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Joe Lieberman Wimps Out . . Again?

Joe Lieberman's crocodile tears

Wednesday, October 22nd 1997: You could have put money on it. A lot of money -- if you bet that Republicans would hire a "video-tampering expert" to begin examining the already infamous White House tapes, which in the foxy little minds of such congressional luminaries as Dan Burton and Arlen Specter, show -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that the President was a co-conspirator felon working with several hundred corporate chiefs to destroy the American Democratic System.

Sure enough, the United States Senate, using your tax dollars, has oh-so-quickly engaged the services of one Paul "The Eagle" Ginzburg -- a New Yorker -- to scour the presidential mylar looking for anything even remotely suggesting presidential malfeasance, doctoring, covering up, or pornography. This fellow Ginzburg actually had the New York chutzpah to spend part of yesterday at the White House trying to grab a peek at the "original" tapes. You can imagine the scene as he pulled up to the East Gate:

Ginzburg: Hi! Fred Thompson sent me. I'm here to ruin the President. I think Dan Burton made me an appointment.

Secret Service: Hmmmm . . Ginzburg -- oh yeah, there you are. Well you're a little early Mr. G., it's 4:15 AM.

Ginzburg: Well, there's a hundred hours of tape and the Committee meets tomorrow, I wanna get some good stuff . . I mean if there's anything good to get.

Secret Service: Okay, well... pull in there, pointing toward the Potomac River.

Ginzburg: Where?

Secret Service: Over there next to the Lincoln Memorial. You'll find the Watergate Complex. We have a deal with their parking garage.

Ginzburg: But that's about a mile away.

Secret Service: Yep, but Bob and Elizabeth Dole live there, and they have a deal with us to rent parking spaces - they need the extra cash.

Ginzburg: Do you validate?

Secret Service: Do you?

Fred Thompson - Video Vixen

"We got one of the country's hottest experts on tampering and enhancement of tapes," a Republican Senate source from Thompson's Senate Governmental Affairs Committee told me. Ginzburg, a New Yorker was involved in the Texaco oil company fiasco, where several "You can trust the men with the star" executives were videotaped making racist remarks about African-American colleagues and black culture. How that makes Ginzburg a leading expert is beyond me. On what - crackers?

The committee is scheduled to hear testimony about the tapes today and tomorrow. While Ginzburg is tampering with the original tapes, Thompson will entertain the nation with 12 hours of boring testimony about why the White House failed to turn them over to investigators for 10 months. They failed to do it because they hate Republicans and Thompson. That's simple enough.

The videos sent to the Senate were copied from master tapes while the originals were either still at the White House, the National Archives or being ogled by right-wing investigators at the Justice Department.

Dan Burton - Tweedle Dee or Tweedle DUMB

"We need access to the originals to make a judgment call," said a staffer at Indiana Rep. Dan Burton's office --the Republican who chairs a so-far laughable investigation of campaign fund-raising abuses in the House.

Burton, who still "knows" Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster said, "We think some of those tapes may have been cut off intentionally, been altered in some way."

Burton's come to this amazing conclusion despite common sense that the White House wouldn't, in their right minds, send doctored videos over to Thompson and Burton so they could "uncover" obstruction of justice. But that's what the two bozos -- Thompson and Burton, the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of congress are alleging -- that Bill Clinton and his staff committed a serious felony -- evidently thinking the President may have come up with the idea by contacting Dick Nixon's dead Attorney General John Mitchell during a seance.

The tapes contain a few breaks in the "action." But if you ever watched your own unedited home movies you'd see about a million such breaks in every reel. That's the way film looks before it's cut.

Burton, trying to plant ideas in America's trailer trash mind says, "The tapes are going to be analysed very thoroughly by technicians to pick up sound and so forth that may not be readily apparent when you first look at them." What "so forth" is, I'll leave the reader to imagine. And don't forget -- the Nixon "plumbers" were also called "technicians."

But Burton, who you'll recall, does not sit on the Senate Committee, but on the House side, really topped himself when he announced he was going to hire "lip readers" to make sure "we get the whole story." Ha, ha, ha. Now that's a good one. Imagine these high-roller businessmen having their private asides broadcast to 150 million Americans next week. I can see it now:

The Official Senate Lip Reader announce the following White House Video Scoops:

WASHINGTON: AP -- Gladys Wong, official Senate Lip Reader announced today that she has carefully reviewed one coffee where three of America's top executives were heard to say the following during coffee with the President of the United States in the White House Map Room:

Chairman of AT&T: "God, look at President's tie - He must of got it from Rush Limbaugh."

President of Continental Airlines: "Where's the can?"

Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank: "Jeez, this coffee tastes like crap."

CEO of Ms. Magazine: "My, he's a tall drink of water."

Arlen Specter - Are those acorns in his cheeks?

Arlen Specter, now in high Philadelphia hysteria over a 1% rise in his ratings, said, "These tapes, which the committee will put on display, really nail down the case. It comes out of President Clinton's mouth that these funds, this soft money, was used to promote his candidacy. He says that. And now we know positively there's been a violation of the federal election code."

What Specter doesn't say is that the President himself would have had to sign the checks paying for the ads and the airing in order for him to be even remotely guilty of what Specter alleges.It's perfectly legal for the White House and the President to coordinate his campaign's efforts with the party. And Bob Dole proved that well when he ran out of money and had the RNC pay for and run his famous bio-spots as "issue advocacy ads." No voter seeing them ever thought they were anything but Dole for President ads, so Specter will have to indict Bob and Liz as well.

And what the heck is wrong with Joe Lieberman - the Weeping Connecticut Yankee Democrat. Again he flaunts his mia culpae persona mewing, "I guess the bottom line of the tapes is -- I don't know whether I'm typical -- they make me itch.They make me feel uncomfortable about -- very uncomfortable, embarrassed -- about what was happening. It happened in both parties. And my guess is that in a technical sense it was legal, but it ought to make us feel badly enough that we make it illegal."

What a wimp! I'm ashamed I gave him early money for his first Senate campaign.

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