"If something came out in the paper with someone saying something bad about him, he would ask 'do we have anything against them. What can we do to turn this around?" says Larry Patterson, a veteran Arkansas state trooper who spent more than six years guarding the Clinton family. Patterson is also one of the guys who revealed details of the underside of Clinton's personal life, so some folks may believe he's tainted goods as an informant. But Independent Counsel Ken Starr's office in Little Rock has questioned Patterson a number of times and seems to be taking his information very seriously. More important, I've never caught Patterson in a lie even though I've baited traps on a number of occasions.
Patterson says Clinton wasn't always on the defensive concerning his "enemies." Sometimes he took the offensive - like the time Patterson says he was asked to dig up dirt on a political opponent.
"This man (Clinton) had me go and tell a woman that she could have a state job - have money - if she would say his opponent had fathered an illegimate child by her," says Patterson, who first told me this story and the name of the opponent a long time ago. "The lady said she was not interested." Rumors had been circulating about the other politician, so the information that Clinton was trying to get may, in fact, have been true.
Was the FBI list requested by the White House a clumsy attempt to get dirt on people who might someday give the President a hard time? And why was the Clinton White House so concerned about its enemies in the Republican Party? Don't know for sure.
Maybe the Clintons didn't feel all that comfortable with the way they ran Arkansas and felt they needed some insurance.
(John Crudele is a financial columnist with the New York Post. His mailing address is P.O. Box 610, Lincroft, N.J. 07738. Click here to send him e-mail).