If you haven’t heard of Lucianne Goldberg, you’ve been asleep for the last twenty years, Rip.
To wit, Lucianne is a force of nature. Publisher of the popular website Lucianne.com and BlogsLucianneLoves, her Wiki bio describes her as an American literary agent who was a central figure behind the scenes in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
A little background — Lucianne began her career at the Washington Post in 1957 followed by a year working at the Democratic National Committee in 1960. She was a consultant to the White House staff under President John F. Kennedy in 1961, staying on for two years.
Her first book, Purr Baby Purr, a critique of feminism, was published in 1970. Goldberg wrote a syndicated column called “Footlights of Broadway”, and published her first novel, Friends in High Places co-written with Sondra Robinson, in 1979. Her first solo novel Madame Cleo’s Girls, a story of three call girls, was published in 1992, followed by People Will Talk in 1994. Goldberg has also ghostwritten the romance novel Washington Wives (1987) for Maureen Dean (wife of Watergate figure John Dean), among other works.
The Clinton Caper (From Wikipedia)
Goldberg met Linda Tripp in the early part of the Clinton administration while assisting an author writing a book on Vince Foster. Goldberg advised Tripp to record all her (Tripp’s) conversations with Monica Lewinsky. In New York, where Goldberg lived, such surreptitious recordings would not have been illegal, but they were illegal in Maryland, where Tripp lived. Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Kenneth Starr and brought the tapes to the attention of people working on the Paula Jones case. She started speaking to reporters about the tapes in the fall of 1997, notably to Michael Isikoff of Newsweek.
Goldberg spoke at an anti-Clinton rally organized by the Free Republic.
Although Goldberg was deeply involved in the Lewinsky scandal, Starr never subpoenaed her to testify in front of the grand jury.
Within days of the scandal breaking on the Drudge Report, the Democratic National Committee circulated an “information sheet” to reporters with information intended to damage Goldberg’s credibility.
In a 1999 interview with Katie Couric, Goldberg stated that she did not think it was wrong to violate the privacy of people who were “a threat to the country”. In response, film producer Michael Moore set up a webcam on her, which he called “I See Lucy Cam”. Moore’s project did not violate New York State’s laws
Goldberg also used to host a talk radio show.
Her sites are invaluable. You can’t put a price on them, so to help defray the cost of running it, drop a couple of shekels in the jar and help keep the bandwidth beast away from the door. And join her fans in wishing her a very happy birthday.
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