The Hunting of the President A review by M.E. Cowan (The Hunting of the President home page: check this site for screening schedule and other details.)

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A large majority of the American people opposed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Many of them, however, have never learned the full enormity of the events that culminated in the impeachment trial. Probably most believe that Hillary Clinton's charge of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" was, frankly, a little paranoid. Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry's documentary, based on the New York Times best seller by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, should convince them that Senator Clinton was speaking the plain truth.

Even those who know the full details can gain insight from seeing the people who were caught up in The Hunt and hearing their story in their own words. While the president was the target, the crusade against him did immeasurable "collateral damage" to his staff, his friends, and the people in Arkansas whom the OIC hounded for anything that might be parlayed into implicating the Clintons in a crime, any crime.

Many important aspects of The Hunt are unavoidably omitted. The stories of the Whitewater investigation and the Monica Lewinsky affair are enough in themselves to reveal the determination to destroy Clinton by any means; but all the "side issues" showed just how far The Hunters went beyond all bounds and how much the media abetted them, and it's a pity that the big picture had to be cropped so small.

The film only briefly features Clinton's enemies in Arkansas. It does a good job, however, of revealing that every person who made accusations against Clinton had an axe to grind or the prospect of financial gain, thus undercutting their credibility.

The facts of Whitewater are starkly outlined, and then the strategy of distorting those facts into criminal charges against the Clintons; and then the determination to keep digging for (and, as necessary, inventing) something, anything that can be used to force Bill Clinton from the White House. The film explains how the Whitewater investigation morphed into the Lewinsky scandal: from the beginning of Ken Starr's tenure as Independent Counsel, he probed obsessively for details of Clinton's alleged sexual adventures, on the pretext that Clinton might have let slip incriminating statements during "unguarded moments".

The various factions that drove The Hunt are described, though only briefly: the Washington "society" that scorned the Clintons as white trash; the liberal-hating millionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and the organizations he funds; the "elves" of the Federalist Society; the partisan operatives who co-opted Paula Jones' lawsuit; Ken Starr and the Republican politicians who engineered his replacement of Robert Fiske as independent counsel. Within the time constraints, the film could only provide the sketchiest outline of how they interconnected; that outline is enough to show that the right wing was not merely responding to the scandals, but inventing them.

The story is, perforce, dominated by the people who were [willing and able to be] interviewed for the documentary, most of whom are, even when not allies of Clinton, at least opponents of Ken Starr: former Clinton staffers; Susan McDougal, the Clintons' former business partner; Claudia Riley, longtime friend of the McDougals and Clintons; assorted journalists who talk about the pressure to "follow the story arc" and suppress the truth.

Quotes from an assortment of reporters hammer home the media's role in creating The Hunt. Some describe management refusal to publish reports that "there is no 'there' there". Others describe how the lust for a story as big as Watergate, with the attendant fame for any reporter who broke the big story, vanquished respect for the truth. Archive news footage, put into this context, makes it very clear that the news media concocted the scandals out of fact-free insinuation and innuendo. The reports contain no substance, but hint at more damaging information to come out and suggest that potential witnesses were intimidated by the Clintons.

Susan McDougal provides the most dramatic moments in the film. She describes the investigators telling her bluntly that they will railroad her into prison unless she testifies against Clinton using exactly what the words they will tell her to say. She explains her decision to go to prison rather than cooperate with the OIC by quoting her attorney: "Susan, if you begin to lie, you will lie for the rest of your life. If you lie now to save yourself, you will lie for the rest of your life." The price she paid for integrity was to be imprisoned in the same cell block as women who had killed their children — and identified with them, to suffer the abuse that other inmates inflict upon child killers. Her courage makes a stark contrast with the unprincipled ambition of Clinton's enemies and the opportunists who colluded with them. If there is a hero in this story, it is Susan McDougal.

The ending of the film makes the point that the assault against Clinton's presidency was just one battle in a war for our democracy, connecting it with the Bush v. Gore ruling, the California recall election, and the Texas mid-term redistricting. (It does not, however, mention just how many members of the Independent Counsel staff and other Hunters have jobs in the current Administration.) It also lightens the mood after 90 minutes of outrageous revelations, displaying "where are they now" paragraphs about the major figures in the Hunt. For example:

"Ken Starr said he would love to have lunch with Bill Clinton and talk about Whitewater events. So far, no lunch has been arranged."

"Bill Clinton is writing a book and avoiding lunch with Ken Starr."

The closing credits are juxtaposed with quotes from some of the people who were interviewed during the film. A quote from Joe Conason sums up the story:

"Do we really want a country where rightwing millionaires and unethical lawyers can put together an attempt to have a coup d'état against a twice-elected President over nothing, over what turned out to be nothing, really, except a sex lie?"

Copyright © 2004 by M. E. Cowan. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to link to this page or to reproduce the contents if (and only if) proper credit is given to the author. Failure Is Impossible is a noncommercial site and is not responsible for content in linked external sites. Links and other information are provided for educational purposes consistent with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. All rights to content remain as specified in the linked sites.