Politico's Lewinsky 'Scoop' Just a Big Rehash

Despite its big-headline treatment, Politico's story yesterday about a book revisiting the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is just a mishmash of old news, writes Jamison Foser. Start with the "Monica's Back" headline: "You might assume Politico means Lewinsky has written a book, or launched a speaking tour or something." Nope, it means "that several months ago, Lewinsky gave a written comment to the author of a book that is coming out soon. Uh ... a little less 'newsy' when you put it that way, isn't it?"

The story also mentions "confirmation" of a Bill Clinton affair with Susan McDougal before specifying that the author offers no evidence. "Uh, Politico? That's totally not what the word "confirmation" means," Foser writes for Media Matters. "It gets dumber from there, with Politico breathlessly revealing that Robert Ray wanted to indict Bill Clinton (we already knew that) and that Ken Starr's office prepared a draft indictment of Hillary Clinton (knew that, too) and ... well, who cares, really?" (More Politico stories.)