Reactions to White House "Media Food Chain" Document Selected comments on the "Conspiracy Commerce" report: David S. Bennahum, author of the forthcoming book Coming of Age in Cyberspace: "Once again the Administration opened itself up to easy ridicule, but this jab points out a broader misunderstanding by the authors of the memo. The Internet has come into its own as a news source, yet most people -- including, apparently, those in the White House counsel's office -- have not acquired the type of literacy required to make sense of it." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, reporter for the [London] Sunday Telegraph: "For the report to be funded by taxpayers and out of the White House counsel's office is shocking . . . It raises questions about the education and moral character of these people." Robert Parry, editor of The Consortium, an online collection of investigative reporting: "Whatever the merits of the White House arguments, Clinton's team had committed a PR blunder. In debunking one set of conspiracy theories, the White House had unwittingly embraced another -- that the conspiracy theories were themselves part of a larger conspiracy. Or perhaps Clinton was just getting in tune with the American people, who seem to find conspiracy theories an increasingly appealing way to explain events in Washington." William Powers, columnist for The New Republic: "The tone of the writing is so much like the right-wing conspiracy literature that was its subject that it seemed to consciously mimic it. This may be the first major conspiracy theory whose villains are conspiracy theorists . . . . [T]he White House needs conspiracy nuts as much as the nuts need Clinton. By putting the far-out stories beside the more credible ones and suggesting equivalency, the president's defenders sow doubt in the media about the validity of the stories the administration is really worked up about -- the ones based in fact." David Plotz, writer for Slate, Microsoft's online political magazine: "There may be a Web conspiracy against Clinton, but it isn't very organized or very efficient... the administration is almost as paranoid as the Whitewater Webheads." Wesley Pruden, editor in chief of the Washington Times: "The White House report on the right-wing media conspiracy sounds at first like an April fool's joke, since this is January the kids at the White House must be serious. The idea of a media conspiracy is silly, because you couldn't get two newspapermen to agree on whether to order a pizza with pepperoni or without. This nutty conspiracy theory demonstrates first that the White House has no understanding of how newspapers work, and though it's nice to see that we're being recognized by the White House as the news leader in town, and reassuring that somebody thinks there are enough conservative newspapers to put together a working conspiracy, you would expect the White House to be too busy dealing with Elvis visits and UFO landings on the South Lawn to bother with something called 'Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.'" Stephen Hess, presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC: "[The report] certainly does describe paranoia. If it had been done under Ronald Reagan, this would be on the front page of the New York Times. It would be an outrage." Fred Barnes, an editor at The Weekly Standard: "This is paranoia at the highest level of government. This is a remarkable role reversal. It used to be that wild conspiracy theories were on the right." Micah Morrison, an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal: "[T]he report . . . demonstrates the extremes of White House press management." Brit Hume, Fox News managing editor in Washington, DC: "It's a little silly. It's a little extreme. And it reveals a sort of a side of the Clinton White House which is not the most attractive side, and that's the side with the president and the first lady as well, at times prone to a bit of self-pity and feeling undefended, and believing that the criticism of the administration and of them, in particular, is the result of some sort of cabal or illegitimate operations.... nobody is who is going to deal with a journalist and expect to be taken seriously should ever use the word conspiracy." More on the White House "Conspiracy Commerce" Report Read the "Media Food Chain" Report Sources The Clinton Scandal Archive