In the summer of 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele -- remember her? -- filed a federal punitive damages claim against Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek reporter justly honored for his Lewinsky scandal scoops. Steele's logic was truly bizarre. To summarize:
Steele contended that Isikoff had done something terribly wrong to her by explaining in print and on television how she'd lied to him about Clinton groping-victim Kathleen Willey. Yes, Steele freely admitted the lies in question. But she claimed her falsehoods had been delivered "off the record" (which Isikoff convincingly denied). And she further claimed that it was an actionable tort -- many actionable torts, in fact -- for Isikoff, after he discovered her truthlessness, to have withdrawn from Steele his alleged promise that her name would stay a secret.
In other words, according to Steele: One has a legally enforceable right to deliver anonymous misinformation to a journalist. Alice in Wonderland stuff, this was.
Last Wednesday, Steele's nuisance suit against Isikoff was summarily dismissed. In a coolly brutal 25-page opinion, U.S. district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly threw out all 11 charges Steele had brought -- as legally groundless. Whatever harm had befallen her, the judge concluded, Steele had caused herself. Her lies to Newsweek were "the epitome of bad faith."
Which result isn't surprising, of course. The real curiosity is this: Steele's ludicrous litigation, all along publicly applauded by the president's defenders, lasted more than two full years. She's not a wealthy woman. Who paid for her lawyers?