February 10, 1999

Way Out

Only losers need an exit strategy. Winners use the door. The Senate Republicans last week realized they were deep into the muck of a Bosnia of their own making. But they refused to confront the ultimate reckoning with principle and courage. Instead of facing the inevitable -- a straight up-or-down vote on the articles of impeachment poorly crafted and ineptly advanced by the House managers -- the Senate Republicans scurried about in search of a scheme. Senator Susan Collins of Maine peddled her "finding of fact," a declaration that Bill Clinton, more or less, had done what the House gang charged. This resolution was to be kept separate from the vote on the articles. But how could the Senate attach its seal of approval to any finding, when it barely bothered to probe the matter. In fact, to date, the only heavy lifting was conducted by independent counsel Kenneth Starr. The House managers cribbed from his report for their articles. They engaged in no inquiry of their own. When they had the chance to call witnesses as they wished, they took a pass. And then the Senate refused to jump into these muddy waters. So neither the Senate Republicans nor the House GOPers found any facts. Ipso facto....

Senator Orrin Hatch took a stab at concocting an escape. In a New York Times Op-Ed, he called for an adjournment of the trial before votes on the articles. His concern was that if Clinton was acquitted, a rotten precedent would be established. How's that for loading the deck? This was the legislative equivalent of I'm-losing-so-I'm-taking-the-ball-and-going-home. Perhaps there ought to be a precedent set: if a party stages a questionable impeachment hunt against the president of the other party and fails to win over the public and a significant chunk of the president's own party, then it should take a licking on the final vote and look foolish. Had the Republicans sponsored a well-founded and well-managed impeachment project, Hatch would not be conniving at the end.

As it turned out, Hatch's scheme lasted half-a-news-cycle. Hours after it had registered with the political cognoscenti, Hatch was in front of television cameras calling for live testimony from Monica Lewinsky and, thus, contradicting his own Op-Ed. That performance made it tough to take either of his proposals seriously, and conservatives were not shy in expressing their anger with the latest in his line of pirouettes. While I was in the green room of the NBC affiliate, I was fortunate enough to hear anti-Clinton pundit Barbara Olson sneering at Hatch, complaining, in a snide tone, that "he likes to bridge gaps." Tony Blankley, Newt Gingrich's former spokesman and now a commentator, blurted out that Hatch is "remarkably insincere." There's been much blathering from all sides about the long-term consequences of Monicagate and the so-called trauma of impeachment. Most of that talk is hyperbolic nonsense, but one consequence not likely to fade quickly is the Republican-on-Republican ill will generated by the impeachment mess.

Various GOPers exposed the silliness of their last stand when they admitted that their desire for an exit strategy was fueled by pique: they wanted to deny Clinton a win. They knew the S.O.B. was going to keep the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania. But the thought that he would claim vindication or victory rankled them. Without a finding of fact, said Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, "we provide history with the wrong interpretation of this case." Sorry, once impeachment hits the Senate, the Constitution gives that body essentially two choices: retention or removal. The Republican Party should have thought about this before it let the hounds out of the cages. No one who cares about honesty in government -- not even those who believe the low lies of Clinton did not warrant the high punishment of impeachment -- should celebrate a vote that falls shy of the two-thirds majority required for removal. But the Senate Republicans ought not be making decisions based on how Clinton is going to respond. What pettiness. Clinton spinman Joe Lockhart promised that the White House would be a "gloat-free zone." He indicated there would be no unseemly pep rallies at the White House like the one held after the House impeachment vote. (Republican and Democratic Senators were right to be peeved by that ugly display of unquestioning loyalty to an acknowledged liar.) But even if Lockhart announced that the White House was planning an orgy of bongo-thumping and cigar-chomping, Republican Senators would be as small as Clinton if they allowed that to affect their deliberations.

History and the voters will render judgments upon both Clinton and his antagonists. Neither side deserves to be seen as a winner. Let's hope that is how the story comes to be written.

Clinton's Buds Bowl

When the Denver Broncos were plucking the Atlanta Falcons during the Super Bowl and patriots across the land were being Bud-blitzed and disappointed by the commercials, where was Bubba-in-Chief? He and the missus were at Camp David, surrounding by their most faithful friends, such as TV squawkers Lanny Davis and Richard Ben-Veniste, Energy Secretary (and Monica career counselor) Bill Richardson, supermarket king and campaign cash cow Ron Burkle, Jesse Jackson and his son the congressman, and lobbyists Mike Berman and Pat Griffin.

