'Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy' Returns With Same Cast

Americans may be "less receptive" to right-wing messages than they were in the days of Bill Clinton, but as the former president put it last week on Meet the Press, the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that threatened to destroy his presidency is making an encore appearance—and it's surely “as virulent as it was.” That strikingly similar virulence shouldn’t be a surprise, Joe Conason writes on Salon, as the folks behind the Obama-smearing campaign ads and Newsmax are the same people who tried to bring Clinton down.

Scott Wheeler worked on the inflammatory “Clinton Chronicles” tape in the '90s before he made anti-Obama ads featuring 9/11 terrorists for the National Republican Trust PAC. And Christopher Ruddy, the “mastermind” of NRT PAC, publisher of Newsmax, and a birther, was a leading proponent of the Vince Foster murder myth. But as Clinton noted, the forces that wanted to take Obama down aren't as strong: They have no Kenneth Starr, no Newt Gingrich, no "scandal-mongering allies in the mainstream media" and therefore "cannot muster the same kind of concerted attack," writes Conason.
(More National Republican Trust PAC stories.)