The Fresno Bee ran this item on Roberts' article:( October 20, 1996)

Anyone who actually believed everything Rollins wrote will be dismayed. But even readers who took the Spinmeister's tales with a grain of salt will be surprised by the extent of his apparent deceptions.

Arianna always denied the charge. The LA Times quotes her on August 6, 1996:

This isn't a matter of opinion, this is objective truth. I'm saying I didn't and I can prove it; he's saying I did and he can't prove it," Arianna Huffington said. She called the book "pay for spew," and said her lawyers are preparing a suit against Rollins.

The Washington Post on the same date had this refutation:

Ariana Huffington said yesterday that "I never respond to personal attacks," but she vigorously disputed Rollins's specific contention that she had hired private investigators to prove that her husband's opponent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D), had employed an illegal alien maid and to investigate Maureen Orth, a magazine writer who was preparing a profile on her.

"Both these things are completely false," she said in a telephone interview. "I have never in my life hired a private investigator."

Rollins insisted in a subsequent interview that he had overheard Ariana Huffington talking about "the detective's report on Maureen Orth." Asked to respond to statements from three campaign officials that the investigation of the Feinstein maid was conducted on their orders, not Ariana Huffington's, Rollins said, "If she wants to argue technicalities at this point, it's [expletive]."

If that's all that NBC could come up with, it's a pretty cheap shot.

[Graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.]