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Jewish World Review /Jan. 29, 1999 /12 Shevat
MUGGER
Not So Fast, Mr. & Mrs. Pundit
THE NEW YORK TIMES’ EDITORS ARE HAPPY. Or were. In the bulldog edition
of the Sunday paper that I read on Saturday night—even though the news
section had a long outtake on Monica Lewinsky’s sudden summons to
testify before the House managers in Washington—the lead editorial was
smug, delighted that its opinions had been justified. Sen. Robert Byrd,
he the man!
The conclusion to its editorial read: "Once the case is
dismissed, the trial is adjourned or Mr. Clinton is acquitted, the
Senate can and should draft a resolution condemning Mr. Clinton. The
time to conclude this case is surely at hand." But we’ll just see what
Henry Hyde and Ken Starr have to say about that.
Although the premise of her "Liberties" column on
Sunday is almost a direct lift from the conclusion of Primal Fear—a
forgettable courtroom drama save Edward Norton’s dynamic performance—it
was still pretty funny.
Under the headline "King of the World," Dowd gave Clinton’s reaction to
the trial’s sudden conclusion. Sure, she employs the cliche of bongo
drums and Cohiba cigars that every pundit will in the next two weeks,
but read on.
"The celebration began the instant the Senate dropped impeachment
charges against Mr. Clinton and took up a censure resolution against
Henry Hyde and his House managers, condemning them as bozos who dared to
waste the upper chamber’s valuable time with a persecution based on the
bogus premise that low sex is a high crime.
"Mr. Clinton strode through the revelers to say a few words, ‘Now we
know what the definition of "is" is,’ he roared with a grin. ‘I is off
the hook.’ Let me begin by expressing heartfelt thanks to my friends and
co-conspirators here—Geraldo, Whoopi, Barney, Betty, Vernon, Dale,
Quintus Robertus Byrdus, Larry Flynt and all you Baldwin brothers...
"‘My good friend Sidney Blumenthal is working on repealing the 22nd
Amendment so I can have a third term. I not only want to build that
bridge to the 21st century. I want to walk over it. It’s the least I
deserve, after all the time those Republican meanies have stolen from
me. I want my four years back.’"
And so on. Sadly, Dowd is right on the mark. The Luckiest Man Alive has
probably done it again. Let’s just see if Hyde’s latest wrinkle can at
least stall the inevitable and cause Clinton some pain to share with his
pod Democrats.
It was a delight to see that other newspaper columnists, writing before
the GOP’s surprise Monica card, were almost unanimously exulting in the
prospect of the trial’s speedy conclusion. The Boston Globe’s Thomas
Oliphant, toasting former Sen. Dale Bumpers’ cornpone-filled speech to
the Senate last Sunday, quoted Clinton’s colleague from Arkansas. "‘I’ll
tell you what [perjury] is: It’s wanting to win too badly.’ Bull’s eye."
Mary McGrory, in The Washington Post, was no less enthusiastic about
Bumpers, who appeared after Clinton said, "You gotta do it, Dale." She
wrote: "He scolded them about their lack of compassion for Clinton and
his family... He talked about Hamilton and Madison as if he knew them
well." McGrory says Bumpers humbly noted that it was "The most
gratifying moment of my life."
The Baltimore Sun’s lead editorial on Sunday was perplexing, as usual,
urging the Senate to dismiss the House impeachment the following day. It
goes on to say: "Senators should do what is right, not what is popular.
But House managers have been urging Senate Republicans to do what is
wrong, inviting voter retribution in the next election." I agree that
the Senate should do what is right, which means bringing the trial to a
fair conclusion; if it were following popular opinion, which
inexplicably favors President Clinton, the trial would’ve been
short-circuited by now. As for "voter retribution," c’mon: This exercise
won’t be remembered a year from now, even if another Clinton scandal
doesn’t explode, which is unlikely.
In Mort Zuckerman’s Daily News, the owner got his money’s worth in
protecting his Hamptons pal Clinton. Stanley Crouch, a sillier and
sillier writer, called the Republicans "dinosaurs," and Lars-Erik
Nelson, who urged the President to resign just months ago, said that
Henry Hyde was engaging in "suicidal zealotry." That commentary should
ensure Mort a seat at Clinton’s thank-you dinner for compliant
publishers.
Also in the News, Michael Daly offered a different take. He wrote about
Buffalo’s Republican Rep. Jack Quinn, who watched the Super Bowl with
Clinton in ’97, "eating pizza and quesadillas as they laughed and talked
football and politics." But Quinn voted for impeachment last November.
At the State of the Union Address, as Clinton made his way to the
podium, Quinn stuck out his hand: The First Liar snubbed him. According
to Daly, Clinton was heard to say on the day of his impeachment: "Our
friend Jack Quinn—let’s see how he enjoys it when we go to Buffalo the
day after the State of the Union." And indeed, Daly writes, local
Democrats last week in Buffalo were handing out "Impeach Quinn"
bumperstickers.
