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Larry Klayman for Senate?America's most litigious Clinton-hater mounts the hustings.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, Oct. 2, 2003, at 5:09 PM ET

Earlier this week, Chatterbox mentioned in passing that Larry Klayman, the polymorphously litigious chairman and founder of Judicial Watch, had recently stepped down "to pursue other endeavors." Klayman, the prototype for Harry Claypool on The West Wing, spent the 1990s litigating on behalf of as many of Bill Clinton's sex accusers as he could find. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Dolly Kyle Browning were all Judicial Watch clients. Klayman was very possibly the only human being ever to formulate the thought that Robert Ray, the final independent counsel on Whitewater, did a rush job on his final Monicagate report. Judicial Watch also went long on Filegate, Chinagate, and the Wen Ho Lee affair. More recently, Klayman filed suit against Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban, and the (now former) government of Iraq; Dick Cheney's secret energy task force; Richard Perle; Jacques Chirac; and the Dalai Lama. OK, he didn't sue the Dalai Lama. But Klayman did once sue his own mother (over who would pay nursing bills for his deceased grandmother).

Chatterbox speculated that Klayman quit Judicial Watch because he could no longer endure the cognitive dissonance of filing an endless stream of petty lawsuits while crusading against the evils of litigation. As usual, Chatterbox underestimated his man. The real reason Klayman left was to run for the United States Senate, where he pledges to "watch over Hillary Clinton's shoulder, expose her, and to stop her liberal agenda dead in it's [sic.] tracks. With Larry Klayman in the Senate, Hillary Clinton is more likely to wind up in the Big House, not the White House."

Klayman is running for the Florida seat that may or may not be vacated by presidential candidate Bob Graham. The overarching campaign theme is to carry Clinton-hatred into the next decade. Klayman doesn't work very hard to deny this. Opposition to Clinton is "not the only reason" he's running, he told Chatterbox, but "it's a reason. She's the head of the Democratic party." (This will be a rude shock to Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Tom Daschle, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and the 10 people competing for the presidential nomination.) Klayman's campaign Web site elaborates various policy pledges: lowering taxes, combating abortion, cutting government spending, prosecuting corporate criminals, and democratizing Cuba. But these are trees, not the forest. All but three of Klayman's 10 position papers manage to work in the name "Clinton."

For Chatterbox, though, there's only issue in the Larry Klayman campaign, and it isn't the Clintons. If elected, will he pledge not to file any lawsuits for the next six years? "Categorically, no," Klayman said. Will he pledge not to sue anybody for the duration of his Senate campaign? "No. Look, it's a free country." Here's Chatterbox's suggested campaign slogan: "Vote for me … or I'll sue!"

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
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