Funeral Flowers

We've had enough of these people," Gennifer Flowers complained to Chris Matthews on his Hardball talk show in August. The people we had had enough of were President and Mrs. Clinton, and the reason we'd had enough of them was that they were, as she put it, "criminals," "liars," and "murderers."

Matthews had actually invited Flowers to discuss Hillary Clinton's psychobabble remarks about her husband in Talk magazine. Mrs. Clinton had advanced a thesis that her husband's notorious behavior stemmed from a childhood of emotional abuse, in which his mother and grandmother had vied for his affection. The result was that he was forever attempting to please two women. Hillary having cast herself as wife/mother, it seemed natural to ask Flowers whether she had felt much like his grandmother during the 12 years she says she slept with him. Turns out she felt more like a murder target.

"Murderers?" asked Matthews.

"Well," answered Flowers, "there is a Clinton death list."

Indeed there is. It stems from a 1994 video called The Clinton Chronicles, which, among other accusations, suggests Bill Clinton is complicit in the deaths of scores of people. Various versions of the list have been circulating on the Internet for years, as has at least one substantial rebuttal (www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/clinton.htm).

Flowers announced that she'd posted a Clinton Body Count on her Web site (www.genniferflowers.com) and invited viewers to check it out. It lists nearly 60 alleged victims, including Vince Foster, William Colby, Ron Brown, Jim McDougal, and Adm. Jeremy Boorda.

Elsewhere on her site are excerpts from her remarks this year at Oxford University, where she advised her audience, "You had better have some proof of what you have to say." Good advice. Pressed by Matthews for proof, Flowers had nothing to offer except her conviction that Clinton was capable of murdering her, too. "I wouldn't be sitting here talking with you today had I not become high-profile as I did," she said. "It saved my life."

The exchange was one of the most bizarre in modern political discourse. A woman who, the evidence suggests, was Clinton's mistress and confidante for 12 years, and who has seemed reasonable if not actually graceful in recent appearances ranging from TV interviews to Oxford University, suddenly publicly endorses the idea that the president is complicit in multiple murders. That he would have killed her. She has nothing to back up her assertions, but she did demonstrate one thing: Just when you thought the country had reached the bottom of what this administration had to offer, it turns out there is no bottom.