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Vast right-wing conspiracy
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.
While popularized by Hillary Clinton in her 1998 The Today Show interview, the phrase did not originate with her. In 1991, the Detroit News wrote:
Thatcher-era Britain produced its own crop of paranoid left-liberal films. ... All posited a vast right-wing conspiracy propping up a reactionary government ruthlessly crushing all efforts at opposition under the guise of parliamentary democracy. [Emphasis added.]
An Associated Press story in 1995 also used the phrase, relating an official's guess that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of "maybe five malcontents" and not "some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy."
A 332-page memo titled "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce" was commissioned by Mark Fabiani and written by Chris Lehane in 1995. It was the first document to describe the conspiracies surrounding the Clintons. It described how conservative media outlets such as The American Spectator spread conspiracy theories about the suicide of Vince Foster, the Whitewater controversy, and other events. According to the memo, these conspiracies spread from conservative think tanks to British tabloids, and then to the mainstream press.
In response to ongoing accusations surrounding the Clintons' investment in a real estate development known as Whitewater in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Attorney General Janet Reno had appointed an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, to investigate those accusations in 1994. Starr's investigation began to branch out into other issues, from Filegate, to Travelgate, to Bill Clinton's actions in the civil case of his alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones prior to his presidency. In the course of the last of these, White House intern Monica Lewinsky signed an affidavit that she had not had a relationship with Clinton, but Lewinsky's confidant Linda Tripp had been recording their phone conversations and offered Starr tapes of Lewinsky describing her feelings for, and alleging intimate encounters with, the president. Clinton was asked to give a deposition, and accusations that he lied about an affair under oath first made national headlines on January 17, 1998, when the story was picked up by the conservative-right e-mail newsletter The Drudge Report. Despite swift denials from Bill, the media attention grew.
On January 27, 1998, Hillary appeared on NBC's The Today Show, in an interview with Matt Lauer.
Lauer: You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle, and that one side or the other is going down here.
Clinton: Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this—they have popped up in other settings. This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.
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Vast right-wing conspiracy
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.
While popularized by Hillary Clinton in her 1998 The Today Show interview, the phrase did not originate with her. In 1991, the Detroit News wrote:
Thatcher-era Britain produced its own crop of paranoid left-liberal films. ... All posited a vast right-wing conspiracy propping up a reactionary government ruthlessly crushing all efforts at opposition under the guise of parliamentary democracy. [Emphasis added.]
An Associated Press story in 1995 also used the phrase, relating an official's guess that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of "maybe five malcontents" and not "some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy."
A 332-page memo titled "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce" was commissioned by Mark Fabiani and written by Chris Lehane in 1995. It was the first document to describe the conspiracies surrounding the Clintons. It described how conservative media outlets such as The American Spectator spread conspiracy theories about the suicide of Vince Foster, the Whitewater controversy, and other events. According to the memo, these conspiracies spread from conservative think tanks to British tabloids, and then to the mainstream press.
In response to ongoing accusations surrounding the Clintons' investment in a real estate development known as Whitewater in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Attorney General Janet Reno had appointed an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, to investigate those accusations in 1994. Starr's investigation began to branch out into other issues, from Filegate, to Travelgate, to Bill Clinton's actions in the civil case of his alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones prior to his presidency. In the course of the last of these, White House intern Monica Lewinsky signed an affidavit that she had not had a relationship with Clinton, but Lewinsky's confidant Linda Tripp had been recording their phone conversations and offered Starr tapes of Lewinsky describing her feelings for, and alleging intimate encounters with, the president. Clinton was asked to give a deposition, and accusations that he lied about an affair under oath first made national headlines on January 17, 1998, when the story was picked up by the conservative-right e-mail newsletter The Drudge Report. Despite swift denials from Bill, the media attention grew.
On January 27, 1998, Hillary appeared on NBC's The Today Show, in an interview with Matt Lauer.
Lauer: You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle, and that one side or the other is going down here.
Clinton: Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this—they have popped up in other settings. This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.