Dum Pendebat Filius

Remember a couple days ago I put up a link to a disgusting, jaw-droppingly-stupid article by MSNBC “media analyst” Steve Adubato? You know, the one in which Steve-O complains that Hillary won’t explain “exactly how Vince Foster died”?

Today, Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler has named Steve Adubato “Pundit of the Year” for his foolishness. Read the whole thing:

It was [Rush] Limbaugh who jump-started the rumor, long ago, that Hillary Clinton helped kill Vince Foster — and broken-souled losers have clung to such fantasies down through all the years. In August 1999, for example, a certain red-faced cable ranter [Chris Matthews] had Gennifer Flowers on his show, for a long and bizarre half-hour; she spent her half-hour telling the world about all the people both Clintons had murdered. The ranter said he had no idea that Flowers was going to mutter such things, and who knows — it’s possible he might have been telling the truth, clueless as he so typically is. But when we liberals keep agreeing to disappear this part of our history, we agree to look away from the insides of Big Pundit World’s tortured head. Let’s throw away that “polarizing” euphemism: Why do so many people hate Hillary Clinton? Adubato reminded us this week — and he mentioned “Whitewater” too!

What could Adubato possibly have meant by that statement about Foster? We have no earthly idea. Earlier this year, some of the inmates began to toy with the Foster story again, amusing themselves by meowing that Clinton hadn’t been kind enough to her friend in the last tragic months of his life. But surely, even a man like Adubato knows what sorts of ugly musing he triggers with such a cruel, ugly comment.

If you’ve forgotten the ugly 1999 incident in which Chris Matthews brought Gennifer Flowers onto his cable show and permitted her to accuse the President (and First Lady) of the United States of multiple murders, an Internet wingnut anti-Clinton site has helpfully provided some of the “money quotes” –

FLOWERS: Well, in the first place I hope that [Hillary Clinton] does not succeed at becoming a United States Senator from New York. I think that would be a travesty. We’ve had enough of these people; these criminals, these liars, these murderers. We need to get them out of political office, please.

MATTHEWS: Murderers?

FLOWERS: Well, there is a Clinton death list. If anyone would like to go to my website and take a look at it…

MATTHEWS: Well, we have your website here - www.genniferflowers.com. But what will they find if they go there in terms of murder? I didn’t know that one.

FLOWERS: Well, there are a number of deaths associated with Bill Clinton and his administration and his operatives. I would just suggest that they go on and take a look at it.

MATTHEWS: Do you believe that the President ordered the killing of anyone?

FLOWERS: I believe that he did. And I believe that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking with you today had I not become high profile as I did. Even though I didn’t do it on purpose, it saved my life.

That was a high point in the history of cable news, readers. You’d do well to keep this episode in mind the next time you hear a wingnut decrying the “liberal bias” of Chris Matthews and MSNBC.

Steve Adubato seems to be carrying on what Bocephus might have called a “family tradition” over at MSNBC: Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

UPDATE — In case you missed it in the previous CDS post, commenter and comrade Stram pointed us to an online copy of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s final report on the death of Vince Foster.