Today’s Republicans are thumbing through Newt Gingrich’s worn playbook of 1993 looking for tips on how to blunt President Barack Obama’s political momentum and flip it to their advantage. In doing so, they also appear to have dug in to what might be called the secret appendix. The official history of what happened during Bill Clinton’s difficult first two years – which ended in a sweeping Republican congressional victory in 1994 – focuses on the GOP’s united resistance to his economic plan and Hillary Clinton’s failed health care reform. But there was a darker side to the political damage inflicted on the early Clinton administration. Republicans and their right-wing allies disseminated what – in a covert operation – would be called ‘black propaganda.’ Some exaggerated minor scandals, like the Travel Office firings and Clinton’s Whitewater real-estate deal, while other key figures on the Right, such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, spread ugly conspiracy rumors linking Clinton to ‘mysterious deaths’ and cocaine smuggling. Sometimes, these multiplying ‘Clinton scandals’ built on themselves with the help of their constant repetition in both the right-wing and mainstream news media. For instance, overheated accusations about some personnel changes at the White House […]