The Strange Death of Vincent Foster

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The Strange Death of Vincent Foster: An Investigation is a book written by conservative journalist Christopher W. Ruddy. Ruddy first wrote about the Foster story for The New York Post and for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review owned by the conservative millionaire Richard Scaife. The book is about a conspiracy theory tied to Bill Clinton surrounding the alleged suicide of Vincent Foster. The are three separate official investigations of Foster's death, which conclude he committeed suicide.^[1] Ruddy dismisses these investigations and believes Kenneth Starr's investigation was part of the conspiracy, calling Starr a "patsy for the Clintonites." His conspiracy theories about Foster have even been dismissed by some more outspoken conservatives like Ann Coulter.^[2]

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Richard Brookhiser (editor of the conservative National Review ) wrote in the New York Times that "Ruddy argues that his doubts do not require him to posit some vast conspiracy of silence.... At the same time Ruddy clearly believes that something dastardly happened, and he cannot stop dark hints from leaking out."[1] Brookhiser wrote "'If,' Ruddy writes on page 1, Vince Foster 'had been killed ...' If Ruddy didn't want to make such an Oliver Stone argument, even hypothetically, he should have left his rhetorical teasers on the cutting-room floor."

Brookhiser explained, "The Park Police, the F.B.I., Special Counsel Robert Fiske and Foster's family all concluded that he had killed himself where he was found. But for four years a floating crap game, including Clinton bashers, radio hosts, Net crawlers, kooks, Jerry Falwell and a few journalists, has questioned the verdict, suggesting or insisting that he died elsewhere or by some other hand." Referring to Ruddy's evidence, "some of Ruddy's unanswered questions are undoubtedly the normal static of police work."

Jacob Cohen (professor at Brandeis University) wrote in National Review that the book was "conspiracy central." While Ann Coulter "ripped it as a 'conservative hoax book' that was 'discredited' by conservatives."[2]

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Vincent Foster

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^ Full text of the report on the 1993 death of White House counsel Vincent W. Foster, Jr., compiled by Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr. After an exhaustive three-year investigation, Starr reaffirmed that Foster's death was a suicide]
^ "Even if Christopher Ruddy's The Strange Death of Vince Foster was considered a conservative hoax book, it was also conservatives who discredited it." Chapter Six Endnote 105, pp. 224-225, Slander, Ann Coulter.