The National Memo is pleased to announce the publication of The Hunting of Hillary, a new e-book from Memo editor-in-chief Joe Conason and Gene Lyons.
The book is being made available today for free to subscribers of National Memo’s daily newsletter.
The Hunting of Hillary recounts the true history of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” — as Hillary Clinton herself once famously described it — that sought to bring her down along with her husband when he was president. Drawn from the pages of The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, a national bestseller, this new e-book is focused on her ordeal and ultimate vindication.
The story begins, like so many American political narratives, on the front page of The New York Times, which publishes the very first article about the Whitewater real estate development during the heat of the 1992 presidential primaries. Lacking basic facts, let alone substance or proof, it soon fades away.
But that single example of skewed reporting eventually explodes into sustained national hysteria — and unscrupulous figures swiftly emerge from the swamps of Arkansas, the halls of Congress, the federal courts, and the nation’s most respected newsrooms to exploit the burgeoning “scandal.” A pioneering female attorney in a male-dominated profession, Hillary Clinton suddenly sees her hard-won achievements turned into a partisan weapon against her and her family.
While the Office of Independent Counsel seeks the means to prosecute her, and Republicans in Congress convene hearings to condemn her, a network of operatives known as the Arkansas Project secretly plots to influence the courts and the media against her, using millions of dollars — “dark money” — provided by a right-wing billionaire.
Withering attacks on her character proliferate across every platform, from talk-radio behemoth Rush Limbaugh’s insinuations blaming Hillary for the “murder” of her former law partner Vince Foster, to New York Times columnist William Safire’s repeated predictions that she is soon destined for conviction and imprisonment.
The names and details may be different, but the same machinery that defamed Hillary Clinton two decades ago is still grinding away. The parallels to the present are stunning — and the stakes are at least as high as in 1996.
The Hunting of Hillary includes a new introduction by authors Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, and a “Where Are They Now?” appendix about the story’s main characters.
