Robert Reich learned at least one thing from Bill Clinton: a total disregard for the truth. His newly published account of his time in the Clinton administration, Locked in the Cabinet, is now being picked apart for its dishonesty and inaccuracy.
First, former AFL-CIO chief Lane Kirkland wrote a devastating letter, published in the Forward, showing how Reich distorted the truth when describing their meetings. Then a member of the National Association of Manufacturers, John S. Irving, began distributing a large dossier describing how Reich dishonestly portrayed a meeting with that organization. Reich described it as an angry confrontation between a brave little labor secretary (himself) and a growling, cigar-smoking, all-male enclave of capitalists. In reality, there was no cigar smoking. The gathering was two-thirds men and one- third women. There were no hisses or screams, as Reich alleges in his book. A transcript of the session shows a respectful exchange. This and other discrepancies are detailed in a superb article by Jonathan Rauch in Slate magazine.
One of Rauch’s most devastating revelations concerns a hearing before the Joint Economic Committee. Reich describes a furious outburst by Republican chairman Jim Saxton. Rauch got the C-SPAN tape of the hearing and reports that Saxton’s alleged outburst never occurred. Reich apparently made it up for dramatic effect. What’s amazing is how Reich made up stories that were so easily checkable. Our own 30-second Nexis search found that a Nightline episode described by Reich as a neat little morality play between himself and a corporate downsizer was in reality not as neat as in Reich’s telling. He wasn’t as smart as the transcript in his book suggests, and Ted Koppel and the executive weren’t as crude.
Somehow, we’re not surprised.
