10/08/2004 11:51:00 AM

Unliving a Lie

Seven years ago, after a decade of working at a high level in conservative politics and media, I made a conscious decision to break ranks -- both privately, to try to reset my own moral compass, and publicly, to try to reset a distorted record, for I felt a responsibility to correct the history books before it was too late.

Oddly enough, I had come to this personal and professional crossroads having made a name for myself in the political media by harnessing the well-financed and well-organized machinery of the conservative movement to attack those who had the courage to try to stand up to it. It was the early 1990s, and following the Republican party line, I had chosen sides in the raging culture war, taking on Anita Hill and the Clintons in ways that I'd come to realize were false and wrong.

The real issue at the heart of this unfolding realization was not political or partisan, although it inevitably played out in a right-left context. The issue was one of honesty and integrity. People who had encouraged me to defend Clarence Thomas, it turned out, didn't even believe the bill of goods they had sold me. And when one of the lawyers working for Paula Jones, whose sexual-harassment lawsuit I had triggered with a salacious article, told me he didn't believe his own client -- it was all just politics -- I began to understand that my celebrated role as a right-wing journalistic hit man was the very opposite of speaking truth to power. Once I admitted this to myself, I had to stop.