Chris Lehane, the inventor of the original term ‘vast right wing conspiracy’ back in the 1990s to dismiss the (true) allegations against Bill Clinton by Monica Lewinsky
This is inaccurate in a few ways.
Lehane did not invent the term “vast right wing conspiracy”, AFAICT; Hillary Clinton was the first person to use that phrase in reference to criticisms of the Clintons, in a 1998 interview. Some sources (including Lehane’s Wikipedia page) attribute the term to Lehane’s 1995 memo Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce, but I searched the memo for that phrase and it does not appear there. Lehane’s Wikipedia page cites (and apparently misreads) this SFGate article, which discusses Lehane’s memo in connection with Clinton’s quote but does not actually attribute the phrase to Lehane.
The memo’s use of the term “conspiracy” was about how the right spread conspiracy theories about the Clintons, not about how the right was engaged in a conspiracy against the Clintons. Its primary example involved claims about Vince Foster which it (like present-day Wikipedia) described as “conspiracy theories” (as you can see by searching the memo for the string “conspirac”).
Also, Lehane’s memo was published in July 1995 which was before the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual relationship began (Nov 1995), and so obviously wasn’t a response to allegations about that relationship.
Lehane’s memo did include some negatives stories about the Clintons that turned out to be accurate, such as the Gennifer Flowers allegations. So there is some legitimate criticism about Lehane’s memo, including how it presented all of these negative stories as part of a pipeline for spreading unreliable allegations about the Clintons, and didn’t take seriously the possibility that they might be accurate. But it doesn’t look like his work was mainly focused on dismissing true allegations.
This is inaccurate in a few ways.
Lehane did not invent the term “vast right wing conspiracy”, AFAICT; Hillary Clinton was the first person to use that phrase in reference to criticisms of the Clintons, in a 1998 interview. Some sources (including Lehane’s Wikipedia page) attribute the term to Lehane’s 1995 memo Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce, but I searched the memo for that phrase and it does not appear there. Lehane’s Wikipedia page cites (and apparently misreads) this SFGate article, which discusses Lehane’s memo in connection with Clinton’s quote but does not actually attribute the phrase to Lehane.
The memo’s use of the term “conspiracy” was about how the right spread conspiracy theories about the Clintons, not about how the right was engaged in a conspiracy against the Clintons. Its primary example involved claims about Vince Foster which it (like present-day Wikipedia) described as “conspiracy theories” (as you can see by searching the memo for the string “conspirac”).
Also, Lehane’s memo was published in July 1995 which was before the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual relationship began (Nov 1995), and so obviously wasn’t a response to allegations about that relationship.
Lehane’s memo did include some negatives stories about the Clintons that turned out to be accurate, such as the Gennifer Flowers allegations. So there is some legitimate criticism about Lehane’s memo, including how it presented all of these negative stories as part of a pipeline for spreading unreliable allegations about the Clintons, and didn’t take seriously the possibility that they might be accurate. But it doesn’t look like his work was mainly focused on dismissing true allegations.