From the New York Post way back in 2000:

CLINTON’S ‘TALK’ PALS DO HIS DIRTY WORK

By Rod Dreher June 8, 2000 | 4:00am

WE’VE long known that the White House employs private investigators to look for dirt in the private lives of people critical of Bill Clinton.

But now we know that the Walt Disney Co.’s money pays for the same kind of work.

Disney’s Talk/Miramax book division contracted with New York writer John Connolly to do a book titled “Insane Clown Posse,” a work-in-progress that dishes what purports to be the slimy secrets of a host of Clinton critics.

… Several people I spoke with yesterday who are reportedly in the book say Connolly approached their friends and associates asking for sleazy details of their private lives.

One Connolly target, conservative commentator Ann Coulter, even received a fax from her old boyfriend Bob Guccione Jr. that had been sent to him from Nils B. Grevillius, a top Los Angeles private investigator. The PI – who brags on his Web site about working with Connolly on the book – wanted trash on Coulter, the fax shows.

Coulter characterized the book’s message as, “The entire right wing is gay except me, but that’s because I was having an affair with Geraldo Rivera. It’s absurd.”

… Drudge told me that Connolly’s hit list includes Ken Starr and his deputies, literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, GOP pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, magazine editors R. Emmett Tyrrell and Christopher Buckley, and Wall Street Journal editorial writer John Fund. …

Is Connolly a rogue reporter operating without supervision? Few of his targets believe that.

“This guy has secretaries. He has a staff. He’s been hiring private investigators. He’s been flying around the country,” fumed Coulter. “Who made the decision to fund this guy?”

… Talk doyenne Tina Brown and Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein have not hidden their affection for the Clintons.

But how could they give a book contract to a writer conducting what appears to be scorched-earth recriminations against journalists and others?

Some believe the book never was intended to see the light of day. They say it’s a shot across the bow intended to frighten journalists from making too much over Al Gore’s ethical problems in the coming election season.

“There is a level of recklessness here that makes me believe it’s not an actual book but an attempt to intimidate,” said Fund.

“It’s the Clinton spin-meisters trying to destroy everybody so nobody will lift a finger against him or Al Gore in the future,” said Bossie.

Or Hillary, for that matter.

Some conservatives are lying low, hoping “Insane Clown Posse” will die a quiet death in the Talk/Miramax morgue. Not Coulter.

“What is the purpose of this, other than pure vengeance? Are these people going to follow us the rest of our lives? This is what the McCarthy era was supposed to be like,” she said.

Another interesting name is Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano, currently in prison for wiretapping opponents of various powerful people in Hollywood. Pellicano was employed by the Clintons in 1992 to cast doubt upon Gennifer Flowers.

I tried to see if there were any direct connections between Pellicano and Weinstein, and came up with the curious story of the 1997 meta-flop: An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn about a movie director with the unfortunate name of Alan Smithee (the director’s credit traditionally put on a film when the real director takes his name off it in disgust) who can’t put Alan Smithee’s name on a turkey because he’s already named Alan Smithee. (Ironically, director Arthur Hiller hated the studio recut of An Alan Smithee Film so much he changed his credit to Alan Smithee.)

Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas wrote into it a sleazy private eye named Anthony Pellicano and hired the real Anthony Pellicano to play Anthony Pellicano. But then Sylvester Stallone refused to appear in the movie within the movie (a giant budget action film with Jackie Chan and Whoopie Goldberg called “Trio,” which I must say I probably would have enjoyed if it were a real movie) with Anthony Pellicano. So, to keep Stallone, Esterhaz changed the crooked dick’s name to Sam Rizzo. He soon found a new volunteer “desperate” to play the Pellicano-based character: mogul Harvey Weinstein.

But An Alan Smithee Film made only $53,000 at the box office, with Eszterhas winning four Golden Raspberries, so I haven’t seen it.

And what it all means I can’t tell you.

[Comment at Unz.com]