This titillating tale was reprised in 2008 when Cl

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This titillating tale was reprised in 2008 when Clinton ran for president, thanks to conservative columnist Dan Calabrese, who embellished it a tad, introducing Jerry Zeifman as “the guy who fired Hillary Clinton.” A catchy line, but untrue:

Zeifman lacked the authority to terminate her, and it’s a matter of historic record that she wasn’t fired.

But when the nation’s discourse is dominated by the Democrats’ and Republicans’ bipolar armies of ideologues, special interest groups, and character assassins, it makes one wonder just what the American people really want from their politics.

Last week in these pages, I wrote why I think women voters will rally to Hillary Clinton’s banner in 2016. Aside from the expected responses from readers, of both genders, who have little use for Hillary or her husband, an alarming number of people asked why I hadn’t mentioned that Mrs. Clinton was fired for misconduct when she worked as a staff lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee investigating Richard Nixon during Watergate.

For the record, the reason is that she wasn’t fired from that job. It didn’t happen. I knew where that rumor originated—it’s not a new story—because it first arose in Bill Clinton’s second term, when I covered the White House. But I was curious how it flew around the world so fast. The short answer is Rush Limbaugh. The longer answer is the way Americans communicate with each other these days.

First, a brief recitation of the back story:

It begins in 1973, when a government lawyer named Jerome Zeifman started making entries in his diary. It was a momentous time in his career. Zeifman, a Democrat, was chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee. Investigating a sitting president required staffing, and one of those hired was a 27-year-old Yale Law School grad named Hillary Rodham.

At first, he was impressed, but in time Zeifman soured on her. He began, as he wrote in a 1996 book, to suspect her of collaborating with Democratic Senate aides loyal to Ted Kennedy. Their supposed aim was to keep the lid on the Watergate investigation out of fear Nixon would expose the “crimes of Camelot,” a phrase that appears in the book’s title.

There are other subplots in his farfetched conspiracy theory, and other conspirators, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino—but little evidence for any of it.

The book reads like a Hollywood intrigue, which apparently occurred to Zeifman’s publisher, who promised on the book jacket to reveal “truths even more startling than those brought out in Oliver Stone’s movies Nixon and JFK.” Those films, remember, were works of fiction.

This titillating tale was reprised in 2008 when Clinton ran for president, thanks to conservative columnist Dan Calabrese, who embellished it a tad, introducing Jerry Zeifman as “the guy who fired Hillary Clinton.” A catchy line, but untrue: Zeifman lacked the authority to terminate her, and it’s a matter of historic record that she wasn’t fired.

Nonetheless, at the height of the 2008 primary season, Rush Limbaugh repeated it to his millions of listeners. Today, with Clinton prepping for another presidential campaign, the old canard is being passed around again, this time in a “viral” email. Viral is the right word: One reader who read my assessment of Clinton’s 2016 chances sent an email asking if I was “going easy” on her “because she donates to your publication.”


Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/201...z42MAR4Itn

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