According to you, it got more surprising from there. You recount how Grover Norquist, the feverish unsavory head of Americans for Tax Reform, waged a whispering campaign against you for “helping the other team.” You complain that Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy wouldn’t have you on their radio shows. You reveal that Gary Aldrich, whose book Unlimited Access whines about excessive swearing in the Clinton White House, doesn’t like you because you’re gay. You grumble about not being taken seriously as an objective journalist, while at the same time crying foul because you were not invited to address a convention of conservative political activists. You even appear hurt that liberals, still sore about your Anita Hill book, refused to come to your defense. The whole experience, you explain in wounded tones, was shocking. When did professional political partisans become so … partisan?
The outrage you express at discovering something so obvious strikes me as disingenuous. So does your claim that you’ve suffered greatly for being truthful about Hillary Clinton. Let’s weigh the results of the controversy surrounding your latest book: You couldn’t go to a dinner party. You were attacked by a few marginal characters on the right, people most intelligent conservatives regard as ridiculous and embarrassing. And you got slammed by Garry Wills and Molly Ivins–hardly a career-killer.
On the up side, you’ve been able to keep your high-paying, low-obligation job at the American Spectator. You became rich from a book that didn’t sell. Your pieces are now running in Esquire. Last week you did the Today show. I admire and applaud all of these things. But do they amount to a “fall from grace”? Clearly the idiom must have a new meaning.
Maybe. On the other hand, you seem more marketable than ever.