David Corn is Washington editor of The Nation magazine, the oldest political weekly in America. He writes on a host of subjects, including politics, the White House, Congress, and national security.

He has broken stories on Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Colin Powell, Richard Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Clarence Thomas, Senator Paul Laxalt, Senator Robert Bennett, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and other Washington players.

Corn has contributed articles, including political satire and book reviews, to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, Newsday, Harper’s, The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Washington Monthly, The Village Voice, The New York Press -- which features his weekly column "Loyal Opposition" -- and many other publications. He also writes for several on-line magazines, including Slate, HotWired, and Salon.

He is the author of Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades (Simon and Schuster, 1994). The Washington Monthly called Blond Ghost "an amazing compendium of CIA fact and lore." The Washington Post noted that Blond Ghost "deserves a space on that small shelf of worthwhile books about the agency." The New York Times termed it "a scorchingly critical account of an enigmatic figure who for two decades ran some of the agency’s most important, and most controversial, covert operations."

Corn was a contributor to Unusual Suspects, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction (Vintage/Black Lizard, 1996). His contribution to the book--a short story entitled “My Murder”--was nominated for a 1997 Edgar Allan Poe Award by Mystery Writers of America. The story was republished in The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories (Carroll & Graf, 1997).

Corn frequently is a guest on television and radio talk shows. He has been a panelist on CNN's Capital Gang, and he is a regular on C-SPAN. He has appeared on ABC News, CBS Morning News, Fox Television News, Fox New Cable, Crossfire (CNN), Washington Week in Review (PBS), Equal Time (CNBC), Tim Russert (CNBC), Tribune Television, MSNBC, and other shows and networks.

He was a co-host (with Pat Buchanan) of the nationally-syndicated radio show Buchanan and Company. He has appeared often on the syndicated Diane Rehm radio show, and provided commentary to National Public Radio. He is a featured guest on RadioNation, a nationally-syndicated show. He has contributed political commentary to BBC Radio, CBC Radio, Pacifica Radio, Australian National Radio, and has been a guest on scores of call-in radio programs.

Corn, thirty-nine years-old, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. Before joining The Nation, he worked for Ralph Nader’s Center for Study of Responsive Law and Harper’s magazine.

Click here to read more of David Corn's Loyal Opposition.

When members of the House of Representatives saunter back into Washington next week after their two-week Fourth of July recess, a soap opera less public than the saga of Bill, Monica, and Ken will resume. In this one, a small but passionate number of lofty-minded Republican legislators are trying to do an end run around their dastardly and diabolical leaders, while Democrats rub their hands in glee. The cause of all this is campaign finance reform. To many, it is a mind-numbing, eyes-glazing, complicated topic. But, nevertheless, it is producing high drama in the House.

The problem for House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his henchmen is that there are now enough Republican House members pissed that big-money dominates U.S. politics that if this band joins forces with the Democrats a pro-reform
majority emerges. That means trouble for Gingrich, for he is not eager to redo the system under which he has prospered. (Gingrich, to be fair, has called for a change: to allow contributors to donate even more to politicians like himself -- a "reform" that would further increase the political clout of the wealthy). Earlier this year, a group of reform-seeking GOPers threatened to collaborate with Democrats and deploy an unusual parliamentarian maneuver to bring campaign finance legislation to the floor. To keep from losing, Gingrich had to promise he would schedule a debate and votes on several reform bills, including the leading reform measure, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, and Rep. Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat. The Shays-Meehan bill is modest, but it would ban what's known as soft money (those large unregulated donations from corporations, millionaires and unions -- often in the $100,000 range -- that go straight to the parties and are usually at the heart of campaign finance scandals), and it would apply existing regulations to political issue ads. (The rules now allow interest groups to skirt campaign law by claiming an ad that tries to influence an election is merely promoting an issue). Shays-Meehan will not break the bond between political action and political donations, but it could tidy up parts of a sleazy system.

The Republican leadership does not want even that. Its challenge is to sabotage Shays-Meehan and not pay a price. That's a tough task, for Shays-Meehan appears to have a good-sized majority developing behind it. At the moment, the two options open to Newt and the Gang are
1) stall, stall, and stall, and
2) attach a poison-pill amendment to Shays-Meehan.
Two Gingrich lieutenants, the appropriately named Tom DeLay and John Doolittle, have been pushing what can be called the Delay-and-Do-Little strategy, trying to string out debate on the measure by forcing the House to consider scores of no-chance amendments. But there is disagreement within the GOP leadership, as some senior House Republicans fear delaying debate into September, when it's election season and reform-smothering shenanigans might earn the party unfavorable attention. What a choice: let the bill come up for a vote now and it will pass. Postpone it, and Republicans hand Democrats an issue in the fall.