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked eight senators their
reaction to the infamous tape of Clinton wagging his finger at his
fellow Americans last year, claiming he didn’t do it with Monica. Larry
Craig, a Republican from Idaho, said: "He should resign. He should have
resigned months ago, but he will never resign. He doesn’t respect the
presidency." Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, on the other hand, was more
forgiving: "You know, Tim, I think the American people are so far ahead
of us on this. It’s been said the American people can abide sin but not
hypocrisy, and I think the American people say, ‘Look, don’t focus on
the sin, focus on repentance.’"
When George next gets around to one of its tired "10 Most Stupid
Senators" roundups, if there’s any justice Harkin will be number one.
Clinton is the most hypocritical president this country has ever
elected. Even Hillary would agree with that.
Does it not matter anymore that Clinton traded missile
technology to the Chinese for campaign funds in the 1996 election? Is it
irrelevant that more than 900 FBI files were in the possession of a
low-level government employee no one seems to remember hiring? Or that
"missing" documents sought by prosecutors suddenly appear in the First
Family’s living quarters at the White House? Is it safe for the nation
that a health-impaired attorney general has gone mute on investigating
numerous allegations against her boss and his subordinates? These are
all questions that must be examined before the country "gets it all over
with."
The Wall Street Journal editorialized on Monday: "Senator Byrd, like
others, professes to believe that dismissal would ‘promptly end this sad
and sorry time for our country’ and begin a ‘process of healing.’ What
planet have such people been living on these past six years? This is not
a matter of a President happening to fall for a 21-year-old temptress,
but an ingrained habit of lying. Bill Clinton conducts politics at the
level he does because it has never occurred to him to do otherwise...
[T]he Senate will end nothing by sweeping the current mess under the
rug. It has to go to the source of the problem, which is not the House
managers or Kenneth Starr or a ‘vast right-wing conspiracy.’ The source
lies in the psyche and personality of William Jefferson Clinton; there
is only one way the Senate can promptly put ‘it’ behind us. To wit,
render an impeachment conviction and hope that President Gore will take
care that the laws be faithfully
Maureen Dowd, the Times columnist who kicked Clinton almost every week
in the early stages of Oralgate, but then found love in Hollywood and
not-so-subtly changed her tone, is happy too. She was writing on
deadline, so, reasonably convinced that the trial was near its end, she
felt free to blast the President again, although with her Michael
Douglas-tinted prose.
Dowd
"‘And I’m so happy I don’t have to fake remorse anymore. Now I can
concentrate on real remorse—feeling sorry for myself... Starr was
obsessed with me. But who isn’t? To tell the truth, he wasn’t completely
off-base. I lied. Hey, that wasn’t so hard. I lied! I lied! Even
spending $50 million, though, he did miss a few things. First, I did
inhale. Second, I did evade the draft. I flat out didn’t want to be
marching around some courtyard in Fayetteville when I could be up at
Yale. And Gennifer Flowers? Yup, lots of times...
Whore-aldo
Also in Sunday’s Post, a dissenting voice, that of David Broder. The
veteran journalist believes that Byrd’s motion of an up-or-down vote is
premature and will divide the Senate, and country, with party-line
rancor. He wants to hear at least one witness: Betty Currie. "Everyone
who knows Betty Currie knows she is honorable and upright to her core.
Appearing before the Senate would be an ordeal for her. But she has the
opportunity—and maybe even an obligation—to help her country end this
mess with something other than a partisan vote."
Broder
Bill Kristol had recovered his equilibrium by the time of his appearance
on the Sam & Cokie show on Sunday, and made the obvious point that
short-circuiting the impeachment process is a miscarriage of justice;
whether or not Clinton is acquitted, the trial isn’t a joke and
shouldn’t be treated that way. Al From Baltimore e-mailed me shortly
after: "Kristol was brilliant. He articulated the reasons for my
unease—that the Clinton way may endure beyond his Oval Office tenure
through a combination of Wall Street-economics and left-wing identity
politics. Republicans don’t have a clue how to respond. Unlike Kristol,
George Will, while making the point that the GOP has to learn to combat
Democrats stealing their ideas, has all but thrown in the towel on
impeachment. Too bad. As for Maureen Dowd’s column in the Times, I read
it and puked. She’s everything that’s wrong with pundits: on the one
hand, but on the other... The column was shameless given what she’s
written in the past three months."
Kristol
It bears repeating for the umpteenth time that the impeachment trial is
not just about sex or petty lying. It’s a culmination of all the
misdeeds, many criminal, that President Clinton has committed in his
six-year administration. That the country in general, and Congress in
particular, is anesthetized to his behavior is lamentable, but surely
not a reason to jettison the process. It’s about the law and how one
president, accompanied by eager-to-please aides, has sullied it. No,
Bill Clinton is not "below" the law, a line that a partisan media feeds
to a bored public, but his criminal acts are so egregious he must be
held accountable.
Russert
JWR contributor "Mugger" is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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