Vast right-wing conspiracy
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"Vast right-wing
Earlier uses
While popularized by Hillary Clinton in her 1998
Thatcher-era Britain produced its own crop of paranoid left-liberal films. ... All posited a vast right-wing conspiracy propping up a reactionary government ruthlessly crushing all efforts at opposition under the guise of parliamentary democracy. [Emphasis added.][6]
An Associated Press story in 1995 also used the phrase, relating an official's guess that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of "maybe five malcontents" and not "some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy."[7]
Popularization
1995 memo
A 332-page memo titled "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce" was commissioned by
The Today Show interview
This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2016) |
In response to ongoing accusations surrounding the Clintons' investment in a real estate development known as
On January 27, 1998, Hillary appeared on
Lauer: You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle, and that one side or the other is going down here.
Clinton: Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this—they have popped up in other settings. This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.
Clinton elaborated by decrying the tactics "and the kind of intense political agenda at work here." Bob Woodward recounts in his book The Agenda (1994) that the first lady claimed that when her husband was making his decision to run for the presidency in 1991, he reported receiving "a direct threat from someone in the Bush White House, warning that if he ran, the Republicans would go after him. 'We will do everything we can to destroy you personally,' she recalled that the Bush White House man had said."[1]
Later uses
Specific claims of such funding have been made against conservative Republican supporter and billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.[13] Scaife played a major role in funding the Arkansas Project investigating President Clinton; former Clinton White House Counsel Lanny Davis claimed Scaife was using his money "to destroy a president of the United States." Scaife claims to be public about his political spending (q.v.[14]). CNN stated in a study the news outlet conducted on Scaife, "If it's a conspiracy, it's a pretty open one."[15]
Hillary wrote in her 2003 autobiography, "Looking back, I see that I might have phrased my point more artfully, but I stand by the characterization of Starr's investigation [regardless of the truth about Lewinsky]."
Bill, when asked on Meet the Press (September 27, 2009) whether the "vast right wing conspiracy" was involved in the attacks on President Barack Obama, said "Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was … when they accused me of murder and all that stuff."[2]
Two other figures who have used the phrase are Nobel laureate economist
In some of his books, Krugman has used the phrase ("Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy"[20]) to refer not to a conservative Republican-leaning campaign against Clinton (or Obama), but more generally to "an interlocking set of institutions ultimately answering to a small group of people that collectively reward loyalists and punish dissenters" in the service of "movement conservatism." The network of institutions provide
obedient politicians with the resources to win elections, safe havens in the event of defeat, and lucrative career opportunities after they leave office. They guarantee favorable news coverage to politicians who follow the party line, while harassing and undermining opponents. And they support a large standing army of party intellectuals and activists.[21]
In Krugman's view, the network of foundations that fund conservative scholarship, the national and regional think tanks and advocacy groups, talk radio media outlets, and conservative law firms through which they pushed their agenda to move the Republican Party to the right, far surpass in funding, size, inter-connectedness or influence anything the Democratic Party or the American political left/liberal movement have at their disposal.
2014 reemergence
In April 2014, the Clinton Presidential Center published the original 1995 memo on the alleged conspiracy.[9] The memo's author, Chris Lehane, wrote, "As for the premise of the memo, I absolutely stand by it. Not only was it right about the right wing then, it is more accurate than ever today."[22]
2016 reemergence
In 2016, Hillary said she still believed in the "vast right-wing conspiracy ," adding that it was "even better funded" 18 years later.[3][23] However, she opined, "At this point it's probably not correct to say it's a conspiracy because it's out in the open."[3]
In October, after
Use in popular culture
After the release of a deposition Bill had given to
Eugene Volokh's blog The Volokh Conspiracy is said to have derived its name from as a reference to the "Vast right-wing conspiracy" statement.[28]
The term "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" continues to be mocked by conservatives.[29][30]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Washington Post. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
- ^ a b Meet the Press, 21 Sept. 2009, transcript
- ^ a b c Condon, Stephanie (February 3, 2016). "Hillary Clinton: The vast, right-wing conspiracy" is "even better funded" now". CBS News. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
- ^ Lauer, Matt (January 27, 1998). "Hillary Clinton speaks out on Lewinsky accusations" (Video). TODAY Show. NBC News. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
- ^ Maraniss, David (January 28, 1998). "First Lady Launches Counterattack". The Washington Post. pp. A01. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
- S2CID 201763860. at p. 444
- ^ Safire 2008.
