[Trump] and two aides sat down at a table for lunch with author Edward Klein, perhaps best known for his series of bombshell books spreading rumors and innuendo, much of it discredited, about the Clintons.You remember Klein, author of many Clinton-bashing books, including The Truth About Hillary. In his review of that one, conservative humorist Joe Queenan wrote the following:
... Klein, who rode to and from the restaurant in the same vehicle as Trump in a Secret Service motorcade, said he is following Trump around for a couple of days to gather material for a new book. But the visit with Klein comes as Trump promises to debut new attacks on the stump about the Clintons.
... it sleazily intimates that Hillary Clinton is a lying, scheming, smelly, left-leaning lesbian and a non-maternal parent who consorts with lawyers who defend mobbed-up unions and bears a striking character resemblance to both Richard Nixon and Madonna, and who tacitly approved of her husband's rape of a young woman at a time when Mrs. Clinton may or may not have been bathing, washing her hair or shaving her underarms, while hanging out with short-haired women from the sapphic charnel house Wellesley College.Klein claimed in that book that Chelsea Clinton was conceived as a result of marital rape, an assertion that was too much even for Sean Hannity, who questioned it in a 2005 interview with Klein.
As Oliver Willis notes, "Klein says he has known Trump for 35 years and has "met with him on numerous occasions, talked to him on the phone countless times, traveled with him, and written two lengthy magazine cover stories about him." He adds, 'I believe I understand him better than most people outside his immediate family.'" Trump provided a back-cover blurb for Klein's 2012 book The Amateur.
Klein is obsessed with Hillary Clinton's health -- he says he has "dizzy spells" and gets "blinding headaches," and may even have multiple sclerosis. This is odd because, according to Klein, she's also vigorous enough to knock all the items off the desk of anyone who angers her, something she apparently does on a regular basis:
Clinton has a habit of violently clearing off desks in fits of rage. An unnamed "Foreign Service Officer" tells Klein that "after a telephone argument with President Obama, she took her right arm and cleared off her small working desk, sending pictures, glasses, everything crashing to the floor."Trump will probably work a lot of this into his campaign rhetoric. And the alleged lesbianism. And maybe the alleged rape. And almost certainly Bill Clinton's relationship with wealthy convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a subject Klein writes about a lot.
A few chapters later, Clinton does the same thing to her husband's desk....
Oh, and Benghazi, of course. A small problem here is that the initial focus on an anti-Muslim YouTube video -- which right-wingers consider the worst cover-up in American history -- was, according to Klein, President Obama's idea, not Hillary Clinton's. Klein, she bill Clinton wanted her to resign on principle, because the cover-up was so horrible. I'm not sure how Trump (and Klein) will square that with the "Crooked Hillary" meme, but maybe Klein will change his story once he realizes that the old story is no longer damaging enough. (It wouldn't be the first time.)
We know that Trump will spread the most absurd gossip on the campaign trail because he's spreading this story about Ted Cruz's father now:
Trump also began to say that the elder Cruz was with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy, before he shot JFK. The National Enquirer alleged that Rafael Cruz is pictured with the assassin handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963....As I explained last month, this story is nuts. But Trump is out there using it.
“What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death — before the shooting. It’s horrible,” Trump said.
And when Trump does start quoting Klein, here's a top media figure who'll be right there backing him up:
So this showed up unbidden. Recall his last book was #1 @nytimes while largely ignored by MSM. Out next week pic.twitter.com/75D91mVfSz
— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) June 20, 2014
I'm not looking forward to all this.
