I can't imagine why on earth the Clinton adminstration would have been spying on Lady Diana.

I can't connect the dots, as there don't appear to be any dots to connect. Really, it doesn't make sense, certainly not in light of the close friendship between Hillary and Diana.

Seriously.

Read Salon vintage piece "DIANA'S BIG SISTER: A role model, Hillary Clinton was also friend, advisor and protector of the late princess" which is headed by this lovely picture:

Friends don't spy on friends, do they?

According to Salon, there seems to have been some question about whether Bill was invited, or whether he would have invited himself, though.

I must be missing a few dots, so I'll have to put on my tinfoil hat. Coco hates it when I do that, but I feel as if the issue has been forced upon me.

But duty calls. I try not to shirk my responsibilities, and I'm pleased to report that I'm hot on the trail! In fact, I think the whole sordid affair is pretty close to having been decoded here:

On Tuesday, September 24, 1996, President Clinton was in New York signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This meeting had been planned for months, and the President could not get out of it. Knowing this, Hillary made sure that Princess Diana was invited to the White House on that day. The White House meeting between Hillary and Diana was only two days after the sudden, swift and secret marriage of John F. Kennedy, Jr. to Caroline Bessette. Could Hillary have been afraid that now that JFK, Jr. was no longer available, Diana would settle for Bill? At the White House breakfast, Hillary told Diana something that made her leave the United States immediately. What could Hillary have told Diana that would have made her turn and run? Maybe Hillary talked about Juanita Broderick, the woman who says Bill Clinton raped her. Maybe Hillary told her how Bill had killed Hillary's lover, Vince Foster. Diana understood this type of control. She believed Charles had ordered her bodyguard and best friend killed. Whatever Hillary said to Diana at that September White House meeting, Diana left the United States and never returned. Not only did she never return to the United States, she immediately began a relationship with the son of a powerful man whose disdain for the Royal Family matched her own. A MI-6 document shows that Diana began a relationship with Dodi Al Fayed in November of 1996, just days after the White House meeting with Hillary. Did Diana believe the Al Fayed family was powerful enough to protect her from whatever it was that Hillary had told her?

I'm glad that's solved.

Next conspiracy, please!

UPDATE (12/13/06): Not so fast!

If I'm reading Mickey Kaus's links (via Glenn Reynolds) correctly, the real target of the bugging might not have been Princess Diana at all, but Theodore Forstmann.

Makes sense. Back in those days, Forstmann was called "Hillary's Worst Nightmare."

And if a nightmare isn't worth bugging, then what is?

Such "double buggings" are often puzzling, because it's often not clear who was being bugged, from where, or why. (For example, Jim Hougan makes a compelling case that the bug which overheard the conversations at the Watergate headquarters of the DNC was actually located at the Columbia Plaza Motel.)

Can't these spooks ever make anything clear?

MORE (12/15/06): Via Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus has more. Byron York reviewed the lengthy Stevens report and found no mention of Forstman. Thus, it appears the Evening Standard' was wrong in predicting that the Stevens report would confirm U.S. spying (whether on Diana or Forstmann). Does this mean the Evening Standard manufactured this claim about "extraordinary revelations"?

Authoritative leaks say the extraordinary revelations will be published this week by Lord Stevens and is bound to raise fresh questions about conspiracy theories.

Apparently, Forstmann still believes he was bugged:

A source close to Forstmann told the Daily News yesterday that Diana may have been overheard while traveling with Forstmann on his private plane, which Forstmann believed was bugged by the feds to listen in on his rich and powerful friends.

Must be pure paranoia.