Those Democrats Are SOOO Tacky!

The Conways

Unclaimed Territory

As it turns out, some of the most serious damage to Bill Clinton's Presidency came not from his high-profile political enemies but from a small secret clique of lawyers in their 30's who share a deep antipathy toward the President, according to nearly two dozen interviews and recently filed court documents.While cloaking their roles, the lawyers were deeply involved--to an extent not previously known--for nearly five years in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct lawsuit. They then helped push the case into the criminal arena and into the office of the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr. . . .

George T. Conway 3d, a New York lawyer educated at Yale, shared Marcus's low view of President Clinton. When the Jones case led to Ms. Lewinsky, Marcus and Conway searched for a new lawyer for Mrs. Tripp. . . .Conway wanted his role kept hidden as well, because his New York law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, included influential Democrats like Bernard W. Nussbaum, a former White House counsel. Conway's name does not appear on any billing records.And as Salon reported:

[Firm spokeswoman Liesl] Noll confirmed that Conway, a 34-year-old conservative activist, had recently informed the firm's stunned partners that he had worked for free and without their knowledge on the Jones case, writing the crucial Supreme Court brief that successfully argued Jones' suit should proceed despite the fact that Clinton was still in office.And, as set forth below, he was also the individual responsible for the dissemination to Matt Drudge of the story about the spots on Bill Clinton's penis. So that’s George Conway. Isn't it about time to hear some more lectures from him about the need for dignity in our political discourse and about the shame of lawyers who act unethically?

Kellyanne - who spent the 1990s along with her husband propagating the filthiest and most scurrilous gossip about the President – actually went on Fox and condemned protest songs against the war in Iraq by saying this:


"...it is never proper to be so critical of an administration or a President that you look like some anti-American zealot."


It looks like the Conways’ love of the political sewer is matched only by their love of irony.

According to a highly revealing (and highly revolting) expose in Salon, George’s involvement with the Paula Jones circle came as a result of his romantic interlude with Laura Ingraham (before he ended up marrying Ingraham-clone Kellyanne). It was Ingraham, according to the article, who "connected Conway with Matt Drudge during the summer of 1997." This all happened because Conway, who even back then earned well in excess of $1 million each year at Wachtell, Lipton, was:


Short, dark, slightly overweight, and painfully shy, he was also, at the age of thirty-three, unmarried and without a regular girlfriend at the time. He aspired to date tall blondes, preferably of the conservative persuasion.

And during this time, it wasn’t only his own private parts that Conway was obsessing over:


On October 8, 1997, Conway sent a long E-mail message via America Online to Matt Drudge. "Subject: Your Next Exclusive" is the caption on that message. "Remember me?" it begins. "I'm Laura's friend. We talked once about Kathleen Willey ... This is being given to you, of course, subject to your not disclosing the source." (Conway forwarded the same message to Ingraham the following day.)

The main topic of the October 8 message was not Willey but the "distinguishing characteristic," a matter nearly as sensitive as the Willey allegations. Like Coulter, Conway must have realized that with the leak of its details to Drudge, any further settlement negotiations could again be disrupted.

Davis certainly thought so. "Conway's leaking of this stuff certainly jeopardized a settlement," said Davis after examining the Drudge E-mail in 1999. "I had no concept, no idea that they did or would do such a thing [as to leak Willey's name]."


Somehow, in a way I can’t quite put my finger on, this photograph of the Conways tells one everything there is to know about them.

Examining filth-peddling relics of the 1990s like the Conways is not merely an exercise in masochistic nostalgia. As their new National Review blog demonstrates, lowly character smears are a quite current and integral weapon in the Republican arsenal. These gutter tactics and their vile purveyors haven’t gone anywhere. And it is beyond doubt that all of the Clinton smears which lowered our political discourse to the primordial level, along with many new ones, are being kept warming in the oven just in case Hillary gets anywhere near a Presidential election.

But the real reason to remember this despicable filth-peddling is because these same Republicans are being permitted by an amnesic and manipulated media to parade themselves around as the Paragons of Civility and Dignity. That Republicans can deliver dignity lectures to the media, which then dutifully reports them with a concerned face while repeatedly showing video of Sam Alito’s wife crying, is quite compelling evidence of just how wretchedly dishonest Republican moralizing is and, worse, how utterly dysfunctional our media has become.