking in rumor, using unreliable sources or embellishing
          their material, all in the service of hype and buzz. Publishing houses are
          notoriously lax about fact-checking. Books are rarely retracted or even
          corrected.

          Most authors caught short, and I speak from experience, are able to bluster
          their way through the controversies incited by their shaky work. Sad to
          say, the controversies themselves are good for business.

          In writing about the Clintons, the phenomenon is magnified greatly. For one
          thing, it's incredibly hard to unearth new revelations about the first couple
          after a decade of examination by zealous prosecutors, Republican-led
          Congressional committees and a feverish press corps.

          Serious, respected authors do try to present new material. In "The Choice"
          a book on the 1996 presidential campaign, Bob Woodward portrayed what
          Mrs. Clinton said were unremarkable brainstorming sessions with friends
          as loopy imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt.

          In "Hillary's Choice," Gail Sheehy read immense psychological significance
          into Mrs. Clinton's father's absence from her Wellesley commencement speech.
          Oops: He was there, according to the first lady's aides.

          Other authors have sought to exploit a truth about the market: Anti-Clinton
          books sell. Gary Aldrich, a former F.B.I. agent, was the first to tap into this
          vein with "Unlimited Access," a 1996 best seller filled with highly charged
          allegations that even the author conceded were "hypothetical."
          His publisher, Regnery, then churned out a slew of anti-Clinton books, many
          nothing more than conspiratorial fantasy -- and sold them mostly through
          right-wing book clubs.

          Mainstream book publishers soon followed.

          In just the last year, three authors -- the biographer Joyce Milton, the
          Republican speechwriter Peggy Noonan and Laura Ingraham, a
          conservative pundit -- jumped on the Hillary-bashing gravy train.

          By now, the self-promotion game is elementary, and Mr. Oppenheimer
          seems to be playing it expertly. In a way, you have to admire the man's
          ingenuity. Until now, no one has come close to Kenneth Starr's report to
          Congress for shocking Clinton news.

          But one leak about the Oppenheimer book to the Drudge Report, an
          anti-Clinton Web site, is all it took to reactivate the lucrative right-wing
          talk-show machinery and the New York tabloids. Then came the
          down-channel cable talk shows. Now, Mr. Oppenheimer's book is moving
          up the charts at Amazon. This is all depressingly predictable: The more
          implausible the charge, the more it runs counter to everything we know
          about the subject, the more news and sales it generates.

          For eight years, Hillary Clinton has been portrayed (by me, among
          countless others) as a bleeding-heart liberal. Now, she's suddenly a bigot.

          I don't buy it. And I hope we've read the last book bashing the Clintons.
 
 

             David Brock is writing a memoir about his time in the conservative movement.