# Suppose Gary Hart Hadn't Been Caught Out as an Adulterer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2014, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880 "2014-09-18T22:33:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/81 "2014-09-23T02:29:00Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > My thought exactly. So anyway since you claim to know that George H. W. Bush was having an affair with Fitzgerald despite admitting you couldn’t even initially remember her name please produce the evidence for this or is this merely going to be another case of “my post is my cite”? Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/82 "2014-09-23T02:41:34Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > My thought exactly. Actually, it’s unsurprising to me that you would make yet another factually incorrect statement in this thread, or in this forum. What is one more added to so many? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/83 "2014-09-23T05:26:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You use the word “did” in the sense of “Hillary Clinton did kill Vince Foster”. Right? You are the one who accused Hillary Clinton of killing Vince Foster in this thread. It is not an accurate statement at all. You have made so many inaccurate statements in this thread alone, so many changed definitions, so much turning a blind eye to history, so many shifted burdens of proof on your part. That is a lot of carrying water and sweeping away political shenanigans. Yet always for one side. At least I will actually criticize liberals, my own people. Never seen you do that to conservatives. Even when Nixon is finally nailed dead to rights on treason, just silence from you with respect to Nixon and the claim that not only was Gary Hart not honey trapped, but it never happened in American politics. And when I give you half a dozen examples, just silence. Crickets. Ignoring it hoping it will go away. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/84 "2014-09-23T08:31:00Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > You are the one who accused Hillary Clinton of killing Vince Foster in this thread. It is not an accurate statement at all. You have made so many inaccurate statements in this thread alone, so many changed definitions, so much turning a blind eye to history, so many shifted burdens of proof on your part. That is a lot of carrying water and sweeping away political shenanigans. Yet always for one side. At least I will actually criticize liberals, my own people. Never seen you do that to conservatives. Even when Nixon is finally nailed dead to rights on treason, just silence from you with respect to Nixon and the claim that not only was Gary Hart not honey trapped, but it never happened in American politics. And when I give you half a dozen examples, just silence. Crickets. Ignoring it hoping it will go away. Your examples were bullshit. Once again, you claim to know for a fact that George H. W. Bush had an affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald, despite admitting that you knew so little about the case you couldn’t even remember her name. I think that is an utterly moronic claim. Prove me wrong and provide compelling evidence to support your ludicrous assertion. Once again, thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/85 "2014-09-23T12:40:07Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > You are the one who accused Hillary Clinton of killing Vince Foster in this thread. It is not an accurate statement at all. You have made so many inaccurate statements in this thread alone, so many changed definitions, so much turning a blind eye to history, so many shifted burdens of proof on your part. That is a lot of carrying water and sweeping away political shenanigans. Yet always for one side. At least I will actually criticize liberals, my own people. Never seen you do that to conservatives. Even when Nixon is finally nailed dead to rights on treason, just silence from you with respect to Nixon and the claim that not only was Gary Hart not honey trapped, but it never happened in American politics. And when I give you half a dozen examples, just silence. Crickets. Ignoring it hoping it will go away. So much bullshit, I’m going to let it just rot where it sits. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/86 "2014-09-23T23:26:38Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > You are the one who accused Hillary Clinton of killing Vince Foster in this thread. Knock it off. This utterly twists what was posted in the context that it was posted and the only reasonable conclusion one may draw from this claim is that either you do not have the intellectual competence to post in this forum or you are trolling. The rest of your paragraph follows along the same lines. EVERYONE needs to dial back on the hostility in this thread, but you need to post in a way that I can be sure is not trolling. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/87 "2014-09-24T14:04:08Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/88 "2018-10-18T17:44:31Z")
Updating this thread it turns out that this was all a setup orchestrated by Lee Atwater (a Republican political consultant famous for race baiting–remember the Willie Horton ad): > [@](#): > > “I asked him how he could be so certain,” Hart told me. Strother then recounted his long-ago talk with Atwater, and Atwater’s claim that the whole Monkey Business weekend had occurred at his direction. According to Hart, that plan would have involved: contriving an invitation from Broadhurst for Hart to come on a boat ride, when Hart intended to be working on a speech. Ensuring that young women would be invited aboard. Arranging for the Broadhurst boat Hart thought he would be boarding, with some unmemorable name, to be unavailable—so that the group would have to switch to another boat, Monkey Business. Persuading Broadhurst to “forget” to check in with customs clearance at Bimini before closing time, so that the boat “unexpectedly” had to stay overnight there. And, according to Hart, organizing an opportunistic photo-grab. > > “There were a lot of people on the dock, people getting off their boats and wandering up and down on the wharf,” Hart told me. “While I was waiting for Broadhurst and whatever he was working out with the customs people, I sat on this little piling on the pier.” Hart said that Donna Rice’s friend and companion on the boat, Lynn Armandt, was standing a short distance away. “Miss Armandt made a gesture to Miss Rice, and she immediately came over and sat on my lap. Miss Armandt took the picture. The whole thing took less than five seconds, with lots of other people around. It was clearly staged, but it was used after the fact to prove that some intimacy existed.” > **[Was Gary Hart Set Up?](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/)** > > What are we to make of the deathbed confession of the political operative Lee Atwater, newly revealed, that he staged the events that brought down the Democratic candidate in 1987? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/89 "2018-10-18T19:51:21Z")
Wow. Atwater really was a piece of work. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/90 "2018-10-18T20:27:37Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Updating this thread it turns out that this was all a setup orchestrated by Lee Atwater (a Republican political consultant famous for race baiting–remember the Willie Horton ad): > > [Gary Hart’s Presidential Bid and the Possible Setup That Ended It - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/) That’s an interesting theory. Of course, it is based on a five minute conversation with a man dying of a brain tumor, in 1991, with no corroboration, and accusing another person (Broadhurst) also conveniently dead of bribery, also with no corroboration. But there is a movie coming out about it, so who needs proof? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/91 "2018-10-18T21:15:25Z")