The anti-reform Republican leaders have to pin their hopes on the Christian Coalition, the NRA, and the anti-abortion movement, which want to pass an amendment that would knock out the Shays-Meehan provision on issue ads. These outfits, as do unions, love being able to pour unlimited amounts of money into attack ads that masquerade as issue ads. And if the issue-ad portion of the bill is bounced, many Democrats will not support what remains, for they fret, with justification, that conservative and corporate interests will thrive in a political environment where soft money no longer exists but well-heeled interests can dump millions into phony issue ads.

The bottom line is clear. The House Republicans will have to come up with some trick if they want to stop the better-than-nothing Shays-Meehan bill. Fortunately for them, there is always Trent Lott. If Gingrich cannot derail the Shays-Meehan train, then the Republican-controlled Senate can ignore it. Months ago, Senate Majority Leader Lott engineered the defeat of a similar bill. If Shays-Meehan passes in the House this summer, Lott could say, we've already put that animal down. Some Republican incumbents up for re-election -- say, Senator Alfonse D'Amato -- might squirm. But unless there is tremendous public pressure for action, and that does not exist yet, Lott could get away with doing the dirty work. Even if the reformers in the House outfox Gingrich (and DeLay and Doolittle), they will remain far from home.

Meanwhile, a new study of contributors to congressional races shows that political funders have little in common with average folks. Of those who gave $200 or more to a congressional candidate in the 1996 election, 46 percent had a family income of $250,000 or more. Only 5 percent had a family income of $50,000 or less. Four-fifths were men. More than four-fifths were 45 years or older. Forty percent held a post-graduate degree, usually a law degree or MBA. One-half called themselves conservative and Republican. (Thirty-one percent claimed to be liberal and Democrats.) The study confirms the obvious. The people who fund the legislators who claim to represent America do not themselves represent America. Shays-Meehan will not change this, but its fate will indicate if Congress has the stomach to make even a slight alteration in a system that allows a small number of people and interests with money to achieve influence over the lawmakers who govern all of us.

Woody Guthrie on Campaign Reform

As they bear trials and tribulations, the would-be campaign reformers might want to turn to a new CD of Woody Guthrie songs for inspiration. The disk, Mermaid Avenue, contains cuts performed by Billy Bragg, the Brit socialist troubadour, and Wilco, a roots rock combo. The words come from an archive of hundreds of complete Guthrie lyrics that he never had the chance to record. The music is provided by Bragg and Wilco, for the tunes Guthrie carried in his head to accompany these words were lost when he died in 1967. In particular, the reformers ought to cue up track nine, "Christ for President." On this song, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy croons, "Let's have Christ our president/Let's have him for our king… The only way we can ever beat/these crooked politician men/Is to run the money changes out of the temple/And put the Carpenter in." There's one extreme version of campaign reform. But I doubt Guthrie was thinking about this in the way Pat Robertson does. For one, the tongue-in-cheek Guthrie noted that President Christ would make sure there was "a job and a pension for young and old." And when it comes to money-changers in the temple of democracy, we know what side Robertson is on. He fits in well with the profile described in the paragraph above.

Mermaid Avenue is a wonderful album. "What makes this music work," writes rock critic Dave Marsh, "is the collaboration -- its triumph is that you can't tell where Woody leaves off and Billy and the boys begin." Buy it, even if you think there's nothing wrong with the way political races are funded in the good ol' U.S. of A.

The Clinton Show

One of the best takes on Bill's made-for-TV trip to China appeared in an article by Jim Mann of the Los Angeles Times. Under the headline "China Visit's Gains Subject to Inflation," Mann, who writes a weekly column on foreign affairs, noted that the Clintonites were over-excited about the few "carefully chosen phrases" Clinton had uttered in support of political freedom and the Tiananmen Square protesters. Sure, Mann conceded, Clinton deserved some credit for delicately wagging his finger at his Chinese hosts. "Nevertheless," Mann wrote, " what Clinton has done in China should be kept in perspective. It is a uniquely American conceit to suggest that a couple of
television appearances can, by themselves, change a political system."

Mann scored a bull's eye with that observation. It has not only been on China that the Clinton crowd has confused words with actions. Clinton has done the same on many fronts. Take my obsession of the moment, campaign finance reform. He is on record as favoring reform legislation. That is, he has said he backs it. But he has done little to push it through a reluctant Congress. A few years ago, when a reform bill was under consideration in Congress, I asked a White House aide who was working on the matter (and who personally hoped for passage of the legislation) why the President was not doing anything to aid the bill's supporters in Congress. But he is, this aide protested. Why, in fact, he gave a speech about this last week. You can look it up.

