Those of us who come of political age in the 1990s as Democrats had to deal with schizophrenia of the Clinton Presidency and all of the scandals associated with that era. Yesterday Politco revealed the emergence of the infamous  “conspiracy commerce” memo. This memo basically outlined the links between elements of the media and various right-wing funding sources.

Having lived through that period I saw the proliferation of numerous right-wing publications. Joining the old-guard National Review were new magazines such as the Weekly Standard, Insight (published by the Washington Times, a conservative daily), The American Spectator, Newsmax, Western Journalism Center and others. FOX News was launched also launched during this period, in 1996. In the era before large scale newspaper websites and political blogs, magazines on the newsstand at Barnes & Noble or Borders were a common source of political information and commentary. As a political nut, I would often buy these right-wing publications just to read about DC politics. I am sure I was not alone.

The way things would work was that publications funded by the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife or Rupert Murdoch would pay for “investigations” of various aspects of the Clinton’s personal life or financial affairs, which would be dissected to an incredible level. They would then be published in these political magazines, which then led to publication in the Washington Times and New York Post and appearances on FOX News. Once the Internet became mainstream, the Drudge Report would “break” the news to an online audience. If the stories weren’t picked up domestically, Murdoch-owned tabloids in the UK such as the Sun and the News of the World would circulate these stories, thus reifying them, and often guide them through a backdoor into the US media. Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, then at the peak of its influence, also served as a willing outlet for this aspect of the conservative press.

Stylistically, these conservative publications would find and fixate on the raunchiest details of these scandals. Allegations of murder, drug running, and interracial romantic affairs were published and sold to a mass audience, often via evangelical Christian ministries.

One of the reporters who was at the center of this conspiracy was David Brock. In time Brock drifted left, and by 2001 when I had lunch with him in Washington to discuss the Florida recount, he was turning into a watchdog of the conservative media. A few years later he was involved in founding Media Matters, now an indispensable resource for tracking conservative media bias.

In today’s culture where MSNBC (which I admittedly do not watch) has become the mouthpiece for the Left, theories are floated regularly that this administration has gotten attacked more by elements of the media than any prior one. From where I sit, I don’t see that being the case. In the Clinton years the conservative media was well-funded, well-organized and generally singing from the same hymnal. A liberal counterpunch did not exist, and the mainstream media had their own anti-Southern biases towards President Clinton, which allowed some to believe the rubbish coming from the right.

Today, the mainstream media does little to further the scandal mongering coming from FOX News and conservative publications. Had events like Benghazi or the IRS scandal taken place in the 1990s, CNN, for example, would have covered both far more extensively. I am not claiming President Obama has not been the victim of an orchestrated and well-funded effort to undermine his presidency by a conservative media — he certainly has. I simply do not believe, however, that it dwarfs the scale or scope of the attacks on President Clinton, or the ability for the conservatives at the time to dominate the debate.