While we’ve all been talking about Chandra, the Brits have had their own sex scandal. Former Tory minister Neil Hamilton and his wife, Christine, have been twisting in the tabloid wind for weeks now. They were accused by an anonymous woman, backed by a media publicist, Max Clifford, of sexually assaulting the woman while another 60 year-old man raped her. The case has been in the British papers for weeks, with the Hamiltons having every aspect of their lives pored over and suspicion cast over them. They had an alibi – they were at a dinner party when the alleged assault took place – but that didn’t stop the speculation. It also didn’t prevent the Hamiltons from what must have been a simply mortifying ordeal. The slow news summer helped stoke the story. Finally, they’ve been completely cleared of all suspicion by the police. The story was an unspeakable smear and they are now suing for libel. But the damage has been done. The publicist who pioneered the story had the gall to concede that the Hamiltons were innocent but then told British television: “What goes through my mind is why did the police spend so many months looking into this, and arrest them, if there was nothing there?” The smears continue – and no-one in today’s media climate can resist publicizing them.
SMART MISSILES, AMAZING MOSSAD: A friend emails to remind me that the Israeli Army was even more impressive in its missile attack on Mustafa Zibri. For the missile to have hit its target, it needed more than just good technology. Some plucky Israeli had actually gotten into Zibri’s office and planted the homing device. Whatever one thinks of the morality of such an attack, its proficiency is surely remarkable.
HOW FLAKY IS SUSAN LEVY?: I just got around to reading the Washington Post’s invasive profile of Bob and Susan Levy. I don’t like this invasion of their privacy – but then they invited the reporters in, so I guess it’s ok. Take a read. What I take from the article is that Mrs. Levy is more than just flaky. This particular part of the story, noted again on the Daily Howler, had me reeling: “Susan Barbara Katz met Robert Lee Levy at Ohio State during the late ’60s … Sue struggled with a learning disability to become an art teacher. She says she suffers from auditory dyslexia: Sometimes words and conversations get mixed up in her mind. This appears to contribute to her disjointed manner of speaking. She flits from topic to topic, her ideas connecting at right angles instead of in straight lines.” (My italics.) This is the source against whose word we are expected to conclude that Gary Condit has been lying! Remember the classic Chung exchange in which she seemed to trap him into a simple conflict with Mrs. Levy about whether he had denied a sexual relationship with Chandra on the phone with Mrs. Levy? Condit looked awful, and almost everybody concluded he was lying. Condit claims he gave her the same euphemism he gave everyone else – a completely plausible notion given that he was talking to the mom of his lover. But Chandra’s mom, whose word has been taken as Gospel by the media, says otherwise. So who are you going to believe? A congressman or a woman who “suffers from auditory dyslexia: sometimes words and conversations get mixed up in her mind?”