I did, and what I found was that in the middle of a long and standard speech Clinton had delivered at a political event, there was a short paragraph in which he said Congress should approve the measure. The words were there, but the genuine sentiment was not. There was no force behind them. He had not devoted a speech to this topic. His reference to it was as noticeable as a blink. But to this aide, the speech was a significant step.

How could a smart person believe that? Here's my guess. This aide and other reform fans in the White House, no doubt, had worked damn hard to insert those few lines -- cautiously crafted and calculated -- into the speech. They probably had to convince senior aides to let the words in, for presidential speeches are closely guarded. To them, just getting the President to say those sentences was a victory. Thus, this aide and his comrades attached tremendous importance to the fact that the presidential mouth produced these specific sounds. Back in the real word, though, this brief mention had no impact on the reform debate, and Clinton was properly catalogued as MIA.

Clinton's rhetorical jabs at the tyrants of Tiananmen {were} not without meaning. But they are not likely to have the world-changing consequences Clinton aides attributed to them. And, as the House debates the campaign finance bill, Clinton probably will emit a few encouraging words for reform. But he will not aggressively campaign for the legislation and take advantage of the White House altar (and his high standings in the polls) to persuade Americans that this matter is a priority and that they should pressure recalcitrant legislators.

Mann is right. You do not change the world with soundbites. But, then, they are easier to manufacture than sincere acts of daring.

Bombs Away

When The New York Times front-pages a story, it sends a signal: this is important stuff. But last week the Times devoted a chunk of its prime real estate to a piece on the the Clinton Administration's decision to privatize the U.S. Enrichment Corporation -- a government-owned but independent company that produces fuel for nuclear reactors -- and the newspaper barely mentioned the most significant aspect of the deal: that this scheme may weaken a program to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to extremist groups or rogue nations. The Times article, written by Matthew Wald, dwelled on the fact that this will be one of the largest privatization projects in U.S. history and breathlessly reported the financial details. It was not until the fourteenth graph of the twenty-four-graph article -- deep in jump territory in the business section -- that the piece referred to the "potential problem" that privatization may "jeopardize a deal made during the Bush Administration for the United States to buy Russian surplus weapons fuel."

The specifics of this problem went unmentioned. The Times did not explain to its readers that this weapons fuel deal -- under which the United States will buy 500 tons of highly-enriched uranium left over from thousands of deactivated Russian nuclear warheads -- is a key element of the U.S. attempt to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The point is to stop bomb-grade uranium from winding up in the wrong hands. Under the plan, highly enriched Russian uranium is purchased by the U.S. Enrichment Corporation and blended with low-enriched uranium and converted into reactor fuel. But since the purchase price negotiated a few years ago between Washington and Moscow for the Russian uranium is above the current market cost of the material, a privatized USEC would have much incentive to wiggle out of this deal or to slow-walk it. Besides the economics of the situation, there is also a question of policy: should such a sensitive national security program be left to a for-profit, private corporation, which has the primary mission of making money for its owners?

Though the Times did note that one Senator had complained to the White House about the privatization's impact on "the contracts with the Russians," the newspaper did not report that policy bigwigs have declared publicly that privatizing USEC scares them because of its effect on the Russian uranium agreement. Joseph Stiglitz, a past chairman of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, opposes the privatization scheme; he called it "folly" in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Richard Falkenrath, executive director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and an expert in nuclear weapons nonproliferation, is against privatizing USEC. And Thomas Neff, the nonproliferation researcher who initiated the Russian deal, recently wrote a memo complaining that privatization could stymie nonproliferation efforts. The concerns of these establishment, mainstream, easy-to-reach experts were not disclosed to Times readers.

The story was played as business news and presented in a fashion likely to attract the interest only of readers who crave financial information. But the story is larger than that and raises the issue of whether the Clinton Administration is placing corporate interests -- Wall Street players will pocket $100 million or so through the privatization -- ahead of national security interests. When the Times can link satellite exports to China to campaign contributions, it is quick to pounce. When a nuclear weapons nonproliferation is threatened by an initiative cheered by Wall Street, it buries the lead concern.

Earning His Pay

The recent issue of Dave Marsh's Rock & Rap Confidential newsletter reports the following: "According to the website of Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, the dimwit who's about to hold another hearing on 'violent' lyrics, 'there are at least thirteen bands named after the male genitals, six after female genitals, four after sperm, eight after abortion and one after an infection.'"

David Corn's Loyal Opposition is published weekly in New York Press.

Click here to read more of David Corn's Loyal Opposition.