Bribery is a cause of death? ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/92 "2018-10-19T00:33:59Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > That’s an interesting theory. Of course, it is based on a five minute conversation with a man dying of a brain tumor, in 1991, with no corroboration, and accusing another person (Broadhurst) also conveniently dead of bribery, also with no corroboration. But there is a movie coming out about it, so who needs proof? > > Regards, > Shodan Well, gee, Atwater was going to provide the detailed plans, graphs, charts and a scale model of The Monkey Business Conspiracy to provide absolute proof to silence the doubters, but that darn brain tumor was just too quick. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/93 "2018-10-19T02:55:08Z")
It does bear repeating that the press wasn’t following Hart, they were following Rice. I haven’t read the Atlantic article, but I did see Rachel Maddow’s piece on the story. I first heard this story over 25 years ago from a friend of my wife and discounted it then. But Maddow says that the guy who Atwater apologized to had shared the story with “some of his journalist friends”. My wife’s friend is the sister of the person referenced in the following link. > **[UPI editor Doug Tweedale dies in fall - UPI Archives](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/10/05/UPI-editor-Doug-Tweedale-dies-in-fall/7580655099200/)** > > Douglas Tweedale, 32, an editor on the foreign desk at United Press International in Washington and a former foreign corespondent in Central America and... I also note that an attempt by the Republicans to “stack the deck” for the opposition party was the very _essence_ of Watergate, take out the strongest candidate early and run against the weaker one (Canuck letter, anybody?). Nothing proves anything, of course. But it does make one wonder and you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that, hey yeah, this might just be the way it went down. The Maddow story, if you’re interested: [Was The Gary Hart Scandal Just A Set-Up By The George Bush Campaign? | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHOu7WAgZCU) ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/94 "2018-10-19T16:43:37Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > It does bear repeating that the press wasn’t following Hart, they were following Rice. I haven’t read the Atlantic article, but I did see Rachel Maddow’s piece on the story. I first heard this story over 25 years ago from a friend of my wife and discounted it then. But Maddow says that the guy who Atwater apologized to had shared the story with “some of his journalist friends”. My wife’s friend is the sister of the person referenced in the following link. > > I also note that an attempt by the Republicans to “stack the deck” for the opposition party was the very _essence_ of Watergate, take out the strongest candidate early and run against the weaker one (Canuck letter, anybody?). > > Nothing proves anything, of course. But it does make one wonder and you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that, hey yeah, this might just be the way it went down. From Maddow hunh? Well, at least we know she’s an honest broker who doesn’t have an ax to grind. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/95 "2018-10-19T21:29:31Z")
The fact that one might have an axe (or is it ax) to grind doesn’t make what they’re saying false. Especially when all she’s doing basically is giving someone else’s story wider exposure. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2018, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/96 "2018-10-21T18:19:47Z")
Huh, that’s a coincidence, I’m currently reading _‘The Strategies of Zeus’_, a 1987 novel written by him. Message ends, please carry on _(his name in the title of this thread caught my eye as I was browsing the SD)_ ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/97 "2018-10-22T12:41:13Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > The fact that one might have an axe (or is it ax) to grind doesn’t make what they’re saying false. Especially when all she’s doing basically is giving someone else’s story wider exposure. Sure it does. She’s giving the story “wider exposure” by putting her spin on it, ignoring what she wants to embellishing what comes closest to proving her point. There’s a vast difference between being a journalist and being a shill - and that counts for both sides. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2018, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/98 "2018-10-22T12:55:14Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Sure it does. She’s giving the story “wider exposure” by putting her spin on it, ignoring what she wants to embellishing what comes closest to proving her point. > > There’s a vast difference between being a journalist and being a shill - and that counts for both sides. And there is a vast difference between saying something and providing evidence for what you say. In what way did she embellish this story? ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2018, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880/99 "2018-10-22T18:35:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And there is a vast difference between saying something and providing evidence for what you say. In what way did she embellish this story? In what ways didn’t she? She notes from 5 or 6 newspapers that Gary Hart is the front runner for the nomination, as proof that he was the de facto nominee. What she doesn’t discuss is that these articles are from May of 1986, two and a half _ **years** _ before the election. Not two and a half weeks or months. That is a life time in politics. Did you know that Trump was the guy four years ago? No way. The Republican nominee four years ago was Bush. You would have bet the house on it. Do you know who the Democratic nominee was in 2006? You would have bet the house it was Hillary Clinton. No way you would be thought it was Obama. Do you know who the Democratic nominee is today (only two years out)? It is a huge stretch to know the nominee that far out but she’s acting as it it’s without question. Hart had woman issues before and after this one incident. She doesn’t mention that. He came back in later and tried to re-start his campaign but had issues with his 1984 campaign and the huge debt that he left and was forced out. She doesn’t discuss that. Storther has no proof that this conversation with Atwater ever took place. But we are to believe that he’s told of this in 1991, a major issue to him and Hart at least if true. What does he do in 1991 with this bombshell? He waits 26 years until he is sick to tell Gary Hart about that? He just hangs on to this information and decided to tell no one? Does that seem likely at all? She makes Hart into a much less flawed candidate than he really was. She focuses on all of the points that she thinks proves this, and ignores all of the significant issues. Embellishment from where I’m sitting, and I kinda liked the guy way back when. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suppose-gary-hart-hadnt-been-caught-out-as-an-adulterer/698880.md?page=4)