Drowning In Filth

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Drowning In Filth
John Chuckman
June 27, 2005

"We are all drowning in filth...I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth." - George Orwell (diary entry for 27 April, 1942)

I’ve given the date of Orwell’s words lest someone think they were written by a contemporary bearing the writer’s name. Recent events surely qualify the United States to claim some sort of title from the Guinness Book of Records such as the world’s largest moral and intellectual open sewer.

A man by the name of Ed Klein has written a vile book called The Truth about Hillary. Perceptive readers may require no more information about this book than the fact that Klein is a former editor for The New York Times. The Times’ reputation as a newspaper upholding genuine liberal values exists only in the minds of those who regard rolling on the floor and babbling in tongues as divine inspiration. For decades, the Times has demonstrated enough dissembling, unwarranted personal attacks, subtle omissions, and tweaking of words to qualify many times over for a J. Edgar Hoover Official G-Man Helper Award. So what would you expect from a former editor?

You must give Klein his due: he knows his market: America always loves vile books about successful women. I could ask, how does a man with any self-respect, any sense of decency—claiming to be a responsible figure in journalism to boot—write a book retailing trashy gossip about a living, former First Lady’s sex life? The subject would be off-limits for anyone possessing some integrity. But remember, this is America, where literally almost anything goes to make a fast buck or a vicious political point.

How does writing such a book differ from the behavior of thirteenth-century tribesmen stoning women for presumed transgressions? Why, not a bit, of course. Never mind that swill about women’s rights and freedoms America pitches out there. That’s only for consumption by ignorant turban heads. When it counts in America, when something untoward occurs like an independent-minded woman seeking high office, stoning remains completely acceptable.

One good measure of any book is the nature of those who promote it. Well, here is Rush Limbaugh—America’s pill-popping television clown for lads stuck in the onset of puberty, almost certainly America’s greatest living authority on the threatening qualities of women—slobbering over the volume:

"I’ve got some interesting, juicy details on this book on Hillary by Ed Klein, but I’m not going to be the first to mention them. I’m not going there. It will come out eventually. It has to do with sexual orientation, and I’m not going to be the one. That’s the book that everybody says is going to be presenting a firestorm."

Klein’s intent of course is to poison political prospects for Mrs. Clinton, who is frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate. We knew Mrs. Clinton had a fine intelligence, but she also has demonstrated her steel, rising from the most savage treatment ever accorded a President’s spouse to success in the Senate. And she is richly hated for precisely that reason.