He was a major underwriter of the American Spectator magazine’s Arkansas Project to find evidence of financial and personal misdeeds by the Clintons in the 1990s. The effort included David Brock’s magazine story containing allegations from four Arkansas state troopers that they helped procure women for then-Gov. Bill Clinton.

Brock said he was suspicious of the troopers’ stories but supported their publication anyway, once telling The Washington Post, “I did what was politically useful. [Clinton] was a Democrat, therefore he was a target.”

The grievances discussed at the private gathering, which was held at the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington offices, go beyond Clinton’s unwillingness so far to substantively engage with the press, a topic that has already been discussed publicly on cable news and social media. Attendees of the meeting, who were not authorized by their news organizations to speak on the record, charge the Clinton campaign with keeping an excessively tight grip on information, even when it comes to logistical details that don't seem particularly sensitive or revelatory.

Among the problems discussed were the campaign's failure to provide adequate notice prior to events, the lack of a clear standard for whether fundraisers are open or closed press and the reflexive tendency to opt to speak anonymously. The complaints mirror concerns that a number of political journalists have also raised in recent conversations with The Huffington Post.

While the White House Correspondents' Association has worked for greater media access for over a century and elects representatives to present the group's concerns to the administration, there isn't any comparable, established body working on behalf of the campaign press. Monday's meeting, which included about 17 journalists from outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Time and McClatchy, was an attempt not only to discuss such concerns, but eventually to present them to the campaign in a unified way.

Media covering the media’s complaints about the way media is treated; what could be more Beltway-centric inside baseball? But as long as people are writing about it, it’s clear the briefing scandal illuminates the increasingly toxic relationship between the press and the Clintons. So I’ll share what I saw, since now the event has become news in itself.

Let me shock you up front: I actually came away from it marginally more sympathetic to the Clinton beat reporters than before I went in. Essentially, they’re a bunch of people trying to do their jobs. Some are well-paid and pampered; many are not. A lot of reporters had schlepped up from a Clinton event in South Carolina earlier that day. They carried luggage and laptop bags and looked tired and bedraggled, resentful at having a command event scheduled that afternoon but unwilling to miss it. What if it did break news?
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...I could see the very different styles of individual “senior campaign officials,” and learn who suffers fools, or questions they consider foolish, better than others – although Harwood’s right, I can’t tell you about them specifically, by name.

The Clinton folks, for their part, stayed relentlessly on message – which is their job — but I learned some interesting things anyway. I saw the way they’re determined to frame Clinton as laser-focused on the four early primary and caucus states – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. She doesn’t take anything for granted, they said many times. Sure, that’s become a cliché. But there was a rueful joke about how, this time around, they’re paying attention to the actual delegates who will pick the nominee. It would be funnier if I could put it in direct quotes, but it was salty, and it acknowledged the 2008 campaign’s many stumbles when it came to actually winning delegates, especially in caucus states.