- ^ Garofoli, Joe (October 24, 2004). "The Spinner / How Chris Lehane, revered by some and reviled by others, gets the campaign consultant job done". SFGate. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
- ^ a b Good, Chris (April 18, 2014). "Clinton White House's Conspiracy Theory of Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories". ABC News. Archived from the original on January 13, 2017. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
- ^ Beers, Brian (March 14, 2022). "What Was the Whitewater Scandal?".
- ^ a b "Reporter Apologizes For Clinton Sex Article". CNN. March 10, 1998. Archived from the original on June 14, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2008.
- ^ "Clinton: Vast right-wing conspiracy is back". NBC News. Associated Press. March 13, 2007.
- ^ Media Transparency, Aggregated Grants from the Scaife Foundations. Archived 2007-06-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "scaife.org".
- ^ Jackson, Brooks (April 27, 1998). "Who Is Richard Mellon Scaife?". CNN. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
- ^ Living History, p. 446.
- ^ Clinton: Vast right-wing conspiracy is back, NBC News/AP, March 13, 2007
- ^ Kane, Paul (October 21, 2008). "Hillary Clinton, Al Franken and the Return of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy". The Washington Post.
- ^ The vast right-wing conspiracy is back. Salon.com Oct 5, 2009
- ^ Krugman 2004, pp. 217, 269–71.
- ^ Krugman 2007, p. 163.
- ^ Lehane, Chris (April 27, 2014). "Yeah, I Wrote the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Memo". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
- Birmingham, AL: LIN Television Corp. (Media General).
... Clinton holds an affinity for conspiracy theories little known to the American public.
- ^ a b Mehta, Seema (October 18, 2016). "Melania Trump echoes Hillary Clinton as she defends her husband". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
- ^ Tumulty, Karen (October 18, 2016). "Melania Trump takes a page from Hillary Clinton's playbook". Washington Post. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
- ^ Bai, Matt (July 25, 2004). "Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on April 7, 2010. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
- ^ "The Clinton-McFarland Connection: A vast left-wing conspiracy?". Archived from the original on May 4, 2007. Retrieved April 28, 2007.
- ^ Rosenberg, Yair (April 3, 2014). "The Volokh Conspiracy Is Out To Get You". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
- Wall Street Journal.
- Canada Free Press.
Sources
- Krugman, Paul R. (2004). The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. ISBN 0-393-32605-5.
- Krugman, Paul R. (2007). The Conscience of a Liberal. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-393-06069-0.
- ISBN 978-0195340617.
Further reading
- ISBN 0896084175.
- ISBN 0-312-27319-3.
- Metz, Allan (1999). "Right-wing opposition to Bill Clinton and his presidency: an annotated bibliography". ISSN 0090-7324.(subscription required)
External links
- Media coverage
- Video: Hillary Clinton Speaks Out on Lewinsky Allegations via NBC Today Show, January 27, 1998
- Hillary Clinton: 'This Is A Battle', CNN, January 27, 1998
- Washington Post: First Lady Launches Counterattack, The Washington Post, January 28, 1998
- Caught In The Whitewater Net, CBS News, May 19, 1998
- It's no accident that Coors is the right beer in America, undated
- The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy 2011: Less Vast- More Powerful, Rick Ungar, Forbes, March 21, 2011
- Why Not Occupy Newsrooms?, October 24, 2011