Take a good look at this picture. Not too long ago, Jackson was whomping Clinton whenever he could and talking about running against him in 1996. In Jackson's view, Clinton's long list of capitol offenses included NAFTA, welfare reform, Lani Guinier, skewed budgetary priorities, and a crime program that locked up record numbers of young black men. Now he appears to spend more time with Clinton than Vernon Jordan. (Do you think Al Gore has been pushing Clinton to be nice, very nice, to the Reverend? "Hey, Bill, he can have my place at the Super Bowl party.")

Jackson has long yearned to be a prime player in the Democratic Party, and now he can see what life is like at the top. For if he wanted to know why Clinton and much of the party has been unreceptive to the populist economics he has preached, he need only have asked Berman and Griffin when they passed him a brewski. These two Democratic Party stalwarts make their millions -- and that's no exaggeration -- by greasing the wheels of Washington for their corporate clients. Berman is president of the Duberstein Group, which works the Capitol and the Administration on behalf of the life insurance industry, the HMO industry, the gambling industry, the cable television industry, Shell Oil, General Motors, and Time Warner. Griffin heads a firm that lobbies for the oil industry, the banking industry, Lockheed Martin, and Philip Morris, the tobacco manufacturer. So Clinton -- who during his first inaugural address pledged to give Washington back to the people -- was hanging with the men who warp Washington's ways to benefit the parochial interests of their big-money clients. How can one party -- or one president -- cater to Jackson and his constituency and to Berman and Griffin and theirs? Bring them all together, and there should be a flurry of body blocks. Instead, after the game, Clinton and his loyal friends headed to the retreat's bowling lanes and played nice until midnight.

A Liar's Reward

What would all the easily outraged conservatives say if a television network offered a prestigious on-air slot to a former government official who had lied and obstructed the pursuit of justice? Wouldn't they cry that this was sending a terrible signal to our children? Wouldn't Henry Hyde produce a handwritten note from a third-grader wondering how such a terrible deed could have happened? Wouldn't they pronounce this one more step in the moral decline of America?

No, Bill Clinton will not be replacing Oprah -- at least not yet. The person at the center of this what-if experiment is Oliver North.

MSNBC recently selected North to cohost Equal Time on weekdays. His opposing host is Cynthia Alksne, a former federal prosecutor. North, of course, was the Iran/contra mastermind convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation and of falsifying and shredding potential evidence. His convictions were thrown out on a technicality, but his guilt was firmly established. Also, numerous articles detailed his non-illegal mendacity. In one memorable issue, Reader's Digest -- no enemy of conservatives -- published an article that overwhelmingly demonstrated North was a prevaricator of Olympic proportions. And in recent years, evidence has emerged that North was aware that his much-cherished contra project overlapped with various drug smuggling operations. Yet North turned a blind eye to contra-drug connections -- which even the CIA now grudgingly concedes did exist. Yet North's rise is not bemoaned by conservatives. Can anyone explain why two of the right's most prominent loudmouths -- Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy -- were each convicted of serious crimes? Whatever happened to conservative love of law and order?

Explanations of the Week

Last month, the Reverend Jerry Falwell found himself in hot soup after a reporter disclosed that the onetime Moral Majority leader had opined during a speech that the Antichrist presently walks among us as a Jewish male -- and that he is preparing for the ultimate and very final battle with Christ. That certainly is close to an anti-Semitic sentiment. Still, Falwell defended his remarks by noting that "most theologians have embraced" this apocalyptic fundamentalism "for two millennia." (Most theologians? Let's have a recount.) After several weeks of ridicule and outrage, Falwell apologized -- sort of. At the International Christian Prayer Breakfast, he offered his regrets to his "Jewish friends" and said he "should have known better." But wait a minute. He still believes what he said. "I apologize not for what I believe," he commented, "but for my lack of tact and judgment in making a statement that served no purpose whatsoever." Oh, how wrong he is. It served a rather important purpose. It revealed he holds firm to the view that the Antichrist is Jewish. No, he's not sorry for what he said; he's just sorry it caused a fuss. This is a Clintonesque apology. Maybe Bill Bennett is right. The past year has chipped away at moral values throughout the nation.

Texas Governor George W. Bush did much better explaining himself out of a corner. When a New Hampshire television reporter last week asked if he had ever used marijuana or cocaine, he replied, "I'm not going to talk about what I did as a child. What I'm going to talk about and I'm going to say this consistently: It is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years ago. What's relevant is that I have learned from any mistakes that I made. I do not want to send signals to anybody that what Governor Bush did 30 years ago is cool to try." In non-polspeak: "Yes, yes, and yes. I smoked. I toked. I didn't just inhale, I Hoovered the stuff. Hell, I can't even remember all the partying I did. But don't you try this at home." So, the lesson is, you, too, can have a life of youthful debauchery and go on to become a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination and a champion of a vague happy-face and tolerant conservatism. It's a great country.

No wonder he's so damn compassionate.

-- David Corn